We are often asked if we see social media playing a big role in the growth of YP Organizations (YP Orgs)? The answer is YES, with a twist!
What’s the twist?
There is no “right way” or recipe for using social media to grow your YP Org. However, by keeping your YP Org’s mission and program priorities in mind you can be creative in using social media to not only grow your membership and event attendance, but grow the influence your YP Org can have in your community.
Consider the “F-FACTOR”. Friends, fans, and followers.
Just today, Trendwatching.com released their May briefing titled, The F-FACTOR . The article outlines five of the ways that the F-FACTOR influences consumer behavior:
- F-DISCOVERY: How people discover new products and services by relying on their social networks.
- F-RATED: How people increasingly (and automatically) receive targeted ratings, recommendations and reviews from their social networks.
- F-FEEDBACK: How consumers ask their friends and followers to improve and validate their buying decisions.
- F-TOGETHER: How shopping is becoming increasingly social, even when people and their peers are not physically together.
- F-ME: How consumers’ social networks are literally turned into products and services.
I encourage you to read this briefing and be creative as you consider how the “F-FACTOR” may apply to your YP Org.
To begin, ask yourself two questions...How can the F-FACTOR increase your event attendance? And, how can your YP Org use it’s F-FACTOR to develop a stronger “voice” for YPs in your community?
How can the F-FACTOR increase your event attendance?
Most of you use Facebook, Twitter, and maybe LinkedIn to help promote your programs and events. But, to what extreme? When registering for events online are your members able to - with a click of the mouse - invite others to attend too? Facebook announced in April 2011 that every time a user posts on Facebook about buying a ticket from Ticketmaster, the company estimates they receive an extra $5.30 - (Source: Trendwatching.com/New York Times, April 2011). How can this F-TOGETHER concept apply to your YP Org’s growth?
How can your YP Org use it’s F-FACTOR to develop a stronger “voice” for YPs in your community?
When a YP moves to your city, they ask themselves, “Will I fit in?”, “Where can I find people like me?”
People are drawn to friends and contacts who - think, do, eat, read, listen to, drive in, travel to and buy - like them. By helping drive local consumer decisions to local voting decisions, social media, if used properly and more intentionally by your YP Org, can expand the influence YPs have on eachother and your community.
Your YP Org could hire a full-time person just to focus on how to best use social media and never have the right formula figured out. It keeps changing on us!
However, your YP Org can use social media to grow by developing a simple social media strategy that best fits your needs and goals. Once you have that strategy in place, the key will be to “work” that strategy everyday to grow your friends, fans, and followers.
Click here to read more about the F-FACTOR. [Source: www.trendwatching.com. One of the world's leading trend firms, trendwatching.com sends out its free, monthly Trend Briefings to more than 160,000 subscribers worldwide.]
