As we learned in kindergarten, the golden rule is “sharing is caring.” The entire concept of social media is that you create something to share—whether it’s a updated post, photo, video, event, etc. So as part of your social media marketing strategy, you should plan to personally share the same content posted to your association’s social media accounts. This is important because you want your content to reach people beyond your employer’s followers. For instance, if your friend “likes” one of your association posts that you share, that post will be seen through their feed—providing additional exposure and potentially even more sharing. The results could be endless.

It’s also important to cross-promote. Share other association news or updates that are relevant to your organization’s interests. And be sure when sharing or cross-promoting content, that give credit where credit is due, such as tagging by using the @ symbol, or creating/using a trending hashtag. By cross-promoting and acknowledging

others’ posts, chances of them liking and sharing your content is higher along with the viewer outreach.

When using Facebook or Instagram, aim to post a minimum of three times a day—post types include photos, text and links.  Photos should be relevant to your followers, but can also occasionally include images that could be funny or unique to your brand, like the photo presented on the right.

When creating a text-only post, consider attention-grabbing items that reflect the organization’s personality and also provides a good laugh for people cruising though their feeds. Outside of the funny posts, you could engage viewers by asking questions or creating promotional games like “who’s your idol and why” or encourage your followers to participate in contents like making a short Vine video. Then these can be pushed to your social media pages to give viewers a taste of your organization and membership in action.

Posts with links are important for promoting your website—you won’t have to rely on viewers searching or navigating through your site to find this content. Link to your latest videos, blogs or news posted to your website. Links should have an appealing, well-crafted call to action—similar to this example with TOMS.

In summary, remember to: personally share employer posts, cross-promote others’ content, post several times daily, make your posts funny and unique on occasion, and create contests to increase engagement and reach.

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