My role when I was VP of Public Relations for our Speakeasy Toastmaster Club focuses on reaching out to the public and sharing the opportunity of Toastmaster’s in Greater Northampton. We meet on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday’s of each month and the club is vibrant, diverse, supportive and welcoming! I truly am enjoying the professional and personal development that Toastmaster\’s has to offer and my public speaking has increased tremendously. I have since held the role of President, and Area Director to serve my Toastmaster Community and am coming up on my 3rd year as a Toastmaster member.
This post shares of my presentation that I shared with the club about how to engage social media in our quest for new members and publicizing the great work of Toastmaster’s to the local region.
Being social means something completely different today than it did 20 plus years ago! More than 135 minutes average per person is spent on social media currently. it’s amazing to think that it began only 20 years ago. I recently found this infographic showing the history of social media which technically began in 1844 with the first telegraph and then 1997 with Six Degrees.
All good strategies start with asking the question what do we want to accomplish and how? Social sites like Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook give the opportunity to reach thousands of viewers with a simple post. Currently I have been working on my video skills, through Instagram Stories and Reels and on my own personal YouTube channel building videos in IMovie.
Do we need social media? Looking at the overall social media statistics shows that this is an amazing opportunity to reach an audience for membership and communication to members and potential members for our Toastmaster’s club. Toastmaster’s International has great information in bite sizes shared on the master accounts on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. If you haven’t already subscribed, followed and joined these pages – you should check it out.
Where is our audience in the social media world? How will we want to engage with them on social media? This question is a good one for the club to consider. Currently we have a Facebook page and regularly post events and recognition. Do we want to look at other other social media sites that we might want to use in the future?
What are the goals we want to accomplish ? New members, retention of current members and perhaps inviting lapsed members back to the club are some of the goals that social media can help us to be successful. Recognition is also a great goal that we can continue to give on social media if the members feel it is a nice value for their efforts.
Next Steps: Look at the social media we would like to use and put together a plan to implement:
- Speakeasy Facebook Page – currently posting meetings, open house events, conferences, contests and recognition.
- Speakeasy Toastmaster Website– agenda scheduling, updates, and news
- Other ideas from the club are welcome!
Before the meeting – post the meeting location, time and encourage participation.
After the meeting – post photos, recognition and any great information shared at the meeting.
Encourage members to visit the Facebook page and share the opportunity to attend meetings as a guest with their social media accounts. Members are also encouraged to post information to the page that they think the club would to see and would benefit them. The more participation and engagement the better.
Keep it simple! Rather than spread out to multi social media sites – as a club that is starting to grow and reach people, it is best to focus on a social media site and see if we can be successful. Facebook, Meet-up and our Toastmaster website are great ways to get the information out to our audience and hope to grow our membership!
For Club Members and Guests: Take action! Join our Facebook group to receive regular updates. Share information from our page on your social media if you can. Like, share and comment to increase the recognition and impact of the posts we share. If you are on Twitter you can share a link to our events there and share your experiences. Increase the engagement to increase our membership!
Tweet! Snap! Insta and the Book! Social media is a great way to engage! Let’s be social and engage our members, and new members on social media!
Thanks for stopping by! If you have suggestions on ways to leverage social media to increase our outreach in Toastmasters for new members and guests, please let me know!
