Why & How You Should Invest In Content ‘Branding’ If You Run A Student Organization
5 min read
I've ran a school organization using these principles and from member retention to org donations, results sky rocketed. But the key variable to keep in place is patience.
Branding yourself online as much as you focus on branding yourself offline has never been more crucial to your members (in 2016) – not to mention your audience are college students and as a collective spend 1/3 of their day on mobile devices and 50% of that time on social media. If you have not even considered spending an hour every day creating valuable and relative content to your followers you are not putting yourself in the best position to win. It is money, or in this case member retention, being left on the table!
The best part – never in the history of business has it been more easier to scale one to one relationships all because of the internet aka Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat.
Let me explain what I mean by content then go into practical ways you can get started if you choose to.
Content is stuff you push out tailored for your best fit target audience. It is not asking anything from them that suits your best vested interest aka “Come to our event/meeting/ etc.” or “Donate to our..” but rather… gives value. People are on their phones to engage content not be bombarded with event flyers. Now, of course you must ask (not take) and promote but its best only at the right time. The amount of ‘asking’ content vs ‘value-giving’ content that I get is far disproportionate than what It should be. Don’t try to close on the first move and establish an online brand with a following first. Try the 80/20 rule. 80% of value-giving content and 20% promotional material.
Now, lets get practical: (I’ll assume you have a good grasp of who your target audience is)
1. Attention
Where’s the attention (eyeballs & ears) of your audience? Facebook, Instagram. and Snapchat – the bread and butter. Just go google why I advocate these platforms, but know that these are the main platforms that you need to push your content out. I would even advocate email newsletters are just as good as the flyers you see on the ground – overlooked and and not where the attention is, but that tactic is your call (When I ran my student org, I dropped email newsletters and went all in on social event promoting).
2. Figure Out Your Audience
With your target audience, study and completely immerse yourself in their ecosystem and figure out what makes them tick. What are current needs and wants? What problems can your content solve?
Here are some ideas:
- Inspirational/motivation stories and Quotes placed on visually aesthetic graphics.
- The “Lazy student’s guide to ‘Gourmet’ Dinner on an budget”
- Best places around [college] for recent grads
- Top places we love to eat around campus & Reviews
3. Document Your Org
Push out content around your organization as well such as:
- Day in the Life of Film clips and
- Montages of events
- Member photos and be creative with them (making memes)
- Member biographies
4. Be Patient
Post often and consistently. Build an editorial calendar (google how) and be committed to that schedule. Consistency is key. Create content like this over and over again with that specific target audience. Again, start light and hit them with value giving micro content and over time your brand will build a relationship with that audience and only then are you in the best position and have the audacity to ASK them to come to your events
Value first, sell second.
Please, think about your online presence as much as your offline presence and give back without expectations and you will set yourself up to win in the long term.
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