There is no doubt that content is a very important part of an association's marketing efforts. But how can you use content successfully to actually grow new membership, and keep current members engaged? We have some tips that we’d love to share. They focus on how to create a share-worthy strategy for your content marketing efforts. Here are four tips to help your association.
1) Define What You Should Talk About
This step is huge! Many associations know they need to be on social networks, but they stop themselves in their own tracks if they cannot easily answer this question: “What should we talk about?” Thus, you must take the time to analyze the topics and keywords that you should be using in your social media efforts.
To define that list, you should certainly consider your members and message. What types of content will engage current members? What timely news and information could you share to establish credibility?
Also, you should make a list of the key benefits that your association provides. While you do not want all of your content to be extremely sales-y, you should certainly use social media to discuss topics around the benefits that your association offers.
2) Create Compelling Content in Multiple Formats
Technology has made it easier than ever before for people to create and publish online content. But that doesn’t mean that we should skimp on marketing fundamentals during that process.
When creating content, we need to consider if it will have an impact on our members. We also want to question whether the content we distribute is shareable throughout our community.
Then we need to create content in multiple formats. Some people love to write; others love to step in front of a camera. Well, our current and potential members have preferences! They may prefer to consume content in one channel over another.
Thus, we must be willing to devote resources to producing content in a variety of formats in order to truly maximize the reach of our message.
3) Freely Share in the Appropriate Channels
It can be overwhelming to look at the growing number of social networks available to us. However, we must avoid taking a blanket approach to sharing the same piece of content in the same way across every social network that we have access to.
We must recognize that each network is unique — this could be true in regard to feature, function, frequency, tone, etc. In order to properly demonstrate respect for each network’s audience, we must be willing to tailor our participation efforts accordingly.
4) Be Consistent
Social networking efforts can be fun — but they also require energy and time. If you are going to start using social networks to reach association’s objectives, you must commit to executing consistent efforts!
Make sure that you are willing to prioritize the steps of creating and sharing content on social networks appropriately.
Moving Forward
There are certainly other items that need to be considered when developing a content marketing strategy for social networks. However, those 4 are certainly among the most important.
I hope that you find these tips helpful!