The question came up recently here in the Northern Virginia region, regarding the balance of Facebook posting types and cadence for a nonprofit membership organization. There’s a simple answer, and it lies in the mission of the organization. If the mission is about linking people and businesses for collective gain, then the postings should reflect this context and activity. If the mission is about progressing a cause, service or initiative – then the postings should focus on that.
A local Chamber of Commerce, for example, exists for the business networking and economic development of its members, whether the members are individuals or organizations. Certainly the chamber itself is a business, with promotions, offers, services and events geared both to attracting new members (i.e. revenue), and supporting existing member (i.e. business retention, general advocacy and education). The chamber is also a partner advocate in a larger, regional collective of economic development interests. At chamber events, however, members are focused more so on each other and their collective synergy in developing or finding new business opportunities – than on pure business education or chamber services. This is where the greatest value is – member relationship-building. It’s a business group, and the currency is business relationship dialogue.
The chamber’s inbound (i.e. social media) and outbound (i.e. advertising) marketing and communications strategy should therefore reflect this balance of priorities. Heaviest focus on members, their initiatives and success stories – particularly when catalyzed by new business relationships made possible by Chamber networking events or services. That’s what most of us in the local business community want and need – to hear real, live, accessible businesses share their successes, plus the strategy and tactics they used to get there. If the Chamber’s involvement was essential, this validates our continued participation, and increases realistic expectations – driving self-fulling ambition and energy.
Popular social platforms used for business development, like Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr and Facebook aren’t equivalent – they’re different communities and tools that attract different types and styles of audience interaction. For a local Chamber, Facebook is particularly useful in highlighting member activity. We’ve found that most local Chambers attract smaller businesses, and these smaller businesses tend to focus heavily on the personal networks and business relationships of a higher percentage of staff, than you find in larger businesses. Simply put, in a smaller, local business – everyone’s part of the business development efforts, including friends and family. While LinkedIn is particularly effective in B2B networking, smaller businesses may tend to find more BD and sales success using Facebook, which equivalently addresses the broader, more diverse and more personal community of local supporters and partners.
Therefore, a local Chamber should have a very active and engaged Facebook (FB) presence, with a daily balance of updates that leans towards a member focus (with pictures!) – particularly evidence of member success within the community. This provides many advantages. Member FB channels themselves gain from this linkage, as well as additional search results (within FB). Member websites benefit from the additional “social signals” – and Google’s search algorithm rewards this. Chamber exposure of member updates acts as an icebreaker – encouraging more interaction and networking interest. General, recurring member updates or announcements can actually be grouped for search purposes, by using hashtags, such as ” #ChamberABCNewMembers ” (need to use the Chamber’s name, since it’s a FB-wide search).
Note that this kind of member-tilted balance on a Facebook fan/business page is very important if this is the only FB channel – FB also offers groups (like LinkedIn), which can and should be even more member-focused (that’s where the more personal social platform lives, within groups). An advanced Chamber will use both the page and the group, with perhaps a more even split of member vs. chamber postings on the page, pointing to heavy membership activity (like regular announcements of new members) in the group.
If the Chamber only has a FB Page – it should be treated as a normal website, though with a heavier social persona – showcasing great news, information and opportunities to network regularly, with a consistent backdrop of “growth or value signals”. These are regular updates on new members, new offerings, updated success metrics, number of attendees at events, etc. – “regular”, means perhaps a couple of times a week, if other postings occur at least 3-5 times a day. In FB general membership groups (unlike LinkedIn), new member welcomes and updates should be very frequent; for busy Chambers, a specific group for member-only announcements and marketing might also be useful.
At the end of the day – solicit feedback, check the metrics, conduct surveys, reach out to staff and socially-active or influencial members…success with Facebook can and should certainly be monitored and analyzed regularly, using a combination of analytics data and user response.