PUBLIC RELATIONS

Social Media is a powerful tool that used correctly can contribute to us having happy, healthy and vibrant clubs. We can use social media to attract guests to our meetings and keep our members engaged.

1. Facebook

Facebook is a great place to start. It gives your club a place to share information between members and shares your club’s personality with potential guests. Use Facebook like you would a website for your club. Keep it updated with current information and pictures of your club’s members and meetings. Make sure to have your club meetings added as Facebook events. Making a link from your club’s website to your Facebook page and actively posting could mean the difference when trying to catch the eye of a potential guest. Aim to post at least once a week.

Step by step guide to making a Facebook ad - provided by Toastmasters International

2. Instagram

Facebook owns Instagram, therefore it works much the same way as Facebook. In fact, Instagram is like a simplified version of Facebook with an emphasis on using on your mobile device and sharing visuals like videos or photos. Like other social networks, you interact with other users by following them, letting others follow you, commenting, liking, tagging, and private messaging. You can setup Facebook to automatically share all your Facebook posts to Instagram.

3. Twitter

Twitter is a powerful way to reach people all over the world. It is like texting, but instead of texting your friends you are broadcasting your message all over the world. Through Twitter, you can reach people and tell them about Toastmasters and your club without them even searching you. The trick is re-tweeting. Encourage your club members (and everyone else) to follow your twitter account, mention the twitter account in their tweets, and retweet your tweets – this is how your message is spread. Try to make a tweet 1 week before your meeting, then the day before and the day of your meeting. Make sure to include key words in your tweets such as your location and special phrases such as “public speaking” or “toastmasters”.

4. Meetup

Meetup is a place where many people go to look for events and groups with interests similar to their own. It is the digital equivalent to your library’s upcoming events bulletin board and is the number one way to attract people to your meetings who have never even heard of Toastmasters. Many Toastmasters clubs have successfully used Meetup to recruit new members. It is easy to setup reoccurring meetings in Meetup - the most important thing is to keep your time, location, and contact information accurate. People will join your Meetup group and then they are automatically notified of events that happen in that group. Make sure to sign up for the District's Meetup account.

5. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social media platform for professional networking, connecting, and job searching. That makes it the perfect site to reach professionals who need to improve their public speaking and leadership skills. People come to LinkedIn to find information – a good formula for a LinkedIn post is to post a link to a relevant article (Toastmasters magazine or the District newsletter are good sources) and add – “want to find more? Join us for our next meeting”. Try to post to LinkedIn once a week – you could also reshare a post from another social media platform to your page (again Toastmasters International and the District social media accounts are good sources for this).

There are 2 ways that club’s can take advantage of LinkedIn: