Over half of college graduates use LinkedIn. It’s possible your members and alumni members are or will be in that group. Does your chapter have a space for them to engage with each other?
Earlier in our Chapter Leader Playbook series, we discussed how your chapter can build and maintain a recognizable brand. Optimizing social media and remote tools can further extend your chapter’s reach.
With a few simple tricks you can easily manage your social media platforms to maintain a relationship with current and graduated members.
MAKE SOCIAL MEDIA EASIER FOR YOUR CHAPTER
There are a vast amount of social networks available today. It can be hard to keep all of your chapter’s social platforms timely and relevant. Check with your organization to see if they have specific requirements of which platforms you are allowed to use. From there, work with your officer team to focus your efforts on a few, high-impact accounts instead of spreading yourselves thin on too many platforms. A few to consider are:
Once you choose your targeted approach, research tools that can make your lives easier when managing the accounts. Use scheduling software to plan your social campaigns and posts in advance. You could meet monthly to pre-plan content for the upcoming month. Here are a few tools to look into:
- Buffer: Plan and schedule posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more.
- TweetDeck: Monitor hashtags on Twitter and gauge reactions to your campaigns.
- Hootsuite: Manage updates on a variety of social media accounts.
- Hopper: Schedule Instagram posts in advance.
Regardless of which social channels and tools your chapter is using, you should ensure you are following National guidelines on what you say and how you say it. Ask yourself these questions regarding your chapter accounts:
- Who has access to the chapter social media accounts?
- Is there social media guidelines or policy provided by National that you should be adhering to?
- Are there specific social media branding guidelines you should follow?
- Are there any social media campaigns that National is running that you should participate in?
CREATE A LINKEDIN SUBGROUP FOR YOUR CHAPTER IN THREE STEPS
LinkedIn can be a great networking tool for your chapter members. Create a LinkedIn subgroup to leverage this social channel to its fullest potential. Subgroups are virtual forums where approved members can share their expertise and grow professional relationships. Check with your contact at National to be sure you are following your organization’s social media guidelines when creating the group. If it is in accordance with bylaws, here are three easy steps to get started:
- Designate a chapter LinkedIn manager.
- Email National for access. National will need to create the subgroup for your chapter and give access to the assigned manager.
- Send an invitation to chapter members. Include the request link to your LinkedIn subgroup within the email invitation to ensure maximum engagement. The manager will need to approve each LinkedIn request, so make sure they are monitoring requests regularly.
If you keep your LinkedIn group updated, it can be a great place to post chapter news, events, and announcements. Promote the group by emailing invitations to your chapter email list, posting links in chapter communications, and promoting the request link on your social channels.
As members are approved for the group, they can post and start discussions. The manager will have to moderate the group regularly to remove any unrelated posts if necessary. The group should be used to share and grow professional relationships, so any posts related to marketing or sales (e.g. products, services, unrelated conferences, webinars and events) should be discouraged or removed.
TOOLS FOR REMOTE MEETINGS
Along with using social media and email communications to connect with your members, there are a variety of tools available to help you interact virtually. Phone or virtual meetings give members more flexibility when they are short on time. We recommend you take a look at the following services:
If you are short on budget, many of the above options are free to use. However, the paid services offer a variety of features that make conference calls a breeze. Gather a list of requirements for your chapter and compare them to the features the service provides.
You can use virtual meetings for chapter business, but also for professional and personal development. Keep it light by hosting a chapter book or podcast club. To make sure your phone or virtual meeting is successful, consider the following tips:
- Set the meeting to last around 60-90 minutes or less.
- Distribute an agenda prior to the meeting so members know what will be discussed.
- Send an Outlook/Google/iCal calendar appointment so attendees can easily accept and add to their digital calendar.
- Send an email reminder two or three days prior to the meeting to increase attendance
- At the close of the meeting, ask members for their input on items to discuss for the next agenda.
- If there are any key takeaways, action items or highlights, be sure to call those out in the meeting notes.
- Take meeting notes and send them to all members (not just the ones who attended) within a few days of the meeting.
Always remember, your current members are the core of your chapter – keep them in mind when you are planning your social media efforts. In the next post of our Chapter Leader Playbook series, we look at how to provide your members with a positive experience beginning at onboarding.