Facebook is playing around with a significant Timeline redesign. The new format is being rolled out experimentally and could be live for all members soon. And to cover this change for the parks & recreation community, we turn to Josh Panzer. Josh is the founder of ParksandRecreationSocialMedia.com.
Check out his video guest blog post to learn how your agency should adjust to the pending Facebook change: Continue reading
Recreation professional: we want you. If you are on LinkedIn, we’d love to have you as a member of the “Recreation Management and Technology” group on LinkedIn. Why you may ask? Here are five reasons to join:
1. Get free resources: Members of the group post discussions about recreation tips and trends. If you join the group, you can set up email notifications to receive those updates and view the ones that appeal to you. Continue reading
When a customer registers for a program or books a facility online, what happens? Do you thank them? Do you recommend other similar programs or point them to your Facebook page? Don’t squander this opportunity to turn a new customer into a loyal one.
We covered this idea a few months ago in this article: 3 Critical Web Pages You Are Neglecting. One of the three we covered was the thank you page. To summarize, each web interaction with a customer is a great opportunity for your P&R agency to take the next step. On the thank you page, can you turn that customer into a Facebook fan? Can you point that customer to other similar programs (upsell)? Designing goal-oriented thank you pages should be a part of your marketing strategy. Continue reading
One of our biggest YMCA customers, Greater San Antonio, is migrating from Class® software to ACTIVE Net™. I know, I know. What’s the big deal, right? A customer is switching from one of our software systems to another. Although the move itself may not directly impact you today, it speaks to a much more important trend across the YMCA industry: YMCAs are moving to the cloud. Continue reading
Here’s a quick test to see if you do content marketing: Does your YMCA have a Facebook page that you post to regularly? Does it have a blog? Do you distribute flyers or program guides? If you answered yes to any, you’re officially a content marketer.
But content marketing encompasses so many channels and techniques that it is kind of vague. So let’s take a stab at understanding the goal of content marketing in order to demonstrate it’s importance for your YMCA. Content marketing is done in order to “attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action” (CMI). Translation: you want to increase participation and want more families, members, and participants. In order to attract them, you create marketing materials like articles, flyers, tweets, and brochures so your audience can find you. Continue reading
If you’re reading this article, you probably work in parks and/or recreation. Whether you’re a veteran Director, a brand-new Administrator or anywhere in between, you most likely share one common goal: to serve at your best. And one way to continually better yourself is to keep up with industry trends, tips, and resources by reading (or skimming if need be) relevant blogs.
Here are five blogs that can help you, the parks and recreation pro, stay on top of your craft: Continue reading
“Twitter’s weird,” one of our clients said the other day, and it wasn’t the first time we’ve heard it. Many people love it but others don’t see the benefits or like it very much at all. But however you feel about the little blue bird, your parks and recreation agency can use it to its advantage. With millions of users following accounts they want to receive information from, Twitter offers another way to distribute information to your customers for free.
The following 50 city and county park and recreation agencies use Twitter to connect with customers, answer questions, make announcements, discuss fitness and health, release registration dates and more. As a recreation professional, consider following these accounts as templates for what your agency could tweet about. (The list was compiled base on number of followers, content provided, number of tweets, interactions with followers, recent activity and overall use of Twitter to connect with customers. From there, the list was ordered from most followers to least followers.) Continue reading
In mid-January, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg presented Graph Search as Facebook’s new social search engine. Confusing, I know. To simplify the jargon, Graph Search pulls four things into one searchable place for you: people, places, interests, and photos. With those all available, you can search for and find results like, Friends who like Basketball, Pictures I Liked, and Restaurants near Boston, MA my friends have been to. Play around with the search to learn more.
But that’s not why you’re here! Today, we’re talking to the Facebook page manager who is wondering how to change his or her strategy for the organization’s page. Here are 3 steps to make your organization’s Facebook page stand out in Graph Search: Continue reading
A few weeks ago, city council members, park and recreation professionals, board members and volunteers descended upon Arlington, Texas for the Brand-Aid Marketing and Social Media Conference. And a few ACTIVE people were invited to speak! One of those speakers is our Director of Digital and Social Media, Justin Ramers.
Justin talked about how to measure the impact of social media. See below for the video and slides to the presentation: Continue reading
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