Gaining members, attendance, and buzz through social engagementHow ATD Puget Sound chapter filled an annual conference and posted its way into Chapter of The Month for November 2018.

The problemCompany

The Association for Talent Development servs and empowers corporate training professionals in over 300 chapters worldwide.

Context

The Puget Sound region:

● Highly professional hub with several competing networking groups.

● Thought leaders in the L&D field with high communication potential.

Problem statement

There was a lack of engagement between ATDPS and its members/thought leaders in online communication.

Challenges deep-dive

Challenge 1

Expanding social

While ATDPS had social media accounts, the primary online engagement was through email, which people may not always read.

Challenge 2

Bolstering attendance

People need better awareness of our chapter offerings to overcome obstacles such as busy schedules and the notorious rush hour commute.

Challenge 3

Increasing memberships

The ultimate goal of any community is to intelligently grow itself in a way that improves the network.

Solution

1. Connect the many great offerings from ATDPS to the audience of members and guests who need to know about them.

2. Connect the audience of members and guests to prominent thought leaders in the fields of marketing. L&D, and research (and

vice-versa)

Implementation

May 14

Onboarding Social Media board volunteer

May-June

Volunteer organizes software stack, Bitly, etc)

June-July

Introduce area interest groups, engage periodically.

Aug-Oct

#WLC18 hype campaign

Oct-Dec

Sustain increased growth and pave the way for new volunteer.

WLC18 - Strategy

1. Use outside speakers and sponsors to drive up engagement.

2. Utilize facilitator info to generate buzz.3. Like and Retweet active online

members in our community.4. Have fun!

WLC18 - Outside Speakers

Guest speakers with strong social influence, like @djgeoffe, can help drive up impressions to levels never before seen by the chapter.

WLC18 - SponsorsNot only is calling out sponsors a “value add” for them, it can help you engage with employees across organizations, which in turn may help boost attendance numbers.

This post has twice the engagement per view rate (6%) compared to the @djgeoffe post.

WLC18 - Facilitators

Our facilitators make up the backbone of our chapter’s mission. It is crucial that we acknowledge member contributions during this campaign. Despite the low engagement, likes and retweets were pretty high.

WLC18-Twitter Insights

Sept 6 - Oct 5 2017 2018 % variation

Impressions 1,200 13,100 1092% increase

Engagement* 31 301 971% increase

Link Clicks 4 29 725% increase

*Engagement raw number derived from engagement percentages multiplied by total impressions.

WLC18 - LinkedInStrategic posting from LinkedIn led to a surge of unique visitors into the company LinkedIn page.

● Top down announcements on Page, keep few and formal, don’t “shoot from the hip”.

● Utilize the group chat for exchanging advice!

WLC18 - Instagram

When Clifton first logged into ATDPS instagram, there were about 12 followers. Currently, there are now 50.

● Followers are often members and stakeholders.

● Terrific community engagement tool.

● In person experiences do better than graphics/generic announcements.

Advice, going forward

● Utilize Hootsuite or CoSchedule to schedules posts in advance, especially during peak periods like #WLC18

Your Three Exs

● Use Twitter to experiment● Use Instagram to share experiences● Use LinkedIn to convey expertise

Questions or comments:

socialmedia@atdpugetsound.org

Or

clifton.burriss@gmail.com

Thanks!