Social media is ultimately for engaging with people and requires appealing to what people like.
The success rate of social media in engaging with your department members is directly related to your participation in it, and it takes time to cultivate a meaningful relationship.
Have you thought about creating a Membership Highlight campaign for your department? You should.
I get it – your department’s social media presence could be better, but you are focused on other issues like recruitment, training, and staffing. (Don’t forget retention deserves your attention too.) Just understand you can only create a successful social presence once you invest time and resources.
But guess what? it doesn’t require as much time as you think. It only takes a few keystrokes to post something if you know what you want to post. You can knock out a post or two while waiting for a meeting or watching the news in the morning.
Member highlights are easy to incorporate even while you are busy running your department because you should have all the information needed to post.
Membership highlights help introduce new members to your followers and also help drive social media engagement. More importantly, it puts a face to your department, making it more relatable, drives trust and is a great way to let your community know who has stepped up and joined your department.
Did you know that social media posts that show people’s faces drive engagement? Current and past members will often react to new team members’ posts with likes and comments, which boosts your post and helps your content reach new audiences and potential leads.
One of the goals of membership highlights is to build connections between members and gives potential new hires more information about the people they would be working and training with.
From a retention perspective, they are an excellent tool for making members feel appreciated while promoting great department culture.
Here are five Membership Highlight post ideas for volunteer fire and EMS departments and associations to consider using in 2023.
- Congratulate a member for something professional or personal. Yep — the Retention Specific Membership Highlight post. Check out our clients at Gerrittsen Beach Fire Department in New York Facebook posts.
- New member introduction — add a personality to your Membership Highlight post with a quote from your new team member. Why they joined the department, what they look forward to doing, their hobbies, or even a personal motto or favorite quote.
- “Send a Salute” or “Say Hello to” — encourage your followers to engage with the post by welcoming your new members to the team by responding in the comment section or liking the photo.
- National Signing Day — Take a look at how the Evans Center Volunteer Fire Company sets up their station just like high school athletes do on National Signing Day when they announce the college they plan to attend in the Fall.
- It’s Official — Take photos and videos when new members are voted or sworn into your department at a membership meeting and tag people where appropriate.
For your department to remain relevant, it must meet various followers’ needs in multiple forms, which is difficult with audience attention spans shrinking to four seconds.
Finally, no matter what other things you share on social media, always, always, always make the time to respond to people who engage with you. Please don’t put it off. Just like logging in your monthly LOSAP hours, it will slip your mind and you’ve missed an opportunity to engage with your followers.
Pro-Tip: Posts and other ideas don’t take the place of dialogue. You want to schedule posts to ensure you have consistent content and then jump in for chats and respond when you have the time. Engagement is key.
BY WALTER CAMPBELL, RECRUITMENT & RETENTION STRATEGIST
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