Most sports and social clubs know how important social media can be, but many aren’t sure about the best ways to use it.
Social media is a fantastic way to increase membership and show the world what a great place your club is to be. Below, we’ll look at five ways you can make the most of your social media efforts and ensure that more people locals walk through your doors.
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Advertise your events
Your club can run a calendar of great events, whether that’s sporting fixtures, club BBQs, quiz nights etc, but it’s all for nothing if nobody knows about them!
A great way to let people know about these events is via Facebook. By creating an ‘event’ on Facebook, users can select whether they’re interested in coming or not, and also share and increase the amount of people who see it.
To create an event from your club’s Facebook page, simply click the button with the three dots (next to ‘share’, just below your cover photo) and then click ‘create event’. It will then ask you to give details of your event including name, location, time and a photo or video.
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Use Facebook advertising
A few years ago, Facebook changed the way they work and suddenly the content you post was seen by far fewer people. Without going into the nitty gritty, Facebook were trying to make more money from advertising, and realised that if they restricted the amount of people who could see your posts, you’d be more likely to pay to increase the ‘reach’.
Not the nicest move by Facebook, but an effective one. Its left advertising as the quickest and most reliable way of reaching enough people to make your posts useful.
If you’re looking to attract new members, or get people to come down to an event, it’s the best option and doesn’t rely on members sharing your posts.
The cost of advertising varies depending on the way you use the platform and ‘target’ your users, but £5 should put your content in front of 1000-3000 people.
If you’re a Club Insure customer, our social media manager, Sam, would be happy to help you set up advertising.
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Post pictures, GIFs and Videos
We live in an age of short attention spans. People don’t want to sit reading lots of in-depth information on social media. Figures suggest that you have about half a second to grab someone’s attention when they’re scrolling down their news feed, so you need to stand out.
Words don’t stand out. Images, GIFs and videos do.
Posting pictures of your club and the activities that take place there will catch the user’s attention and also show how lively and fun your club is. If you can take a video on your phone, that’s even better.
Quick tip: You don’t have to be a graphic designer to create some cool banners, fliers and images for social media. Use a free website like canva.com, which gives you pre-set templates.
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Be creative
The club industry can be a competitive one, with a number of clubs in every area competing for business. If you want to stand out on social media, you have to do something different.
One of our favourite bits of creative social media this year was from Eccles RFC, who posted this video for player recruitment:
ECCLES RFC – MEN WANTED from Eccles RFC on Vimeo.
We’re not claiming that you need to have the expertise or the budget to create something as polished as that, but thinking outside the box will increase the amount of people who share your posts.
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Build a community
It may seem counterproductive, especially given what we said about competition in our last point, but sometimes working together on social media can be a positive thing. Remember that you’re targeting a similar audience, so turning lapsed or dormant customers into regulars, could see them coming through the doors of a number of clubs in the area.
So make sure that on social media, you’re connected to your competition and you’re interacting with them on social media, even if it’s just commenting ‘well done’ or ‘good luck’ on their posts.
They will most likely do the same for you which will increase the reach of your posts to potential customers.
If nothing else, you’re keeping an eye on competitors to see what they’re up to!
We hope you found those five tips useful but as always, if you’re a Club Insure customer, our social media manager, Sam, will be happy to offer any extra advice you might need.
Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Rodhullandemu
