Step 5 – Social Media Engagement

One of the most significant trends in consumer engagement in recent years is the rise of social media marketing. Social media is moving beyond contacts and interactions to a culture of community and collaboration for the most engaged and customer-centric organizations.

More than 23 percent of consumers from the age of 18-32 prefer social media when learning about organizations. They are interacting online with peers in sponsored communities and over the public cloud via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Approximately 83 percent of consumers tell their friends if they like a service or product, demonstrating that the demand for advice from fellow consumers is present and strong enough for consumers to act to enable this type of advice.

Social media is more than an interaction it is a culture. Social media is a philosophical belief that more people working together is better than one person working alone.

Follow these five steps to establish a customer engagement strategy:

  • Monitor: Monitor the conversations unfolding on Twitter & Facebook. Take advantage of the opportunities to respond and provide the Rotary brand experience to people in your network.
  • Post Consistently: Start with Facebook and post photos and videos of every meeting with a description of the fun had at that meeting. After that begins to be successful begin posting about projects and beneficiaries, which will provide a well-rounded story of your club’s Rotary brand experience.
  • Respond to every Comment: To get engagement you have to engage. Respond to every comment, people love to have their questions answered.
  • Have members Share: Members should be encouraged to share NOT just like the club’s posts. This will increase the number of likes/followers your page gets over time because more people will see your club’s posts.
  • Involve all of your members!

The importance of social media There are many social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and much more. We offer this Powerpoint produced by District 5020 to give you some insight as to how social media works and which platform might work best for your club.

Click to download the social media PDF here.

How to Build a Facebook Page and Keep It Relevant

The time has passed when Facebook was a “good idea” for Rotary clubs to try. It’s now essential to enhancing your club’s Public Image and attracting new members.

The following steps will show how literally anyone — novices and experts alike — can set up a Rotary Club Facebook Page 100% correctly and keep it relevant.

Follow this step-by-step guide to get your Club’s Facebook page active.

Click to download social media PowerPoint here.

1) Choose a Classification

Navigate to the following URL in a new tab to create your business page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

Once there, choose from one of the following six classifications:

  • Local business or place
  • Artist, band, or public figure
  • Company, organization, or institution
  • Entertainment
  • Brand or product
  • Cause or community

This classification will help you rank for more relevant searches and provide relevant information fields on your page. After selecting ‘Cause or community’, fill out your Club name (Rotary Club of ….)

2) Complete Basic Information Upload Photo

  • Upload Photo

Facebook will now prompt you to upload the main photo for your page. This photo will appear as your icon every time you comment on a post or appear in news feeds. If your club has a logo, you might use that. Or you might choose to use the current Rotary International President’s theme logo photo. These are easy to download from www.Rotary.org.

About Section

Next, you need to write your ‘About’ information. This small blurb will serve as the main 2-3 sentence description for your club. It will be on your main page, so make it descriptive but succinct. Note the space for the Club website as well.

3) Use Your Admin Panel

&Your admin panel is the main hub for managing your club’s page. It’s filled with various features and options to optimize your page and your monitoring of that page.

Edit Page

The ‘Edit Page’ option in the upper right provides various options.

The first option, ‘Update Info,’ allows you to enter a description, which is an extended version of the ‘About’ information you entered earlier. Users only see the description by literally clicking ‘About’ on your business page, so you should feel comfortable sharing lengthier and more detailed information in your description.

You can also manage the roles of your page administrators. This allows you to invite various members of your club to be administrators on your Facebook page respond to comments or messages specific to their function, without giving them complete power over your page.

Other options under ‘Edit Page’ allow you to manage your notifications and add page permissions.

Build an Audience

Often, marketers get so excited they started a Facebook page that they invite users right away. But challenge yourself to think about a more strategic method for inviting users. First, you want your page filled with content. Then invite your club members to start engaging with that content. Once your page has some interactions, invite more fans and contacts, and they’ll be more interested in like the page when they see the buzzing hub it is. From that point, it’s at your discretion if you’d like to use Facebook’s advertising tools to further promote the page.

4) Fill the Page With Content

  • Cover Photo

With the introduction of Timeline came the introduction of your best visual real estate on your business page: the cover photo. The exact dimensions of this cover photo are 851 X 315. Be sure to select a creative horizontal image that will appeal to users who land on your page.

Custom Tabs

Facebook also allows you to have an endless amount of tabs on your page, however, you can only customize four of them — meaning only four can appear on the page before the user has to click the arrow to see the rest. Think critically about what you want to appear in these four slots, whether it’s events, photos, groups, etc. Keep in mind that if you use third-party applications, you should configure the tabs to be indexed on Facebook and not on the third party server.

Posts

When posting on your page, be sure to use a variety of content. What images would your audience like to see? What stats would they like to read? What links would they like to click? You can also click the little star to the upper right of any post to highlight it horizontally across your entire page. Not only will this make it look like you have a cover photo on your actual timeline of posts, but it will highlight the page as a milestone in your club history. Use this feature for club announcements, member birthdays and anniversaries, and other major events pertinent to your club.

Ideas for Content:

  • New Member Inductions
  • Presentations of Paul Harris Awards and Rotary Foundation Awards
  • Photos of Program Presenters (Upcoming and Photos During Program)
  • Video Hands-On Projects – Upload to YouTube and post.
  • Share posts from Rotary International and End Polio page.

Monitor

While having a gorgeous Facebook page is awesome, you want to ensure you are monitoring how fans are interacting with it. To the upper right of your Admin panel, you’ll see all the private messages users are sending to your page. Meanwhile, the upper left and center of the panel show all the posts users are liking and commenting on. Be sure to respond to comments and messages as needed to ensure your fans know you not only care about them, but to avoid the detrimental impact of ignoring these folks.

5) Measure Your Efforts

At this point, you have built and shared a Facebook business page that accurately represents your club. Now you need to measure your efforts to ensure you’re making valuable marketing decisions on Facebook. Click on the ‘View Insights’ option to the bottom-center of your Admin panel. You’ll be able to monitor reach, engagement, and the like in order to help you grow and adapt your Facebook marketing efforts around what’s working and what’s not.