This is the second part of the multi-part series that outlines some tips for using social media. Part 2 is for clubs or provinces who already have social media accounts and need to target existing members, while part 1 outlined how clubs who don’t have any social media can distinguish between the different platforms and communicate with new audiences.
Social media is a very effective way to market the sport and communicate with new and existing players, while simultaneously building the credibility of your organization. For this reason, we want to provide some guidance on how to best use social media. Whether you have Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or all of the above, before figuring out what to say you need to identify who you’re talking to. Your social media target audience is the specific group of people that you are communicating with on your social platforms. Unless you’re Google, your target audience is not “everyone”.
Step 1 – Identify your existing audience
If you already have social media accounts set up for your club or province, you can follow a few simple steps to identify who your existing audience is. Follow these steps for your Facebook audience and these steps for your Instagram audience. Twitter offers insights on your tweets but not your audience. Once you know the age range, gender, language, and location of your followers, move on to step 2.
Step 2 – Understand what your audience wants from you
What does your organization have to offer? What problem or challenge are you solving for your audience? How are you making your followers’ lives better, easier, or more interesting?
If your audience is made up of the members of your club, they probably want to hear about:
- Changes at the club (whether it’s the Board or the club house)
- News or stories (community is everything — who wouldn’t want to hear about their fellow club members? Just make sure to ask members before posting about them)
- Upcoming events
- Drop-in events (your members can share the information with their followers)
To single out a couple of clubs, check out the Calgary Lawn Bowling Club’s page, or the Burlington Lawn Bowling Club’s page to see some great examples of how this is done. Their posts are informative, positive, and helpful to any new bowler stopping by their pages, while also celebrating their member community.
If you are a PSO, you could also share:
- Lessons learned or best practices from clubs (we can all learn from each other)
- Provincial events and results
- News or stories (after all, social media is mostly used for entertainment)
Step 3 – Ask your followers
If you’re finding it difficult to identify exactly what your followers want to see on your social media, ask them!
Tools like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms will let you make a quick survey to get your followers’ feedback on their preferred social media platforms and the content they’d like to see from you.
Questions to ask your followers could include:
- What are your favourite social media platforms?
- What kind of accounts do you follow?
- How frequently do you use social media?
- What kind of posts would you like to see from us? (Informative, fun/interesting, news/community, events & results, other)
Step 4 – Evaluate using analytics
Facebook, Instagram and Twitter all have analytics features that let you see how many views, likes, comments, and shares a post gets. By checking the analytics, you don’t have to guess which types of posts are well-received and appreciated by your followers. If you check this data periodically, it will let you know which posts are your most popular and will help you decide what kind of content you should continue to provide. Our Member Engagement video tutorials demonstrate step-by-step how to find this information:
Step 5 – Make sure communication goes both ways
While the entertainment factor is a major reason why social media is so widely used, it is also an important form of communication with your followers whether they are members, parents of youth members, other clubs/provinces, etc. Social media platforms have been designed to support two-way communication and some people may use social media to contact your club or PSO in the same way they would use an email address or phone number. For this reason, you should be making sure to check regularly for any comments or direct messages on whichever social media platforms you are using, and respond to them as quickly as possible.
