6 Tips For Engaging Members with Content
Content is a significant driver of member engagement. Since member engagement is a cornerstone of operations, your association should be intentional about the content it creates. You could say that content and member engagement go together like peanut butter and jelly.
However, creating engaging content isn’t as easy as making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Trends are rapidly evolving, and it can be difficult keeping up with how and where your association’s members want to connect. There are, however, six general best practices we’ve assembled that will help you stay on course with your content so you can engage members more effectively.
Six Ways Associations can Create More Engaging Content for Members
Whether for your events, your career center or general member outreach, making sure your content clicks with your members is critical to your association’s mission. Otherwise, content that doesn’t resonate wastes their time and yours.
Regardless if you’re posting a TikTok video or writing an eBook, following these guidelines will help your association create more engaging content.
- Be specific with your content
Seems easy enough, right? Unfortunately, many associations can get caught in the trap of trying to entertain too broad of an audience. If your association serves coal miners, those members are following you to hear what’s happening in their community and careers, not in the rest of the world. Remember who your audience is and why they care about the association. Speak the language of your industry and concentrate on what matters to the professionals you serve.
- Lean on current trends as a connection point
Whether creating a viral video with your staff or discussing how digital transformation affects your association in a whitepaper, your member audience wants to know how your association is staying relevant. With some tact, it’s okay to meet your members where they are — whether that is via a mobile application, on social media, at events, or otherwise. Leveraging trends, as long as they’re in line with your mission and values, is a perfectly healthy and effective way to reach members and engage with them.
- Make sure your content is valuable for members
Your content should offer some intrinsic value that enhances their career or life. Whether it’s a “how-to” guide, a checklist or quick tips on a social media post, your content should be framed around the idea of helping your members. If your content doesn’t offer any insights of value, your members will stop watching and reading your content.
- Don’t sell your association
No one likes being sold to. The same goes for your members who are already a part of your association. You can enlist CTAs at the end of your content, but you don’t want to position a hard sell. Instead, present your offer in a casual, helpful tone. If you want your members to engage, create an open and inviting atmosphere. There’s no need to preach to the choir because it will only turn members away.
- Offer members helpful insights that include research, data or survey results
Insights with data or research backing them up are incredibly powerful engagement tools. People like to see evidence or proof. Leveraging insights with numbers is a great way to turn less exciting subject matters into engaging content. Numbers are easily scanned and catch your audience’s eyes. They also make your content come across as more authoritative.
- Try to create “Evergreen” content
“Evergreen” means that the content stays relevant to your audience for an indefinite period of time. Evergreen content fortifies your brand identity. Think of it as the backbone of your content. Creating fresh content that also stands the test of time can be tricky, given the state of the world and the evolution of technology. However, you can angle the narrative of your content in a way that focuses on the long-standing benefits of your association, what it does for the industry and the membership legacy. Evergreen content can fit nicely into your social media strategy as well. Even your social media audience wants to see content that reminds them of the strength of your brand.
If you have an agenda or a particular announcement that you want to get across to your members, try to think like them and consider what they want to watch and read. By considering what your audience wants, you can approach your message more tactfully. There are no guarantees for engagement. However, you can position your association’s content to resonate more robustly by enacting a strategy that takes these tips under advisement.
If your association needs help with a content strategy, or with creating engaging member content, reach out to one of our experts today.
