- No one can do it all, Everyone is busy with work, with home, with family. Pick 2
channels out of the 4 major ones, Facebook Fan Pages, Twitter, Youtube or a
Blog and concentrate on doing 2 of those well. Spreading yourself too thin
does nothing for your Toastmasters club marketing. Putting your eggs in
all one basket is not a really good idea either.
- It's not all about you and your Toastmasters group. It's all about other people
and paying attention to what they do, who they are and what they are
interested in.
- Check your mentions and replies. Just like returning a phone call, if
someone asks a question or has a problem on social media, you need to
respond. Ignoring a comment on twitter for example, can make even a
compliment that was made to you, turn into a negative in the
complimenter's mind, because you ignored it.
- Don't advertise it, if you aren't going to use it. Having a link or button on
your website that's says "Fan Us on Facebook" or "Follow Us
on Twitter" and the last update was a year and half ago just makes
your Toastmasters Club site look bad.
- Social Media does not have to be time consuming or cost anything, Investigate and take advantage
of the multiple free time saving tools that are out there to manage SM.
- Don't Pitch, Engage! Hitting potential members over the head with nothing but sales
messages does not a future member make. Try talking to them as people and
not prospects.
- Don't let marketers snow you. If you have someone tell you can't
maintain your own social media venues, or you need to pay them $200 a
month to monitor your club's name on the web. My recommendation? Laugh.
Why? It's not hard to do and set up yourself. There is free help out there
if you need it and it doesn't cost you your first born child.
- Social media for Toastmasters is not a buy now proposition. The potential future member you
engage with on a blog comment or a Facebook post is not going to turn
around and join your club the next day or even that month. Think long
term. The person you engage with today, may turn around and become a regular
member and may tell all their family, their friends and business
associates about it as well (also on social media). The potential return
is multiplied by the hundreds.
- Social Media is a long term proposition. Success with social media does
not come over night. It takes time to build a fan base, a twitter
following and a blog with high traffic. If you build it, they WILL come,
Just not overnight.
- ROTI (Return on Time Investment) beats out ROI (Return on
Investment, i.e. the layout of money) any day. If you doubt this, do a little math, a
$400 magazine ad or radio shot has the possible potential of reaching how
many people and with what return? VS five minutes of your time on social
media has the potential of reaching thousands of people.
© Heather Turner 2011
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