Welcome to the latest instruction manual from My Town Homepage which, this time, covers “Why You Should Use Social Media”. It is relevant for Businesses, Community Organisations, Voluntary Organisations and Public Agencies.
This is the latest free Training Manual produced by My Town Homepage. Others produced so far are;
If this Manual whets your appetite for more Social Media tips and advice here are some more items available from My Town Homepage.
- Training - Introduction, Basics, Advanced - Free Manuals and Bespoke Training for individuals and groups
- Strategy - You can have a quick 10 point social media health check or you can have a detailed and comprehensive strategy which will plot your future social media direction.
- Management - If you don’t have the time or the skills My Town Homepage can manage your social media account for you.
Details of how to get in touch are given at the end of the document.
This document is a step-by-step guide through the items which were discussed during a presentation made to the Scottish Association of Local Sports Councils Annual Conference held at Westerwood Hotel, Cumbernauld on Saturday 23rd March 2013.
The document covers the following items;
Section 2 - Traditional Communication vs New Communication
Section 3 - The Social Media Growth Cycle
Section 4 - What’s Your Purpose
Section 5 - Creating Content
Section 6 - Marketing Your Content
Section 7 - Engaging with Your Followers
Section 8 - Growing Your Followers
Section 9 - Next Steps - Moving from WHY to HOW
1. My Town Homepage Experience
My Town Homepage can offer an almost unique perspective to this subject given the background of Managing Director Willie Wilson.
Willie started My Town Homepage in May 2010 but prior to this had been involved in working with voluntary organisations in local government areas at all levels for just short of 25 years. This work included;
- Secretary to Motherwell District Sports Council from 1990 to 1996
- In charge of Sports Development Units in Motherwell, North Lanarkshire and Inverclyde Councils from 1990 to 2005
- The Events Co-ordinator for all Inverclyde Council Events from 1996 to 2010
- The Community Learning and Development Lead Officer for Inverclyde from 1997 to 2005
- The Community Council Liaison Officer for Inverclyde from 2005 to 2010
- The Voluntary Sector Liaison Officer for Inverclyde from 2005 to 2010
- Responsible for the Community Engagement Team in Inverclyde from 1997 to 2010
- Responsible for the Grants to Voluntary Organisations Fund for Inverclyde from 2003 to 2010
Willie established My Town Homepage in 2010 which now has two parts.
The first is a website which delivers a community portal for Scotland’s 32 Local Authority areas. The website aims to be a community resource by providing a wide range of information, news, notices and offers. The Inverclyde Portal will be developed first to make it an example of good practice which will then be rolled out to the other 31 Local Authority areas.
The other arm to My Town Homepage is the Social Media Consultancy service. This was developed due to the company’s practical experience of promoting and growing My Town Homepage’s followers of over 10,000 on social media. The company therefore has had tangible examples of social media knowledge and success and doesn’t just rely on theory.
The Social Media Consultancy service has now delivered a wide range of products to Businesses including training sessions for Greenock Chambers of Commerce, Inverclyde Council and many individual people and businesses however, given the company’s Voluntary Sector background, they are now spreading their net to reach voluntary and community groups.
2 Traditional Communication vs New Communication
Part of the reason why Groups, Clubs, Businesses and Organisations should use Social Media lies in an examination of the current ways that are used to traditionally promote activities. 
Most of the current methods rely on what people are currently comfortable with. The communication tends to be;
One Way Communication - Along the lines of traditional advertising campaigns, the communication is “AT” the target audience rather than a conversation “WITH” them.
No Engagement - Because it’s one way there isn’t an opportunity to discuss or debate your message. There’s also very little feeling of ownership by the person receiving the message.
Non-Targeted Communication - Many of the methods tend to put a message into the general public domain and if they happen to reach the desired audience then this is usually by chance rather than design.
We call it a “blunderbuss” or “loudspeaker” approach. Basically you have a message which you want to shout as loud as you can in order that as many people as possible will hear. If you don’t reach your target audience you’ll try shouting a little louder and so on. You think that this will allow more people to hear. In reality all you do is make more noise and this usually has an opposite effect to that which is desired. 
The new way of marketing uses a different approach. It’s not one-way: It’s multi-way. It’s targeted. It’s engaging. The new way has 4 main parts;
Part 1 - PURPOSE
Be sure of what your organisation does, why it exists, what its main purpose is. If you’re sure of this it’ll be a lot easier later on to produce pieces of content that are relevant to your organisation and will have the desired effects using Social Media.
Part 2 - ATTRACT
If you’re sure of what your purpose is and you share that through your content on Social Media, you’ll attract people who believe what you believe.
Part 3 - BUILD TRUST
Once you attract people who believe what you believe by sharing content about what your purpose is, those people will trust you. They’ll trust you enough to ENGAGE with you and they may even trust you enough to RECOMMEND you.
Part 4 - GROW
When people engage with you and recommend you then you’ll grow your following
If someone recommends you to their friends, studies have shown that 78% of their friends will listen to their recommendations.
Studies have also shown that only 14% trust adverts, or put another way, only 14% trust messages that are shouted AT them (traditional way).
What this means is that you’re much more likely to be heard and listened to and followed in future by using the new method of communication that the traditional way.
3 The Social Media Growth Cycle
The Social Media Growth Cycle is your way to make social media work for your Organisation.
The Social Media Growth Cycle will help you define;
- What your purpose is
- How to create content that will enable people to believe what you believe
- How to market that content using social media
- How to engage with people so that they’ll build trust
- How to grow and keep track of your new followers
Each time you go round the Social Media Growth Cycle you have the potential to add a layer of followers and every layer you add allows your followers and reach to grow.
But unlike the rings of a tree that take a year to add a layer, you can add a layer after every Social Media Growth Cycle which could be 2 or 3 times a week or even 2 or 3 times a day if you have good enough content.
4 Step 1 - Define Your Purpose
Spend a bit of time deciding and being clear what your purpose is and then make all of your actions reflect that purpose. Many organisations get this the wrong way round. They get used to carrying out a set of actions that they’ve always done without really stopping to consider if the actions are appropriate.
So take a bit of time to remind yourself not only of what you do but WHY you do it. Make a list of some of those reasons and keep them in mind when we come to the next stage in the Growth Cycle
When we did this exercise in preparation for the presentation to the Scottish Association of Local Sports Councils Annual Conference we came up with some suggestions for Sports Councils. The purpose of a Sports Council could be;
- To improve health
- To increase physical activity levels
- To increase sports participation
- To promote role models
- To engage with young people
- To promote examples of excellence
- To promote examples of teamwork
We would encourage you to take some time to reconnect with your purpose because it will help you with Step 2.
5 Step 2 - Create Content to Share Your Purpose
Content is King in social media. If you have nothing interesting or engaging to share then you won’t attract people to follow you no matter how active you are. Equally if you have the most interesting subject in the world and you don’t take the time to create content around it then, again, you won’t attract new followers.
Again, we did some work for Sports Councils and came up with the following list of possible content for them ;
- Competitions that have taken place
- Awards gained
- Matches won
- Forthcoming Events
- Grants available
- Advice available
- Links to...
- Local Members' stories
- Links to National stories
- Volunteering examples
- Coach Education
- etc, etc, etc
Take time to think of your own Organisation’s content. Come up with a list of content that you could use to share coming out of what you identified your purpose to be.
6 Step 3 - Market Your Content Using Social Media
Social Media offers many different ways that you could use to market your content. Rmember the diagram that we showed above to demonstrate traditional forms of marketing. 
The traditional way is one-way and not very targeted.
Social Media can expand significantly on this, for example
The new way can add a lots of options to market your content. Ways that are very flexible like video and podcasts. It's like your organisation having your own TV and Radio Station where you're the one that controls the content. All it takes is a little bit of time and effort. In the past it took technology but these days all it needs is a modern smartphone.
Also notice that the arrows are now not one-way. In fact they're multiple way. Because every person that you reach can contact you but they can also contact all of their own connections.
7 Step 4 - Engage with Your Market
"Engaging" sounds a bit technical or possibly even difficult but in the social media world it's not an onerous thing to do.
It's like a snowball effect. If you move around, people who believe what you believe will be attracted to you and stick to you. But you have to make some noise, you have to get involved, you have to be noticed. That means you have to spend some time being "active". Things like.....
These are some of the verbs that you need to become very familiar with if you're going to be a success on Social Media. And the thing is that there's no one way that works. In the way of the famous sports company "Just do it". There's no real formula to this other than time and effort.
Obviously you have to be politically aware to protect your brand so you can't share or comment on anything and you can't say anything. You have to be responsible but, other than common sense, use the techniques that work for you.
8 Step 5 - Grow and Keep Track of Your Followers
The final piece in the cycle is to grow followers and this will happen proactively and reactively.
By completing the above Social Media Growth Cycle, people will take it upon themselves to follow your organisation. On the other hand, some others may need some prompting to follow you. So you need to spend some time reaching out to others.
Who do you reach out to? People who believe what you believe. People who "engage" with you. Ask them to "Like" your Facebook Page.
Twitter is great for growing a following. Go to people who believe what you believe and follow their followers. Chances are they'll follow you back. Do that with with people who follow you and your following will quickly grow.
And once you've got your following you tend to keep them. Few people who take the time to follow you will take the time to un-follow you. Why should they? They believe what you believe and you'll be giving them great content.
The final great thing about social media is that it's also really easy to categorise your followers. You can put them into lists so that when you share a piece of content in future you can be more specific about who that content goes to. You can send it to
- your racquet sports list
- your ball sports list
- your female list
- your 15 to 24 list
- list from a specific town
- etc. There's no limit.
9 Next Steps - Going from WHY to HOW
This Manual discussed the reasons WHY you should use Social Media for your Business, Community Organisation, Voluntary Organisation and Public Agency.
Our next FREE Manual which will be published soon will discuss the practical ways around HOW you can do that using some of the most popular platforms of Social Media.
In the meantime, if you like what we say and...
YOU BELIEVE WHAT WE BELIEVE
follow us at any of the links below.
Regards
Willie Wilson
Managing Director
My Town Homepage
admin@mytownhomepage.co.uk
07932 644455
Website - http://www.mytownhomepage.co.uk
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/mthsocialmedia
Linkedin - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/williewilson1
If this Manual whets your appetite for more Social Media tips and advice here are some more items available from My Town Homepage.
- Training - Introduction, Basics, Advanced - Free Manuals and Bespoke Training for individuals and groups
- Strategy - You can have a quick 10 point social media health check or you can have a detailed and comprehensive strategy which will plot your future social media direction.
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