A majority of today’s media consumption is through a growing variety of social channels online. You know the normal operators including: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – but what about LinkedIn? Let’s look at how a Booster Club Linkedin Profile can help your organization grow.
LinkedIn is absolutely a social media platform, but one instead of focusing on individual users, it is designed for businesseses and organizations. Linkedin is beneficial by allowing businesses to connect with other businesses, employess and potential job candidates. How does this translate to your booster club? Being a (nonprofit) business, your Booster club can benefit by creating its own booster club Linkedin profile to then connect with your local community! While most social media is about increasing your follower count and interaction rate on your profile, Linkedin should be looked at more as a business networking solution for your booster club. Let’s dive into some of the specifics around managing your booster club Linkedin profile!
Top 3 Goals for Booster Club LinkedIn Profiles
Like other social media platforms for businesses, LinkedIn profiles are created in order to increase brand visibility. However the big difference is that with your booster club Linkedin profile, you will want to focus on increasing your local business relationships rather than growing users.
Profile Creation and Connections – the first step!
Social media has proven to to be a key method for increasing brand awareness. At a fundamental level, simply signing up and listing your booster club’s basic information and mission statement allows for another way to find your organization. That being said, you should absolutely make sure that you add as much relevant information to your booster club Linkedin profile as possible including logos, profile images, descriptions, addresses and contact information. The more completed your booster club Linkedin Profile is, the easier it is for someone to connect with your club through Linkedin!
After you set up your booster club profile on Linkedin, the next step is to connect to as many of your current club leadership and supporters that are on Linkedin. These will form your baseline connection list AND once you are connected with your supporters, you will then be able to see their connections and so on. What this does it gives you the opportunity to connect your club with other businesses in your local community through a common connection (your supporters).
Business-Minded Engagement
Connecting with individuals on Linkedin is only a small part of the equation. The real power of LinkedIn is finding and forming relationships at the organizational level. You should approach LinkedIn from the mindset of:
“How can I connect with local business owners in order to help my booster club grow?”
By focusing your energy on connecting with relevant businesses in your area, you will be able to grow your partnerships. As your expand your partnerships this should lead to increased business monetary support, increased visibility of your booster club and overall increased community support.
Remember: finding and connecting with local businesses is the whole reason you are on LinkedIn in the first place. Take the time to research industries in your locality that can realistically contribute to your booster club. This may be financially, through donated skills or just through additional manpower. Simply reaching out to say hello and introduce your club is a great starting point. However, you should also be ready to talk business and how you think you could work together.
For example, the interpersonal connections you create by reaching out to local retailers, can help generate a buzz for your booster club through simple cross promotion. Or, perhaps you get a percent of sales donations ona specific day at the store. Or, perhaps the retailer donates items for a silent auction. The options are really endless with the goals being a positive relationship that grows and feels beneficial to both brands.
Engagement and Profile Views
While posting and engagement are not as critical to your booster club Linkedin profile strategy – they do need to be considered. This becomes more important as your connections grow on LinkedIn. When you partner with LinkedIn connections for events or they donate, making sure they are acknowledged – especially on the platform that connected you is key. A simple “Thank You” post for a donation with the brand on it can go a long way. Plus, don’t forget, just like any social media platform, those businesses can share your “Thank You” post – thus increasing your club’s visibility even more.
Beyond your Linkedin business connections, encourage dedicated members of your club to share your booster club Linkedin profile and any posts you make. These small steps can exponentially multiply engagement with your booster clubs profile and thus your brand visibility.
Managing & Growing Your Booster Club Linkedin Profile
Generally your social media strategies and management would fall under the club manager that handles marketing. However, with your booster club Linkedin profile – you might want to manage it a little differently. Because your LinkedIn focus primarily on building business relationships, it might behoove the president or vice president of your club to manage the booster club LinkedIn profile. The main reason being that these leadership positions generally have more latitude when discussing partnerships and may even have a better understanding of which local businesses to connect with. Regardless of who manages your LinkedIn strategy, they need to make sure that they are regularly connecting with new businesses, staying in contact with current partners, and making sure any necessary updates are posted. At a bare minimum your booster club LinkedIn profile manager should plan on weekly updates and outreach to parters as needed.
While we noted that LinkedIn profile followers are a secondary goal, it should not be completely ignored. Like your core strategy of local business outreach, you want to make sure that as you initiate connections to individuals that they are all local to the community as well. It’s ok if someone outside your local community initiates a connection request, but you want to spend your time initiating any connects to your local community.
10 Tips To Manage Your Booster Club LinkedIn Profile for Attracting Business Connections
As you continue to use LinkedIn you will find different strategies and ways of connecting. To help guide you we put this handy list together as a reminder:
- Establish A Club Profile, Include As Much Pertinent Information As Possible
- Encourage Club Members To Share Your Club’s Profile On Their Own Profile
- Seek Out New Engagement And Club Members
- Make Local Business Connections
- Interact With Profiles That Engage With Your Club In Any Way
- Post Regularly and update your profile as needed
- Streamline Include LinkedIn with your normal update calendar
- Look Good: Eye-catching Visuals Are More Successful
- Treat LinkedIn As Free Advertising
- Create Or Join A Group of Related Profiles
As you can see, it is easy to see how creating a booster club LinkedIn profile can play an important role in growing your booster club. Connecting not only with club members and pre-existing sponsors, but seeking out new members and business partners will increase brand awareness and potentially your club revenue! Like any business, booster clubs rely on social connections. Your booster club LinkedIn profile gives you a new channel that has the chance to pay dividends for years to come!
