Social media is the quickest and easiest way to share online content with your club members and promote the sport of waka ama. The following information provides an overview of relevant social media platforms that your club could utilise.

Social Media

Social media platforms are a way to attract and engage an audience by sharing relevant, interesting and valuable content and community-based input, and encouraging interaction, engagement and collaboration.

A key point to consider is which platforms are relevant to your organisation. If you don’t have resource to manage accounts across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest or even Snapchat / LinkedIn, don’t stress yourself out by feeling like you need to be set up on all of them. Pick a couple that you feel you can put your best effort into, rather than trying to do too many of them half-heartedly. Facebook & Instagram are probably the most commonly used social media platforms.

Consider the following:
  • What social media platforms are relevant to our club?
  • What do we want to achieve by using these social media platforms?
  • How will it benefit our club?
  • Do we have resources/time to be able to manage it?
  • Can we create appropriate content that will add value to my organisation?

Facebook

Facebook is probably the most utilised social media platform and it is likely that a lot of your club members already engage with Facebook. It is the easiest and quickest way to get pānui out, promote events and club activities, post photos and videos, and engage with your club members.

It is recommended that you set up your Facebook page as a business so you can access additional tools within the Facebook Business Manager platform.

Benefits of using Facebook:

  • Easy to access from anywhere and share content in the current moment
  • Easily link to Waka Ama NZ Facebook and Website updates
  • Your updates pop into your followers timelines the second they're posted
  • Photos and videos are easy to upload and are awesome for paddlers and their friends and whānau to tag and download the photos
  • Most paddlers have a Facebook page and can use it very easily. Allows paddlers to directly interact – commenting, sharing photos and web links
  • Facebook is free

Tips for using Facebook:
  • Use your club logo as your profile picture and your cover photo should be something that represents your club e.g. a paddling photo
  • Ensure your bio and description is clear and concise and include keywords to make it easy to find your page
  • It's a good idea to have more than one person listed as an administrator for your Facebook page to avoid access issues if a staff member leaves
  • Post useful content. Plan out what you intend to post on different days of the week
  • Communicate with your team so you are not all posting the same thing at the same time - it's a good idea to allocate the task to someone

Check out our Waka Ama NZ Facebook:

Facebook: Waka Ama NZ

Instagram

Instagram is an excellent tool to use to build your brand/image/personality through followers and hashtags. Instagram is all about visual content and has a younger audience - great platform to engage with rangatahi!

Benefits of using Instagram:

  • Easy to access anywhere and share content in the current moment
  • Fun way to share photos, videos, and all visual content
  • Instagram has a younger audience - great way to engage with rangatahi
  • Instagram is free

Tips for using Instagram:

  • Use your club logo as your profile picture
  • Theme your visual content into colours from your club, this helps with brand awareness
  • Utilise posting on your Instagram story - a quick and easy way to share photos and videos
  • Engage with rangatahi within your club to support - they're experts with Instagram!

Check out our Waka Ama NZ Instagram:

Instagram: Waka Ama NZ

Creating Content

Creating content for your social media platforms isn't as daunting as it sounds! There are so really great content creation platforms out there that are filled with templates - all you need to do is update the words and put in a photo! Canva is a great platform to use - its easy, simple, and has thousands of templates - and it's free!

Tips for creating content:

  • Stick to a colour theme (e.g. club colours) so that you build brand awareness with your content 
  • Don't put too much words and photos into one content piece - simple is always better
  • Be clear and concise with what you are trying to promote and what key info you need included 
  • Utilise free programmes and templates - it'll save you a lot of time!

Canva is a great platform to use - its easy, simple, and has thousands of templates - and it's free!

Canva


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