Using Facebook to Attract New Members

Getting on the Grapevine: Using Facebook to Attract Members to Your Club

Social Media is an important tool for organisations. Obviously, anything that helps connect your club to your membership is a good thing. Through the platforms, there are unlimited opportunities to advertise and promote your products.

Social Media can also help connect people to your club who may have never had contact. Members' reposts of club content and their candid shots of club participation can attract much wanted attention from their contacts. 

For organisations with limited funds for marketing, social networking and social marketing is an excellent option.

So, how can you utilise social media correctly to help benefit your club? 

After you read this blog, go through to this article for some more great tips: Top Tips to become a Social Media Expert

Focusing on Facebook, the King of Social Media

Leaving aside other social networks for the moment, like Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Pinterest — which all have a place in your marketing mix — we’ll focus on Facebook for this discussion. Facebook can drive traffic to your website, attract new members, muster volunteers, or solicit donations.

According to the Social Media Statistics Australia - April 2018, Facebook is still the number one form of social media with 15,000,000 monthly active Australian users. Over one billion people use Facebook every day and you are probably one of them. This is because Facebook is by far the largest social network with the greatest reach. 

By connecting your Member Jungle website with the Facebook Page you create for your organisation (and vice versa) created you will be making it easier for people to find your club. On your website, you can have it set to show your Facebook page feed too. 

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Facebook for Your Organisation

At Member Jungle, we would recommend that you consider a couple of things before you jump right in. Keeping in mind that your Member Jungle site can include many different kinds of Members Only Areas, would you create a Public Facebook Club Page and/or a Private Members Only Facebook Group - Or utilise all three?

Creating your Facebook Page isn't too complicated. Facebook actually offers several page choices but we’ve eliminated some of the options for you, just to make it simple. 

To keep things straight, here they are:

1. Profile - A Facebook Profile is non-commercial and represents a single person. As a person, you can add friends and message them, view friends’ statuses, and share your own updates. When you view your own or your friends’ updates, you do this from the Timeline, which is the core content feed on a profile.
2. Pages - Pages are timelines for organisations, businesses, brands and public figures. These come in several flavours:
   1. Local Business or Place
   2. Company, Organization, or Institution
   3. Brand or Product
   4. Artist, Band or Public Figure
   5. Entertainment
   6. Cause or Community (If you are creating a Page for a non-profit, club, or community organisation, use a Company, organisation, or Institution)
3. Groups - Groups are like discussion forums and allow people to share photos, links, updates and more. Groups are restricted and are not necessarily open to the public. With over a billion people using Facebook Groups monthly, they are very popular. As I mentioned above, through your Member Jungle Website, you can create Members Only Areas which can include discussions, galleries and more. To benefit your club's growth, the more you use your site, the better. 
4. Anyone can create a Facebook Page or Group, but only official representatives can create and manage a Group or a Page for an organisation, business, brand or public figure. It is absolutely essential that you are designated by your club or organisation to represent them on social media.

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When to Page and When to Group

Pages are like Profiles on Facebook but for your organisation where you share photos, news, updates, and announcements. One major difference between a Profile and a Page is that your Page information and updates are open to the public. Pages boast more control than Profiles and Groups. Pages allow managing notifications, messages, and scheduled posts. Pages also give insight into how posts are performing and who is connecting to your Page. 

For example, our Facebook page is 'Member Jungle'. This is controlled by the company owner/manager/representative, who has access to post on that page, whereas our personal profiles are separate. 

Groups, on the other hand, are largely maintained by your membership. As an administrator, you can set up a Group for open membership, membership upon approval, or membership by invitation only. Any member of your group can start posting to that group and the posts will appear in members’ news feeds. In essence, Facebook Groups connect your followers to each other directly. 

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Before You Start

You will need your own profile page to set up a Page or Group. This is because Pages and Groups are created and managed from your personal account and accessed from your personal login.

Create Your Page or Group

1. Once you’re logged in to your personal account on Facebook, go to the upper-right drop down to create your Page or Group.
2. If you are creating a Page, select ‘Company, Organisation or Institution’.
3. Add a name to your Page or Group (the name of your organisation). Don’t forget the check-box to certify that you are the official representative of the organisation.
4. Be sure to enter the organisation name correctly. You may not be able to change it later.
5. Facebook will walk you through steps to create and customise your page: description, link to your website and an URL for your Group or Page (facebook.com/organisationname)
6. You will then add a profile picture (180 x 180 pixels). This should be your organisation’s logo.
7. Add a cover photo (851 x 315 pixels). Try to use an engaging shot that shows what your club does.
8. Add some information about your organisation to the Info section and try to provide as much detail as possible since Google index this if you are creating a Page. Also, the Short Description will appear when someone shares your Page.
9. Now your basic Page or Group is live.
10. Add some content so you have an active timeline. Think of these posts as telling stories about your club or membership or events.
11. Start inviting people to look at and like your Page or join your Group!

 

Now that you have decided what you are going to do, you can start creating! If you are interested in learning more about social media and how to take advantage of the numerous social media platforms, read the following blog: Top Tips to become a Social Media Expert