Volunteer Organizations Get the Word Out with Social Media

It was snowy day yesterday in the Denver area. So it wasn’t surprising that various events cancelled.

Among the cancellations was a Toastmasters contest. For those not familiar with Toastmasters, it is an organization that helps people improve their communication and leadership skills.

Being I am the social media chair for the multi-state entity known as a “district” in Toastmasters lingo, I was copied in an email about the rescheduling of this contest to a later date in April and asked to post the changes on our social media sites.

Leaders in volunteer organizations are turning to social media more and more to communicate with their members.

Whether it is LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Meetup and/or other sites, many folks seem to get their news on these sites before they see it in their regular email.

Have you noticed this happening in your volunteer organization? Is social media more popular than email?

Or maybe your organization has yet to embrace the use of social media as a communication tool.

If that is the case, then I suggest that your entity create a volunteer position of social media chair or coordinator. Then further consider having separate volunteers responsible for each of the social media sites that your members tend to frequent.

Have these folks coordinate your entity’s presence on each of these sites. For example, have one person be responsible for Twitter, another for Facebook, another for LinkedIn, etc.

This is a great way to involve the younger members of your volunteer group, as they typically are already on one or more of the social media sites. But don’t limit yourself to the younger folks, as more people of all ages are embracing social media in major ways.

We have taken this approach in the Toastmasters district I serve, and it is working pretty well. Read more about our social media team on page 7 of the current issue of our monthly newsletter: http://d26toastmasters.org/dialogue/apr-2013.pdf

It would be great to hear how your volunteer organizations are using social media to announce events, share tips and provide other useful information to your members.

Joyce Feustel, Founder of Boomers’ Social Media Tutor, helps people relatively new to social media to become more effective and comfortable in their use of this medium.  Find her at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com