Take control of your online presence

Stay standing if you have thought about the online presence of your Neighbourhood House in the past 3 months.

Stay standing if you have a written plan for how your Neighbourhood House uses its online presence (ie website, social media, marketing, etc).

Stay standing if you have reviewed your Neighbourhood House’s online presence in the past 3-6 months and made improvements as a result.

What excites you about the digital world we live in? What challenges you about the digital world we live in? With respect to your Neighbourhood House…

Internet has changed how businesses and organisations interact with participants/learners. People search online before they go to the whitepages or browse through their local paper. Participants/learners are ‘hanging out’ online. People often request recommendations from family and friends via social media. Content marketing has replaced broadcast advertising to the masses in today’s digital world – content should be entertaining, inspiring and/or informative. Promoting and advertising today

Website Your organisation’s website: – Can be found in search engines Optimised: onsite and offsite – Is easy to navigate – Includes up-to-date information – Is responsive (ie can be viewed on all devices including computer, mobile phone, ipad, etc) – Includes appropriate branding (ie Learn Local and Neighbourhood House logos) – Has links to your social media profiles Elements of an effective online presence Website

Social media Your organisation has a social media presence that: – Includes calls to action with links to your website – Is entertaining, inspiring and engaging – Includes pictures Elements of an effective online presence Social media

marketing Your organisation sends out a regular e-newsletter that includes: – Links back to your website with information on how to sign up to courses and activities – Course information Elements of an effective online presence marketing

Website design and development

Put some mojo in your logo

Going nowhere FAST

EPIC FAIL

Use COLOUR strategically

Invest in QUALITY photos

Choose your fonts wisely

Make it a good LANDING every time

Use responsive design

Control your content Use a simple and intuitive CMS.

Top tips to improve SEO The words you use are important. The titles of your pages are important. The links pointing back to your website are important. The words used in those links are important. Your ability to get pages into search engine indices is important Your reputation and credibility matters. Social media matters. Freshness matters.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Twitter Social media marketing

Target marketMarketing tools and tactics Recent arrivals to Australia Build and maintain relationships with the following stakeholders by meeting with them on a regular basis and/or including them on the database and asking them to refer people to the Centre for courses: Community leaders within different cultural communities Local community agencies Referral agencies such as Job Services Agencies and Centrelink. Website Social media E-signatures Brochure Events and open days Community noticeboards Local newspapers.

Identify: – Goals of your Neighbourhood House eg. increase enrolments in short ‘hobby’ courses and English as a Second Language Courses – Target market/s eg. local community members interested in short ‘hobby’ courses on offer, new arrivals to Australia, Job Services Agencies, etc – Where on social media your target market/s are ‘hanging out’ eg. Facebook, Twitter – Content of interest to target market segments eg. Events at your Centre, funny or entertaining memes, participant and learner stories/testimonials – Organisations or businesses who might be interested in mutually beneficial online marketing activities eg. Local community health centres, playgroups, etc Developing a social media strategy

2 objectives on social media: 1. Increase reach Reach refers to the number of people/organisations (Facebook users or Twitter followers) that ‘like’ or ‘follow’ a Neighbourhood House on social media. 2. Increase engagement Engagement describes the extent to which people/organisations ‘like,’ ‘comment’ or ‘share’ content on Facebook, or ‘favourite,’ ’reply’ or ‘retweet’ content on Twitter. Increasing reach and engagement

Use engaging language – Pose ‘closed’ questions and/or short comments (posts with 80 characters or less get the most engagement) Fill in the blank… True or false Thumbs up if you… Can you come up with a caption for this picture? What is your favourite x? Pick A, B, C or D. Facebook

Include Calls To Action in posts. For example ‘Read more here,’ ‘Sign up now,’ etc Run competitions and provide giveaways Run a Facebook Ad for Page Promotion Ask fans for their opinion on a new course (ie crowd source ideas) Include large pictures in posts (504 x 504 px) ‘Tag’ organisations and/or individuals in posts. Facebook

Post with a link to website

Increase reach: Browse the network of your followers and the organisations/people/brands you are following and identify new brands/people to follow Follow people/organisations that are following you Use hashtags – Eg #NeighbourhoodHouses, #adultlearning, #communitydevelopment Use Twitter’s search functions to find new followers: – On Twitter homepage (type in relevant hashtags, names of people, addresses, etc) – Using Twitter Advanced Search (twitter.com/search-advanced) – FollowerWonk Twitter

Increase engagement: Tweets with photos get twice the response. The most retweeted content contains links, pictures, videos and quotes. Retweet the content of your followers and the people you are following (eg Or…. Reply to your followers Ask questions of your followers Use a hashtag when running an event Research – What are competitors or collaborators tweeting about? – What are your followers tweeting about? Twitter

marketing involves sending s to your Neighbourhood House’s target market. Research has proven that is a far more effective way to acquire new learners/participants to your Neighbourhood House than social media - nearly 40 times more than Facebook and Twitter combined. A well-executed marketing campaign can assist to deepen relationships with current and prospective participants/learners and build awareness of your Neighbourhood House. ing marketing

MailChimp is a great software for marketing. Free to use provided no more than 12,000 s are sent within the month to no more than 2,000 people.

Social media and marketing are just one of many marketing tools and tactics. Other marketing tactics including face-to-face relationship building still matter and are not replaced by social media. What about offline marketing?

What’s one thing you like about your organisation’s online presence? What’s one thing they could improve about their organisation’s online presence? Your organisation’s online presence