For decades the YMCA has been at the forefront of communities across the country. Over time they have built strong member communities within each of the geographic regions in which they are located. Local members join the Y because the Y has a lot to offer in the areas of Youth Development, Healthy Living, and Social Responsibility. Once members join, they quickly realize that not only do they benefit from all of the great programs, but that they are now part of a member community. Members interact with one another, as well as, with the Y Staff. Everyone feels at home at their local YMCA and that’s why members usually renew year after year.
The Y has done a tremendous job in creating that sense of community within their members. Now, with the rise of online communities and social networking, YMCAs across the country are beginning to build an online community; an online community that’s just as valuable as the member community they’ve been able to build over the years. In this blog post we are going to walk through the steps that the Y is taking to build & grow their online community. A local YMCA is actually a Catalyst client, so we are going to use them as an example of how YMCAs across the country are using online tools to build & grow an online community.
Discovery & Planning
The first thing that the Y did to start the process of building an online community was a little research on their target audience and the online tools that those folks were spending their time on. The Y wanted to connect with both Y members & non-members from the local community. It was concluded that their target audience was spending most of their time on Facebook, Twitter, & Foursquare. Those are the primary online tools that the Y is now using to communicate with their target audience.
The next step was to create a Strategic Online Marketing Plan to serve as a guide to what the Y wanted to accomplish and how they would go about doing so. When you create a Marketing Plan it should layout your goals, strategies, and tactics. Each tactic should include performance measures. The Y was sure to set performance measures for each tactic so that on a quarterly basis reports can be analyzed and compared to the performance measures. This allows the Y to know how each tactic is performing based on their goals. Once the Online Marketing Plan is finalized it’s time to start building your “Social Media Foundation”.
Build the Foundation
Before kitchen cabinets can be installed in your new house a foundation must be poured, framing must take place, etc. The same principles hold true when building out your social media profiles for the first time. The Y began creating online content through their new blog. The blog articles are a big part of the value that the Y is creating online. The articles help inform both members and non-members what’s going on at the Y. Simultaneously the Y began creating their Facebook Page, developing their Twitter Account, claiming their foursquare venue, and building their custom Ning. These Social Media tools act as channels for spreading the blog articles to the growing Y community online, as well as, vehicles that allow the Y to interact in real-time online with their community.
Before jumping in feet first with these online tools, the Y took time to determine what tools made sense for their business, created a plan for using those tools, set performance measures against their online activities, and then put time into building out their profile & creating content for each online tool. The Y did not simply start tweeting from the day they decided to start building an online community – this would have been the wrong approach; an approach that too many business owners take.
Refine your Plan based on Data & Analysis
A big part of using online tools to build & grow an online community, with the ultimate goal of turning online connections into customers (or in this case YMCA members), is analyzing data & refining your plan based on the results. Each quarter the Y goes through all of the online reports that they’ve collected, mainly through tools like foursquare Stats, Google Analytics, Facebook Stats, etc. The Y analyzes the data based on the performance measures that they previously setup in their Online Marketing Plan.
Tactics that are outperforming expectations are ratcheted up & the Y determines how to take them to the next level. For tactics that are under performing the Y either figures out how to improve on the tactic & then re-evaluates the following quarter, OR scraps the tactic if it’s been under performing for too long. By taking time to review data & analyze how tactics are performing on a quarterly basis the Y is able to continually hone their online marketing efforts. As a direct result of this process the community usually gets a boost as well, as the Y is always improving on the value that they deliver based on this quarterly analysis.
Develop Creative Online Marketing Tactics
Over time the Y is able to move further and further into more creative tactics. In the beginning stages of building an online community a lot of work has to be put into planning & building the foundation. After the Y was able to get their online community off the ground, they were then able to start really taking advantage of the online tools by developing creative marketing tactics that get their community members engaged & offer them valuable information & prizes.
Recently the Y ran a Facebook Trivia Contest. Each day a new Y trivia question was posted on Facebook. Multiple answer choices were provided. The community members who answered the question correctly would be entered into a drawing for free Y swag. All participants over the month long competition were entered into a final drawing with the grand prize winner receiving a free 3 month membership to the Y, as well as, a free one-day pass to participate in ANY Aquatics program. The Y is also considering running ReTweet Contests on Twitter, and even a few foursquare promotions in the near future.
Results
The results so far from all of the effort detailed above has been the successful creation of a new online community for the local Y. The community continues to grow and become more and more engaged in the online activities of the Y. The Y is benefiting tremendously from the increased awareness of their services, through feedback that they are receiving from their online community, and from an increase in memberships & program participation. It’s still very early on in the online community building process for the Y that we work with, but the initial results are very telling. YMCAs across the country are beginning to get on board with building their own online community. For anyone working in the Marketing Department at a YMCA who wants to start building their Online Community, feel free to contact Catalyst to get any questions answered or setup time to talk about your needs.
Tags: Online Community, Social Media, YMCA
Times have changed so much so fast. It is amazing how you can participate in online marketing/advertising to grow you small business. Social Marketing is the new wave and I hope everyone can see the light
Rich – Thanks for taking time to leave a comment. I really appreciate it! I couldn’t agree with you more and I think your comment will help reinforce just how powerful Social Media Marketing is for small business owners.
Thank you!
@RyanTaft (Twitter)
Very timely discussion regarding intentional discovery how to implement a productive social media strategy. Are there local examples that now can be cited for applying best practices?