Engaging with members online is a key aspect of maintaining membership levels for any membership organisation. People’s priorities and reasons for joining evolve and membership organisations need to evolve their business model to reflect this.
Having been involved in IoD Yorkshire for the past 5 years as a branch chairman (YDF Chair and then IoD West Yorkshire Branch Chairman), I decided to create and lead a group of IoD members who were interested in setting up an IoD Yorkshire campaign.
The objective of the campaign was to:
- Increase awareness of the IoD online within the business community
- Engage with key partners in the region
- Increase engagement with members online
- Promote events online to a wider audience
- Have at the ability to be able to promote events with a shorter lead time
Working as a team we set up the technology, framework and policies for the campaigns to ensure the overall campaign remained true to the IoD brand and reflected the objectives.
In September 2010 we set up
- iodyorkshire.co.uk WordPress blog
- IoD Yorkshire LinkedIn Page
- IoD Yorkshire LinkedIn Group
- IoD Yorkshire Twitter
Since then we have had over 250 blog posts, over 40 different authors (both IoD members and key partners of IoD Yorkshire), 338 members on the LinkedIn Group and 1,537 followers on Twitter. We have exceeded the campaign objectives and continue to develop and expand the reach online.
Since the launch of the campaign, IoD Yorkshire has trailblazer the way forward for regions within the IoD . Other regions since then have followed suit and started their campaigns which are based on the IoD Yorkshire campaigns. I have also worked with the team at Pall Mall in creating the IoD social media policy and supported their work on the main IoD Group.
The project has been so successful that we have decided to relaunch and expand the website. IoD Yorkshire have relaunched their online news and blog site with Mercury Marketing. The new website can be found at IoDYorkshire.com.
Certainly giving members to share their knowledge online, build a community online and giving members the opportunity to build the profile online within the IoD networks gives the membership a new dimension.
I have certainly taken a lot from running the projects, specifically around the need for member organisations to develop their community online.