Your members are the only reason why your membership website is around, so getting and keeping your members genuinely engaged in the organization is critical for your survival. While building a strong online community is increasingly important, it is only a small part of the engagement equation for your membership site. Here are three ways that you can build engagement with the members of your site.
Through Your Website
Your website is where your members head for the information and insight that they are paying you for. It is where they can participate in your online community and where they can register for events, manage their membership profile, and renew their memberships. You want to find a way to build relationships and encourage your members to take action with every single website visit to ensure that you are providing tangible value to your members.
Enable Two-Way Communication Through Online Communities
To engage with members on your website, you first have to start by offering fresh, useful content that is targeted to your members. To keep them engaged and participating will involve you alerting them to fresh content and enabling two-way communications. You can keep your members informed of new material by including information in other channels, like posting updates in your newsletter, or any other publications that you create and send out to your members.
You also need to enable two-way communication opportunities by opening channels so that members can communicate with you and your leadership team. You can do this through online forums, online surveys, or through various social media platforms.
Engage Members Through Social Media
The engagement of your members often refers to how they are engaging online regarding website visits, page views, and social media mentions. While social media participation is only part of the engagement equation, it has become increasingly crucial to enabling and promoting two-way social media engagement with members. Your social media strategy needs to be determined based on your particular goals. Photos and videos have become key social currencies online and are instrumental in drawing more members to your website where you can engage and demonstrate the value of your site.
Once you've created the framework and establish routines for identifying and further developing fresh content for your site, you can build on this foundation over time to retain your existing members and attract new members to your site.