Members of Soroptimist Clubs in the London Chilterns Region were treated to an informative Social Media Workshop on Sat 25 June delivered by Soroptimist Rachel Weinhold, business owner/Director of GrowTraffic, a digital marketing agency. Rachel is a Member of the SIGBI ( Soroptimist International Great Britain and Ireland) PR and Marketing Team where her expertise is highly valued.
This inspiring online event was organised by SI London Chilterns Region Membership Officer Helen Byrne, highlighting how easy social media is for everyone and how important it is for the future of Soroptimist Clubs.
Those lucky enough to be at the Regional Social Media and Membership Workshop were treated to a tour de force: a fabulous walk through with Rachel of the aims and practicalities of using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linked In and Tik Tok, both to 
attract new members and to promote and develop Club Programme Action.
A summary of the event and resources from the day are below for those who missed it. There is the full video recording, Rachel’s Power Point presentation and a Content Calendar template.
Please click below to see the full video of the event on YouTube (it is 3 hours – but you can pause and watch when you have time) https://youtu.be/UQEYOT-a7N8
Rachel explained that each Social Media platform has its own features and needs to be used appropriately to gain best advantage e.g. Twitter is perfect for campaigning and building your Club’s reputation and connections with councils, MPs and other campaigning organisations, whilst Instagram is where the influencers are, mostly younger women, using image-based posts to reach a wide audience of other women. Linked In is the “professional” platform which can build reputations and connections with working women and organisations. Tik Tok, the new kid on the block, is all about short videos and is where younger people gather to share ideas and stories. With the dramatic rise of Tik Tok and keen to keep their markets, the other main platforms have rapidly added short videos to their range of options and thus the story continues.
Whilst all are useful in their different ways Rachel sees Facebook, for the moment at least, as the most valuable for Soroptimist Clubs, as women of all ages use it and it is a great way to start a conversation and build a community ( Facebook’s raison d’etre). That community can be of supporters sharing ideas and your Club’s activities with their own communities, taking part in fundraising and other Programme Action activities as a result, it could be a community of potential permanent Members for your Club where you show off your values, aims and achievements and attract like minded women, or it could be a community of Soroptimists keen to make a difference but lacking the time to be part of an on the ground club i.e. an E-Club. It might even be aspects of all three at the same time.
Using one Club’s existing Facebook content, Rachel was able to illustrate what makes a good post, the vital importance of hashtags and how to use them to widen the reach of posts and the way to develop conversations by adding open-ended questions and requests in the final wording.
The presentation is available to download here:
Soroptimist Social Media Marketing Workshop
Rachel also showed a Content Calendar for scheduling media activity (social and regular media) which can be downloaded here: Social Media Workshop 2022 Content Calendar Template
The platforms/tools Rachel mentioned in the session were:
- Canva – https://www.canva.com/ – basic graphic design software.
- Trello – https://trello.com/en – project management software.
- UN Women Trello Board – https://trello.com/unwomensocialmedia – chock full of amazing resources for sharing.
- there are also resources available in the Members area of the SIGBI website https://sigbi.org/members/prmarketing/social-media/smtoolkits/
Helen Byrne briefly highlighted her personal and Club responsibility to safeguard Club Members, partners and supporters when using social media and will be sending out a video produced by the SIGBI Safeguarding Officer very soon. This gives simple guidance for everyone on the issues and how to keep yourself and others safe – watch out for the email.
Through from a range of experience and knowledge everyone learned a great deal in an inspiring and enjoyable morning. The session covered not only the nuts and bolts but also how to make Membership work in a world of Social Media and how it changes the way we do and promote our Programme Action. Rachel was able to show that Social Media is easy, you just need to understand the rules, and vital for the future of our Clubs, organisation and the women and girls we support : something that everyone needs to understand and be on board with.
As Estlyn Davies, Membership Officer of SI Slough Windsor & Maidenhead beautifully put it , “ What a wealth of useful information, you have inspired me to have a go: this is the future”.
Rachel has generously offered her expertise if any Clubs have questions and kindly shared all of her content, including a recording of the session, which will be of interest to all members whether they use Social Media or not.
If you have any questions about Social Media or membership feel free to get in touch https://sigbi.org/london-chilterns/contact-us/