According to Social Media Examiner, “92 percent of marketers say that social media is important to their business.” This is a bit of a no-brainer, considering that one third of the world uses social media on a regular basis.
For Tiffany Slitkin Levine, the director of marketing and public relations for Greenwood Athletic and Tennis Club, the benefits of social media are two-fold. “We do it for exposure and we have seen it increase participation in programs and events as well,” she said.
Greenwood chooses what platforms to be on based on where its members and prospects are. Currently, the brand can be found on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest, with plans to join Snapchat in the near future.
Although the importance of having a social media presence is proven, it can still be challenging to determine how best to manage a posting schedule and overarching strategy. At Greenwood, the strategy is overseen by Levine, and individual posts are tackled as a team effort.
“The team approach works best for us so that we can create a variety of posts, engagement and features using different people’s strengths,” explained Levine. “For example, our in-house designers create flyers and posters for the programs and events. They also post those programs and events to Facebook Events, which is becoming a huge platform for people to see what’s going on in the community.”
Greenwood also allows certain personal trainers to post to the club account in order to promote themselves and earn clients. “As social media influencers I give them access to our channel to promote themselves inside our channel using Facebook and Instagram – like a channel takeover,” said Levine.
In addition, Levine explained Greenwood has a designer who is very good at lifestyle photography and video, “so he is using his creative skills to make stories for each of the different departments that are trying to promote their programs and services,” she said. “We recently made a fun story to promote our camp registration.”
Levine’s final tip for taking a team approach to social media management? Create a posting schedule. “We are building a schedule now so that we can really come up with a consistent brand message and push out engaging posts to support that, as well as to support our overall programs,” she said.
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Rachel Zabonick-Chonko is the editor-in-chief of Club Solutions Magazine. She can be reached at rachel@peakemedia.com.
