Grow Your Club With Social Media: How to Show Up at the Top of Search Results

Last month I discussed the advantages of using social media tools effectively and encouraged your club to get online. Now that you are online, let’s talk about how to increase your website’s chances of getting found in search results.

April Tip:  Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s (Google, Bing, etc.) search results. Everyone wants to show up on the top of the results page but beware! It takes work. The search engines have algorithms that pick up on the keywords, tags, categories and links you use on your sites page and ranks pages accordingly. Make it easy for the algorithms to pick your site up by frequently and strategically using keywords. I am not suggesting to stuff your site with tons of keywords (search engine’s don’t like that) but do make sure to use them anytime it’s applicable. Use words that people would enter when looking for a resource to build speaking skills but don’t know Toastmasters exist i.e “improve presentation skills” or “public speaking in Los Angeles” or “learn communication skills in orange county”, etc. You have to think like the person searching and what keywords they would use.

The easiest way to organically move up to the top of the search results is to have quality content, strategic and frequent keyword placement, and backlinks. A backlink is any link received by a web node (web page, directory, website, or top level domain) from another web node. For some search engines, the number of backlinks is an indication of the popularity and will rank it highly. An easy way to increase backlinks is with a club blog. Make sure to link your website to ALL of your social media accounts and post on them frequently. If you need additional guidance please email krystal@growyoursocial.com or go to www.growyoursocial.com

Grow Your Club With Social Media: Why Use Social Media to Promote Your Club

As VP of Public Relations for Parsons Toastmasters, it is my responsibility to let the public know our club exists and entice them to check us out. I strive to use every resource available to attract new guests, share educational resources and keep members up to date with events. I successfully accomplish my goals through the utilization of several social media channels. Social media channels, such as blogging, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, present great marketing opportunities for your club. Through the appropriate channels you can effectively promote your club to your target audience, build and maintain relationships with club members and, more importantly, let prospects who seek to improve their speaking and presentation skills know you exist. Having an online presence is no longer debatable. If you want to be found, you need to put yourself out there.

Utilizing Social Media tools effectively offers the following advantages:

·            Local Reach - social media can reach people in specific locations (in and around your city)

·            Ability to Target particular groups - many forms of social media (e.g. Facebook, Foursquare, Meetup) allow businesses to target specific groups

·            Free or Low-Cost - many forms of social media are free or inexpensive to subscribe

·            Relationship Building - social media allows you to communicate on a personal  level and even on a daily basis with individual customers and groups

·            Fast Distribution – you can quickly distribute information to many people at one time at any time

March Tip: “If you are not online, now is the time.” Get started and get a website going. The easiest action you can take to tell the virtual world that “YOU ARE HERE” is creating a simple website with general information. You can get free website templates and hosting at FreeToastHost, Wordpress and Blogger. Your VP of PR or a member can volunteer to populate the website with QUALITY content. Let the world know who you (the club) are, what you offer, and how they can be a part of it. Make sure to have a Call to Action i.e. an email address, meeting location and point of contact.

Look for next months time in this series: How to Show Up at the Top of Search Results