We get it. As an association professional, you’re focused on the critical objective of driving membership engagement to retain current members and attract new ones. Your members’ expectations for communication and content are high and getting higher in our increasingly connected world.
So, how do you deliver on your members’ need for content that adds a ton of value and feels totally authentic and personal? Here are eight simple ideas to leverage the power of user-generated content to achieve your member acquisition and retention goals.
Want more? Download our FREE Member Engagement guidebook, which includes both written and video content, to learn how real association professionals are using video to drive year-round engagement.
People join associations to connect with, learn from, and network with real people. Consider creating welcome videos to share with new members when they join for a more human welcome than you could achieve with text.
Ask leaders, staff, and volunteers across your organization to create user-generated video content to help new members understand who is working behind the scenes to give them a great experience. Include tips to help members make the most of their membership.
Your members want to network and make real connections with one another to further their professional development, secure new job opportunities, and build community. Don’t make your members wait for an event to start getting to know each other.
Encourage members to introduce themselves with user-generated videos that you can share on your website, in email, and more. With Gather Voices’ Video Relationship Management software, you can give members talking points and thought-starters to help them make a great first impression.
Your members are a wealth of information about your industry. And chances are good that the knowledge they have is the value-added content that your association needs to drive engagement.
Ask your members to weigh in on specific, high-interest topics with user-generated video content. Then, add their video insights into your website content, blog updates, email outreach, and social media posts. You’ll get a ton of valuable content and reward your members for sharing their knowledge with the community.
If you already have a Higher Logic Member Community, you know that creating a space where your members can communicate and connect with one another is critical. Let members “put a name with a face” with the Community Voices plug-in, which adds video messaging capabilities into your existing member community.
While text conversations will always be a big component of your forums, the Community Voices plug-in gives your members the opportunity to share emotion and tone more easily with video.
Committees within your association give members the opportunity to connect with others, get professional experience, and make an impact. But encouraging committee sign-ups from your website can be tricky when you’re only using words. If you say too much, members probably won’t read it all. And, if you say too little, it can be hard to communicate the value.
That’s where video comes in. User-generated video content from current committee members or leaders is an engaging way to educate members on the purpose of the committee and what they’re working on. See how the ‘Video Gathering Association’ (our educational website) is doing it.
Your member community and association staff are full of people who are doing great work. Whether you want to highlight the work your staff is doing to promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts, or showcase a member who released a new book that’s relevant to your industry, spotlight videos are highly engaging.
Ask members and staff to submit user-generated video nominations for upcoming Spotlight Videos, and then share the achievements of community members across your communication channels.
Feedback is so important. And, being able to see your members’ faces and hear their tone of voice as they deliver that feedback will help you better understand the key points they are trying to make.
Set up a page on your website where your members can provide feedback, suggestions, and ideas. You can use Gather Voices’ video software solution to request user-generated video feedback. Remember to share the voices of your members when you talk about new initiatives you’re introducing or improvements you’re making to current processes based on the feedback you received.
Continuing education is a critical component of many trade associations’ strategies for adding value and driving engagement. And, incorporating video into your course landing pages can help you boost attendance. In fact, Forbes says that embedding video into a landing page can increase conversion by 80%!
Ask your educators to create user-generated video content to give your members a preview of what they can expect from the continuing education program, and then incorporate the video on the course’s landing page and across your promotional channels for the event. Here’s how the Nonprofit Technology Network did it.
Want more? Download our FREE Member Engagement guidebook, which includes both written and video content, to learn how real association professionals are using video to drive year-round engagement.
At Gather Voices, we believe that video is too important to be hard. Our Video Relationship Management software solution makes collecting, managing, and publishing videos easier so that you can create more engagement and drive results.
Our software makes it simple to incorporate user-generated video content into your campaigns. No more waiting for footage or spending weeks in post-production. Each video you gather is uploaded instantly to your Gather Voices library, where you can edit, caption, and publish with a few simple clicks.
You can learn more about how organizations like yours are meeting their goals with Gather Voices by reviewing our case studies and requesting a demo today.
