Become a More Trusted Resource for Members Through Empathetic Marketing

Your association’s membership marketing efforts have likely taken on a more empathetic tone since the beginning of the pandemic. But, have you extended a strategy of empathetic marketing to your social media?

Before the pandemic, people paid much less attention to organizations and brands than to their family and friends’ posts. While social media platforms are still used mostly for personal connections, your association can nevertheless earn a regular spot on members’ news feeds by being a resource that educates, inspires or entertains them. 

The key ingredient to becoming a top resource is trust — and the way your association earns trust is to show plenty of empathy through your social media content. Carlos Gil, founder of Gil Media Company, advises incorporating plenty of inclusivity and grace in your social media activity.

What does empathy look like in action?

Empathetic marketing goes beyond kind words. Here are some ideas to organically weave more empathy into your social media marketing.

Host demos or events that members can enjoy at home: In the early stages of the pandemic, hotels and restaurants went out of their way to help customers re-create experiences at home. People learned how to make copycat Egg McMuffins at home. Hair stylists taught clients and social media followers how to maintain hair at home. What could your association post or broadcast via social media that would help members carry on at home?

Offer benefits you’ve never considered before: Many associations removed fees from educational content to help members and professionals continue their learning, even if they’d lost their job or couldn’t attend a class in person. ASAE, for example, made its 2020 virtual conference free for all members.

Create moments, not marketing: Famous “challenges” such as the Ice Bucket Challenge are sometimes marketing campaigns with specific fundraising goals. Sometimes they’re just for fun, such as the Center of Gravity Challenge, but they still make participants feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves. If your content is educating, inspiring or entertaining, it’s worth posting.

Community, not content, is king: Posting content for the sake of posting, without people engaging with it, is like talking to yourself. You should aim to host a conversation between your association and your community. Spend more time conversing than posting content. Find what kind of content works for you by examining your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn feed. See what people are responding to most. Go back to older comments and check in with those people. Ask them how they’re doing. Ask how your association can help them. Be there for your community!

Do the “things” everyday users do: Engage in conversation that’s unrelated to your brand, yet relevant to your audience. Netflix does a great job adding snark and personality to their brand by sparking conversations among their followers that aren’t necessarily related to movies or TV shows. More recently, the “Kitten Zoom” incident has given everyone a laugh while inspiring a check-in on their individual video conference practices – because that kind of innocent mishap could happen to anyone. Putting your own spin on current events like this can maintain your relevance if things are slow at your association. Look to your favourite brands and ask yourself, “What drives me to follow them?” Do they entertain? Inspire? Educate? How could your association emulate their posts while staying on brand?

Tap into Zoom culture: Social media can be noisy. To stand out and cultivate a warmer persona, consider hosting a weekly video conference chat. Most marketing professionals are on video platforms on a regular basis, so they’re used to the mechanics of it. Make their video meeting schedule more interesting by sponsoring a weekly Facebook or Instagram live session with an industry influencer or celebrity. That influencer could be your CEO, a well-known name within your industry, or simply someone with a knack for connecting with people. A variation of this tactic is to invite super members or subgroups of members – such as young professionals or C-Suite members – to a dedicated Slack channel or online community board for guided discussion. The goal is to make logging on to social media for professional reasons more fun.

Leverage your staff and members to encourage more empathy

If you’re struggling with empathetic outreach on social media, consider tapping your more connected, social media-savvy employees and members to advocate for your association online. They know and like your brand. Encourage these storytellers to talk your association up within their social media circles. Develop an advocacy strategy by organizational team or member category. Highly engaged members can help recruit new members. Existing volunteers can get others excited about volunteering as well. What other association subcultures could you target for
social media-based advocacy?

Find a vendor that enables your storytellers to share content you upload to a common hub. Train your storytellers to talk in your brand’s voice. Give them guidelines for what’s okay to say and what is too much. Provide them with plenty of info to share about your association, such as event photos as well as more mundane (but still important) details, such as dates and times of meetings.

Tap into user-generated content, too. It is often a badge of honour, and a show of appreciation, for a brand to repost its fans’ graphics, videos and other digital creations. Then, share your social media metrics with them to let them see their impact on your association’s reach. Keep them excited about the difference they’re making for your association.

Social media shortcuts to avoid

Keep in mind that in this new normal, fans can make or break your marketing. And some fans will try to troll your association just to see what happens. Be careful if you’re automating responses. This is not a time to rely wholly on automation or cut corners. Pull your audience in with dedicated resources and custom, human-powered responses. Reply to all mentions in an appropriate way. Make the time for one-on-one dialogues in direct messages and on your feeds, while engaging non-brand mentions. Know who your top fans are and thank them. (It’s always a good idea to thank people, often!)

Building a strong social media community centered around your association takes effort and a lot of empathy. With a plan and the tactics mentioned above, your association can strengthen membership bonds and increase the perceived value of membership through social media.