With millions of active users online at any given moment, your Club is missing a huge audience if it isn’t utilizing social media platforms to generate awareness. 

Social media should not take over your marketing efforts; they should be one part of the many vehicles for communication and awareness. From tweeting about a fundraising event to hosting a weekly blog on your web site, getting involved in new media will increase traffic to your web site, generate awareness in the community and reach more people than ever before.

Some of the key marketing benefits of social media include:

• Cost efficiency – social media are relatively inexpensive to set up and maintain. Many social utility sites are free.
• Timeliness – while it can take weeks to develop a print piece announcing important news, social media can be live and posted to the public in a matter of hours.
• Viral – social media marketing, when done correctly, can have a snowball effect. If one person loves your latest It Just Takes One video, they are likely to share that video with several of their closest friends, who in turn may be inspired to share it with others. The possibilities are endless.

Much like setting up a marketing plan, creating a social site for your Club is easy. Use the following basic steps as a general guide:

1. Identify your audience and goals.
2. Create a communications strategy and detailed plan (with policies, procedures and what-ifs.)
3. Set up your page/site/account.
4. Invite your core supporters/conversation starters to visit.
5. Get the word out; Use all of your resources to market your social networks to the right audience.
6. Manage, update, alert and repeat.