4 Simple Steps to Help Your Association Tackle Twitter and Increase Member Engagement

4 Simple Steps to Help Your Association Tackle Twitter & Increase Member Engagement

4 Simple Steps to Help Your Association Tackle Twitter and Increase Member Engagement © WebLink International

Session Agenda

• Maximize your presence

• Strategy & Plan

• Take Action

• Measure & Adjust

About Me

• Curt Moss, Senior Product Marketing Manager @ WebLink

• 12 years at member-based orgs – Las Vegas Chamber of

Commerce – Chapter of National Safety

Council • 7 years @ WebLink

– Faculty for W.A.C.E. – Present at association and

chamber conferences

linkedin.com/in/curtmoss @curtmoss

linkedin.com/company/weblink-international @WebLink

About WebLink

• SaaS Company (Software as a Service), Leading Software Provider to Chambers of Commerce and Business Associations

• Established in 1996, 60 Employees, based in Indianapolis, IN

• 94% Customer Retention Rate

• Based in Indianapolis, Indiana

• 94% Customer Retention Rate

About WebLink

• Association Management Software

• Website Design & Development

• Non-Dues Revenue Programs

• Partner in Your Success

WebLink Websites

• Responsive website design

• Automatically adjusts for any screen

• Fully integrated database & website

About WebLink

• iPad app for mobile commerce

• Integrated credit card reader

• New member sales

• Event registrations

• Pay open invoices

WebLink Blog

Why bother using Twitter?

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” - Will Rogers

Fish where the fish are.

Twitter Stats Total number of active registered Twitter users 650,000,000+

Number of new Twitter users signing up every day 135,000

Average number of tweets per day 500,000,000+

Number of Twitter search engine queries every day 2,100,000,000

Number of active Twitter users every month 241,000,000

Percent of active Twitter users on mobile 76 %

Number of tweets that happen every second 5,800

Sources: Statistics Brain, Twitter, Huffington Post, eMarketer

Twitter = Big Deal

How Can Twitter Benefit Your Organization?

Extend Your Reach

Improve Your Value

Increase Member Engagement

Grow Your Membership

4 Simple Steps to Help Your Association Tackle Twitter and Increase Member Engagement

Maximize Your Presence

• Profile image • Header image • Bio • Location • Website/Facebook • Design • Account settings

Examples

Strategy & Plan

What is your strategy for...

• Newsletter

• Events

• Email

• Website

• Blog

• Mailers

Relevant & Useful Information...

• Business issues

• Government advocacy efforts

• Organizational programs

• Benefits

• Events

• Educational or community topics

Use Twitter for the same things! (and more)

Establish Your Purpose (Goals)

• Retention • New member sales • Generate website traffic • Event attendance • Connect businesses • Highlight government

affairs items • Industry/community

awareness

Define An Audience

• Members • Prospective members • Geographic area • Industry experts • Interested others • Follow them!

Build Your Network

• Find your audience • Follow them • Post valuable content • Share others’ content • Connect and engage • Inspire ideas &

responses • “Listen”

Create a campaign strategy

• Create editorial calendar for posts (Plan!) – Date, topic, link, author,

target audience

• Add link/icon/widget on your website to Twitter page

• Email signature • Reward users for

following you or sharing your posts

Sample Twitter Calendar Date Type of

post Topic Text Link/Media? Goal

4/15/2014 Promotion Annual Dinner

Early bird registration ends tomorrow for the annual dinner.

Registration page for event

Event attendance

4/16/2014 Answer Benefits Looking for ways to save money for your biz? Check out our exclusive member discounts.

Benefits page Member sales

4/17/2014 Question Business Needs?

Take our 1 minute poll: What’s the biggest challenge facing your business?

Poll page on website

Retention

4/17/2014 Inside Look New office space

Get a sneak peak at our new office digs!

Photos of new office

Awareness, engagement

Content for Tweets

• Events – 3-5, spaced out before event (maybe more)

• Photos during/after event • Blog posts – 1

immediately, 1 a week or two later

• “Breaking” news about industry or community

• Legislative issues – 1-3 before votes, 1 after (maybe more)

• News articles on your site or about your org

• New members • Articles about members • New staff

It doesn’t have to be all yours!

• Valuable industry or community information – Local news outlet – National or local

association – Industry experts

• Replies to others • Retweets

• 80/20 rule – 1 post sharing your

content – 4 posts sharing others’

content, retweets, replies

Take Action

Create & Share Great Content

• Use content as question prompts

• Answers to common questions

• Blog posts • Events • Photos & videos • Industry/community

news • Research, case studies,

whitepapers

Create & Share Great Content

• Understand your audience

• Connect with them • Give them information

they want & need • Use emotion

Keep It Short(er)

• Tweets under 100 characters get 17% higher engagement (Buddy Media)

• Tweets with 120-130 characters have highest click through rate (Hubspot)

• Include enough info to get the point across

Keywords for Tweets

• How will people find you?

• Use words your audience would use

• Use geo terms – City – Region – State

• Avoid acronyms

Reply!

• When members or followers ask you questions, reply!

• Direct messages (DM) may be better sometimes

• Lets them know you’re paying attention

• Other users can see how much you engage your followers and other Twitter users

#Hashtags

• Way of “tagging” posts to be found later.

• search.twitter.com • Create them for events

and major initiatives

#too #many #hashtags #is #very #overwhelming #for #other #users

• Use others’ hashtags in your posts

• Don’t use more than two

Creating & Sharing Great Content

• Informative – Expertise – Tips – Insight

• Different – Personality – Fresh Take – Surprises

“Use” your members

• Who has a big following on Twitter?

• Find ways to engage them to talk about you

• Their followers work for businesses, too!

• Reach the next level

Tell a story

11 Tweet Templates to heighten user engagement and interaction

1. The Question

• Use content as a question prompt

• Post a link, ask a related question

• “How do you feel about…”

• “How will this impact your business?”

• “What’s your experience with…”

2. The Answer

• “What’s the association’s position on [issue]?”

• When does the [industry] report come out?

• How often are certification classes offered?

• Include a link!

3. The Retweet

• The “email forward” of Twitter

• Allows your followers to see someone else’s content on your timeline

• You’re saying “this is valuable to you.”

4. The Promotion

• Contests • Giveaways • Special promotions for

events

5. The Inside Look

• Behind the scenes, sneak peeks

• Interesting internal content

• “Exclusive” in-house content/activities.

• Include photo & videos to increase engagement

5. The Inside Look

6. The How To

• Similar to answers, but more direct

• Instructions to get something done

• Implies “easy”

7. The Survey

• Share the results later • Thank members who

completed the survey (phone, email, letters)

• Ask your members’ & followers’ opinions

• Connect to benefits and value

8. The Statistician

• Use a number to attract attention

• “Top X Ways to …” • “90% of SMBs use X, do

you?” • Relate the stat to what

your audience values

9. The @reply

• Engages your audience • Lets them know that

you’re paying attention

• Resist the urge to “sell” • Have a conversation

10. The Mention

• “Tagging” another Twitter user

• They receive notice that you mentioned them

• Can increase their followers, drives engagement

11. The Listener

• @replies to someone you’re not following

• Search for a keyword • search.twitter.com • 3rd party applications

– Hootsuite – Tweetdeck

11. The Listener

Twitter Cards

• Additional information when someone shares your content

• Append to blog posts, news articles, event pages.

• Summary card • Summary card with

large image • Photo card • Gallery card • Player card

(video/audio) • Product card

https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards

When and how often to post

• 3-5 times per day • Create a calendar • Schedule some posts

• Tweet on weekends, too

• Experiment

When is the best time to Tweet?

• Engagement for brands is 17% higher on weekends

• Retweets have been shown to be highest around 5:00 pm.

• For click-throughs, the best times seem to be around noon and 6:00 pm

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/belle-beth-cooper/a-scientific-guide-to-pos_b_4262571.html

Source: http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-best-times-post_b49546

Source: http://www.bitrebels.com/social/best-time-to-post-on-twitter-facebook-infographic/

Which Tweets Get the Most Engagement? (Twitter study)

Retweet boost: • Photos – 35% • Videos – 28% • Quotes – 19% • Number/stat - 17% • Hashtag – 16%

Source: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2335489/twitter-study-which-tweets-get-the-most-engagement

How To Write The Perfect Tweet

• Amplify • Engage • Convert

• Is it interesting and

readable? • Is it interesting enough to

click? • Is it compelling and built to

be retweeted?

Source: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140319110058-1897408-how-to-write-the-perfect-tweet

Management, listening & influencer tools

• Hootsuite • TweetDeck • Buffer • Radian 6/Salesforce • trackur • Klout

• Google “social media

monitoring software”

Mention

ManageFlitter

Demographics Pro

Twazzup

Measure & Adjust

Insight & Analytics

analytics.twitter.com

Website Traffic

What were your goals?

• Retention • New member sales • Generate website traffic • Event attendance • Connect businesses • Highlight government

affairs items • Industry/community

awareness

Bonus Tip – For your members

Add members’ social media links on their listing on your website. Connect them with potential customers.

Use your AMS to store members’ profile data

Opening Remarks – DJ & Terry

Coming up: 3 Questions

WebLink Recap: An Integrated Solution

• ONE web-based centralized database

• Prospects, members, non-members and all reps in same system

• Financials, events, email, committees, website, reporting

Central DB

Financial System

Website

Email Marketing

Members

Events

Prospects

Association & Chamber Websites

• 500+ client websites • WebLink Local business

directory drives 67% increase in traffic from organic searches

• Adds value for members • Non-dues revenue • Responsive website design

– automatically looks great on all devices

WebLink Website Management System

• Very easy to add pages and edit content

• Drag and drop new content sections

• Quickly modify the navigation menu

• Easily add photos, videos, buttons, documents, blog posts and more

3 Questions

Please answer these to receive a copy of the presentation.

Webinar Summary

• Great content • Right audience • Right time • Right channel • Ways to respond • Ways to share • Engage your audience • Stand out from the

“Turn strangers into friends. Turn friends into customers. Turn customers into salespeople.” - Seth Godin

WebLink International 3905 Vincennes Road, Suite 210 Indianapolis, IN 46268 P 317-872-3909 | 1-877-231-4970 | F 317-872-3929 weblinkinternational.com | weblinkblog.com

Curt Moss

Senior Product Marketing Manager curt.moss@weblinkinternational.com

4 Simple Steps to Help Your Association Tackle Twitter and Increase Member Engagement

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