CLU B MATTERS
GROWING YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE AND ADDING SOCIAL MEDIA LAYERS CAN PAY DIVIDENDS FOR CLUBS
by JANE FIORE
Editor’s Note: Jane Fiore is a member of the Skokie Val- ley Skating Club and Starlights synchronized skating program. In the second of a two-part series, Fiore talks about the potential benefits for clubs that use social media platforms and how they can best maximize their reach, both within their membership and outside the skating community. In part one of this article, we talked about build- ing a foundation for your club’s digital marketing pro- gram. While every organization’s needs are unique, we suggested using an email program to get more impact from your day-to-day messaging and to consider a regular e-newsletter. We also discussed the plethora of social media apps and suggested that a Facebook page is the best place to start. Trough active community management, your
Facebook page is likely a regular source for club com- munications. When your audience knows it is likely to find something relevant and new on your page, people will begin checking it regularly and hopefully interact- ing with your posts.
Tis immediate feedback helps you define what
your audience is most interested in. It also allows you to begin discerning the segments within your audience. Examples are a primary audience of your club mem- bers — skaters and parents and an extended audience of grandparents, aunts and uncles. Club members will likely find interest in the latest skating news or club event, while grandparents are thrilled to catch a picture of their little skater. It’s really great when extended fam- ily can have a regular connection to the club and learn more about the sport. Tey can be tremendous assets in terms of fundraising, volunteering and perhaps even club management. As your Facebook page grows, you are collecting a huge amount of data. Te Facebook Insights tool allows you to access highly detailed historical data on your posts. If you’re super analytical, you can download the data to Excel to sort and customize your view. For a quick daily or weekly look, the Overview tab provides a snapshot of your week to date in terms of likes, en- gagements and specifics on recent posts. It also includes Pages to Watch, a helpful feature to see how your page compares to peers you choose to monitor. Your robust Facebook page is the perfect plat-
form from which to launch your next social media channel. With so many to choose from, what will it be? Again it’s a matter of your objectives paired with administrative capabilities. Do you want to reach more tweens and teens? Perhaps you’re interested in cultivat- ing a primarily outside audience of potential sponsors? It’s important to define that before committing to your next account. Here are some options: Twitter is the second most widely used network,
and its users are predominately younger than Face- book’s. Global brands, media outlets and celebrities use Twitter to blast short messages and engage with followers. Photos, links and videos may be attached. Hashtags (#) are used to aggregate Tweets. Twitter is great for events. It allows fans and followers to partic- ipate in a huge group conversation; key word equals conversation.
Te most successful accounts follow people back and engage with others. To have a Twitter account and
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only follow three other accounts is like going to a cock- tail party with 100 interesting people and sitting in the corner with three that you already know. Get out, meet people! You can create lists within the people you fol- low to focus in on segments like key skating influencers or local media. As with Facebook, you hope to have a mix of original and shared content. It’s easy to retweet. You can also link your Facebook page to automatically post to Twitter. Twitter is a nice complement to your Facebook page, especially if you like to share real-time news from competitions. In a subcategory, Periscope is a new app from Twitter that allows you to broadcast live from your phone. It’s easy to set up from your Twit- ter account and could be great for skating events that aren’t covered by traditional media outlets. Kiss and cry anyone? One caution is that you’ll want to be on Wi-Fi as it uses a large amount of data. Twitter also offers a nice snapshot of your month- ly activity at
analytics.twitter.com. As with Facebook, you can download data to Excel and sort away, or get crazy and make your own spreadsheet with Facebook and Twitter stats. Instagram is a mobile photosharing app with sig-
nificant importance in the lives of tweens and teens. Te photo (or video) content appears in a standard square format. Like Twitter, users create hashtags in the text of their posts. Instagram posts may also be easi- ly shared on Facebook, Twitter or other social media sites. Because the content is visually based, users from around the world can easily find and follow each other. Te global skating community is well-represented. As always, interact by liking and commenting on photos. You can share others’ posts as well, using Regram, an- other mobile application. Tere are, of course, ways to analyze your Instagram success. Iconosquare is a desk- top app that visually shows you what types of posts work best and analyzes your audience in a multitude of useful ways. Video sharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo
are a natural for skating organizations, but be mindful of the content needed to make your site relevant. To feature competition video you’ll need permission from the event videographer as well as a way to transfer large
files. You can upload amateur video but may run into music licensing issues. Neither of these things is a total roadblock but they can take some time to figure out. If you have regular videos to share, go forth. In the mean- time, you can showcase your videos on Facebook. When promoting a youth sports organization,
LinkedIn may not be top of mind for you. As the world’s largest professional network, you will not likely see birthday photo collages or baby goat videos. However, a LinkedIn “company” page makes a lot of sense, espe- cially for larger, established clubs. If your club is hosting an event, seeking event sponsors or corporate support or cultivating an alumni or professional network, this is the place to be. From an administrative perspective, setting up the page properly will take some time but relatively little maintenance is needed going forward. However, just because it’s businesslike doesn’t mean it’s not social. You will still need to take the time to share relevant con- tent and engage with your followers. Sharing content across platforms doesn’t mean
you create one piece of content and post it simultane- ously on each of your active networks. Te best way to grow your secondary networks is to provide something exclusive. When you first launch Twitter you might post some tweets to Facebook and, of course, post links with your Twitter handle fairly frequently. You can also add Twitter and Instagram feeds to your Facebook ac- count. Tis is OK as long as they are driving traffic to the sites rather than substituting for them. If you have cross-network auto-posts set up, sometimes it’s better to delete them for an original post. For example, a Facebook post with a picture that auto-posts to Twitter will not show the image unless a person clicks on the link back to Facebook. If it’s a really great picture, you want to show it in your newsfeed. Create a new Tweet with a different caption, add hashtags and delete the auto-post. Managing multiple platforms requires commit-
ment but is achievable. Build your base. Get familiar with your primary and secondary audiences and a good handle on obtaining and organizing content. When you’re ready to expand it will be easy. Here’s to your club meeting more people at the party!
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