Here is some information to help your Club set up a Social Media Strategy

There are many benefits of using social media. Social media can be defined as “websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking”

Here are some questions you should answer before you start:

• Why do you want to use social media
  
• What do you want to achieve from it
  
• Who are you targeting
  

Your website should be constantly updated. This is a great place to share success stories, donation news, the volunteer of the month, and more.

Creating your own site doesn’t require the work of an expensive web designer. You can have one up and running using a number of different content management systems such as Wordpress, Squarespace, or Google Sites.

Web design ideas - http://www.nptechforgood.com/2011/10/31/11-website-design-best-practices-for-nonprofits/

See this case study from Sport New Zealand for more information:  Waka Ama NZ as a case study for Strong Organisations (Communication and Marketing)

There are a number of benefits of a Facebook Page (not group or individual person), such as:

• Easy to access from anywhere, with multiple people running the page 
  
• Easily link Waka Ama Facebook and Website updates
  
• Your updates pop into your followers timelines the second they're posted
  
• Easy to update from races and events
  
• 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
  
• The Facebook page can be moderated
  
• Allows paddlers to directly interact – commenting, sharing photos and web links
  
• Large paddling community on Facebook
  
• Facebook is free and always will be
  
• Can link to other social media sites such as YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter etc.
  

Click here to set-up a Facebook Page – please note you will need to sign in with your personal Facebook.

Here is a quick overview of Twitter, how to use it and the Story of a Tweet

There are many, many benefits and reasons why Waka Ama Clubs should be using Twitter. Here are ten of them:

1. Spread news and updates in real-time
   
2. Promote sponsors
   
3. Reach new paddlers that may have never visited your website or Facebook Page
   
4. Increased traffic back to your website or Facebook page
   
5. Spectator engagement at events
   
6. Excellent and extremely inexpensive marketing
   
7. Can be managed by anyone with a log in
   
8. Live tweets @ regattas – keep friends, family and paddlers all over the world in the loop
   
9. Find members and use HASHTAGS #wakaama #yourclubname
   
10. Retweet members tweets
    

Waka Ama New Zealand YouTube Page

Some helpful tips and tricks

There are so many different platforms for Social Media. Once you have evaluated your Clubs objectives, then you can align yourself with the best forms that suit your needs.

Make sure your social networking pages always feature lots of opportunities to get involved. 

Facebook

• People share videos 12 times more than links and text posts combined.
  
• People "like" photos two times more than text updates.
  
• Photos and videos drive the most engagement on Facebook's top 10 brand pages.
  

YouTube

• Users share 700 YouTube videos on Twitter each minute.
  
• 100 million users take a social action on videos every week.
  

Useful Links

Top 15 Social Media Sites - http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-networking-websites

Recruiting Volunteers through social media - http://socialmediaweek.org/rotterdam/events/recruit-members-volunteers-for-your-sports-club-through-social/

Social media guidelines - http://www.sportandrecreation.org.uk/sites/sportandrecreation.org.uk/files/Social%20Media%20Guidelines.pdf

Tips to starting networking (for Non-Profit organisations) - http://nonprofit.about.com/od/socialmedia/tp/Tipsstartsocialnetworking.htm