The social media virus: Creating viral content

Want to make your social media content go viral? The secret is to get contagious!

“Viral” has definitely become a bit of a buzz word lately, but that doesn’t mean it should be dismissed as just a passing fad.

What people tend to be referring to nowadays when they talk about something going “viral” isn't necessarily covid19, but a piece of social media content that is seen by millions of people around the world. It’s the kind of content that gets talked about at your workplace or at the dinner table and usually ends up on breakfast TV. Usually it has something to do with cats or a crazy dance craze, Gangnam Style anyone?

But understanding the elements of good viral content, and realistically adjusting your expectations of what it can do for your social media marketing and public image plan, you can actually employ it with a degree of success.

“Viral” is content that’s designed to be shared — content that an audience will want to distribute among its own audience. People are also more likely to share something if they have a strong, positive emotional response to it.

It’s perfectly natural that we should approach our social media marketing with an eye toward the sharing of content, how else do we expect people to know about our next Bunnings barbecue?

The main objective for your Facebook page be it a business or a community group should simply be to create content that is regularly shared by other people. End of story. And this is probably the most important element of good viral material. To be successful, you really have to create your own content. It needs to be personal and it needs to reflect you and your organisation or business and what you do in the community. Showcase your own employees or club members and how you are still relevant.

Very few people have ever had viral success by simply sharing other people’s material.

So experiment. See what works and what doesn’t. Make some adjustments and tweak a few things. And be prepared to fail. Some things will be successful, other things won’t be, but if you follow a sort of viral best-practice approach, you will ultimately be building towards a larger audience reach, which will hopefully lead to direct enquiries about membership of your club.

By approaching your viral content with more reasonable expectations and implementing the elements listed above, you’ll have a much better chance of achieving meaningful, more consistent success in the long run.

So focus on creating shareable content, not winning the viral “lottery”.

Article by Evan Burrell

The Times They Are a-Changing!

I have always loved and been inspired by those certain kinds of people who were willing to stand up and make a difference, to do some good in the world, to be the Changemakers in a society where it’s all too easy to remain in our comfort zones and not question the way it has always been.

Through personal experience I’ve found that being someone who champions change and has a message that isn’t always easy for others to hear, is a challenge, I take on with gusto. 

I am someone who is out to do some good and make real lasting change. I am a Changemaker, and to be one requires the willingness to take a leap of faith and stand out from the crowd. It has made me an easy target for those who would prefer to stubbornly stick to the status quo. Yet there is nothing more important than seizing the opportunity to become the change you wish to see in the world and dedicating yourself to that cause in whatever endeavour you undertake. 

I used to have terrible anxiety about how little of an impact I felt I’d really been making in my life and to the lives of others. Some days I felt left behind, overlooked, impatient, and stressed out. Like I’d never get to where I wanted to be, that initiating change was hard and the path of change for an organisation was too slow. 

If you are feeling that way yourself, remember: It’s not a race, there’s nothing to “catch up” to. Making lasting change is, truly playing the long game. 

Being a Changemaker is more than just simply doing good and hoping the change happens. It takes courage to see and do things differently from the status quo and giving yourself permission to do something about it plus the courage to try an alternate strategy. By actively tackling a problem, a changemaker demonstrates they are motivated to act. It is not enough to have good intentions to do something good, intentions must be translated into action, we are all people of action right?. 

A Changemaker is someone who keeps trying until they have made a difference. Someone who has the freedom, confidence, perseverance and skills to turn challenges into solutions. 

In the end, being a Changemaker means being someone who’s able to inspire others, being able to adapt to the challenges around you and being able to become the change you want to see happen. I have undertaken an effort to implement positive change while setting a new direction for myself. I am a Changemaker. 

I hope you will join me on the journey and become a Changemaker too. 

“If no one tries to change things, things simply are never going to change.”

Article by Evan Burrell

New Year – New You

With the new financial year already on our doorstep, I am hopeful that you and your community organisation will continue connecting with the world and making a difference!.

To do this, we need to make sure our social media accounts and websites are reflective of the changes a new financial year brings and there’s no better time than now to do a refresh.

Here are some tips to give your website and Facebook page a fresh feel:

1. Clean Up: Update your Facebook profile picture and remove or update outdated content on your website. (Make sure your contact details are correct too!)

2. Introductions: On your website and Facebook page, post a photograph of your new club president and add their bio and perhaps their goals for the year. You can also introduce your club board over the next few weeks. This way people can get a feeling for your club and find out a little bit about your members and the club leadership.

3. Perfect pictures: Bring in fresh images. New visuals and pictures make such a big difference in making over your website and Facebook page. Adding a few new images is the easiest way to give you a fresh New Year look.

4. Do it differently: This year, perhaps think about filming some fun video segments of you and your organisation in action and posting them to Facebook or even YouTube. A change is better than a holiday and thinking of new ways to connect with your audience with different types of content will help you immensely. 

5. Pay for it: This New Year, experiment with paid promoted posts and regular advertising on Facebook. Facebook advertising has changed a lot and you have lots of different options. So, try different types of advertising to help build more likes and engagement as well as sending visitors to your Facebook page who click on your paid ads. This could be a new strategy for reaching potential new members, clients.

Article by Evan Burrell

Answers to the Algorithm

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, announced that Facebook would be changing its newsfeed algorithm to prioritise more content from “friends, family and groups” for you to scroll through. That’s the good news.

The bad news is you’ll see less public content, like posts from businesses, brands and news media. So how can that be bad news, you ask? Well, it may be harder for people to see what gets posted on your organisation or or community groups Facebook page.

With this new tweak to the Facebook algorithm, it will mean that content that generally gets or inspires more conversation or interactions between people will get more distribution on your newsfeed, and content that does not will get less distribution.

There are certainly still ways for you to work with the new algorithm and continue reaching your customers, members or people wanting to make a donation to your causes through “meaningful interactions”. And what are “meaningful interactions”? Well, it means comments, comments and more comments, plus a few likes and shares thrown in for good measure.

Basically, continue to post engaging, quality content, and focus on sparking conversations between your Facebook fans in the comments section. Think about including questions in your posts – something like, “How much impact has helping others had in your life?” Or write about timely, relevant topics that people who follow your page are sure to have an opinion on that can prompt comments.

The point is, people scrolling through Facebook will be more likely to see your Facebook posts if their friends and family are commenting on it, liking it or sharing it across their own Facebook networks.

Really, though, there’s no reason to fear these new algorithm changes if you are already dedicated to posting valuable, quality content for your Facebook fans to enjoy!

Article by Evan Burrell

Be Brand Aware

Have you ever noticed that some business focus less on selling their product or service, and more on building a positive awareness and perception of who and what they are? This is known as brand awareness, and it is an immensely powerful marketing tool. Why? Because people who are ready to perhaps make a purchase or even a donation, they will inevitably turn to the brand that readily comes to mind first.

What Is Brand Awareness?

Brand awareness refers someone’s ability to identify familiar aspects of a business/organisation. This may mean recalling a slogan e.g “Service Above Self” or recognizing a logo like the Rotary wheel or remembering a marketing message like Rotarians are “People of Action”. But the brand is not just the logo, its who we are as an organisation and who we are as individual Rotarians and what we do and how we do it. That is the brand of Rotary! And this is extremely important because with proper brand awareness it means we can build upon the feelings and beliefs people have about us, and then use that to reinforce the positive image of Rotary to reach an audience of potential new members. When these prospective new members are driving down the road and see our logo on a street sign or see us out in the community working on a local project, they will instantly connect that with Rotary, and if they do then we have achieved strong brand awareness.

Brand awareness is critical to the success of our clubs and Rotary in general. When people are aware of our brand and our logo, we will “sell” more. People are more likely to donate to our causes, buy a sizzling sausage from us or even click on our club websites or give a “like” to one of our social media posts from a brand they are aware of.

Building brand awareness does not happen overnight though, you need to have the right marketing tools. Thankfully on rotary.org under brand centre tab you can find a lot of marketing materials to help you on your way. It has the correct logos, banner templates, 30sec video clips on Rotary and so much more. These materials are easy to use and easy to recognise to the general public and they are all uniquely ours.

Once you have your marketing tools in place, start marketing across multiple channels, and create a consistent message across them all. Choose platforms with the potential to reach a lot of people, eg social media or community newspapers.

As people develop shorter and shorter attention spans, building brand awareness around Rotary is going to become even more important to the success of your club.

Article by Evan Burrell

The world is your canvas with CANVA

Would you like to create your own graphic designs for free? Maybe you have the idea in your head, but you can’t work out how to turn it into a graphic reality? A new website that can help you is Canva.

So, what is Canva? Well, Canva is a homegrown Aussie website that allows users to choose from hundreds of professionally designed layouts and templates for use in designing such things as PowerPoint presentations, event posters/flyers, infographics, brochures, social media graphics, business cards and much, much more. With Canva, you can even create your own designs from scratch.

Canva’s website also offers a number of awesome free tutorials. In fact, that’s where everyone should start. These tutorials will help you understand how to use the tool and introduce you to some basic design techniques and concepts.

So, how can I use it for Rotary and my club?

The short answer is: you will be using it every day if you wish to stand out from the crowd.

Perhaps you have a fundraising or other club event coming up, and you have been tasked to come up with a flashy design for the promotional poster or invitation. Well, with Canva, you can navigate to a predesigned A4 poster template and replace the template text with your own, and then upload one of thousands of free inbuilt stock images to help add something dynamic to your creation.

Once you get started, you’ll find that you have so many options for backgrounds, textures, images, frames, text and other elements to create high-impact graphics and marketing materials that strengthen not only the professional look of your club’s promotional material, but also your club’s social media content. Having professional-looking graphic content is certainly better than just posting some random image on your club’s Facebook page that might or might not mean anything to anyone.

Canva is great for the amateur, or even professional, who just wants to develop their design skills and use them for Rotary or at home, work, or even just for fun.

It’s the tool that makes it possible to design anything, anywhere.

Article by Evan Burrell

Be Aware Of What You Share

Social media has had a significant impact on the way we all interact with one another, it has given us the power to connect with people from around the world and do a lot of good. But we can sometimes often forget that what we post on social media could been seen by a fair few people who could be up to no good.

Here is a list of things you should never, ever share on social media

1. The Details of Your Upcoming Holiday

Nothing says, “Hey, come and rob my house” like a proud post about an upcoming holiday, it’s basically telling the whole world that no one will be at your house for a week straight. Oh, sure you can post about your holiday just don’t go into specifics.

2. Pictures of Your Credit Cards, Drivers Licence, Medicare card etc

Okay, yes, this seems obvious, but it does happen! If you’re tempted to post something like that just stop and think because you’re just asking for identity theft.

3. Things Your Friends Should Really Be Sharing Themselves

It’s exciting when your friend has some big news to share. Maybe they’re getting married or expecting a baby. But don’t let that excitement make you do something thoughtless, though. Your friend’s big news is just that: your friend’s. It’s not your place to share that news with your entire social media network until they have had the opportunity to post something themselves if they choose too.

4. Inappropriate Personal Images

Social media is no place for your saucy selfies. Only post things you wouldn’t mind your Mum seeing, it will save you a lot of grief. So, use your best judgement!

5. Complaints about Work or even your Rotary Club

It can be really tempting to vent about your horrible boss or the world’s worst Club President on social media. There’s just one problem with that. Things can take a life of their own when it ends up on the internet. Even if you’re not “friends” on social media with your boss etc, someone could always screenshot your complaints and share them. That can get awkward fast. So it is best to stick to positive posts.

In the age of sharing, it can be hard to tell where to draw the line but hopefully these tips will steer you clear of any trouble.

Article by Evan Burrell

How to Improve Your Image

Are you happy with your Rotary clubs marketing images? or do they need a bit of a spring clean? There can be many ways for you to improve the photos and images you use on social media so you can stand out, drive more clicks to your clubs website or Facebook page, and generate more interest in your club?

Why a good image matters on social media

The imagery you’re posting to your social media accounts can help make or break your reach to potential new members or event attendees, especially if you’re relying on these social media posts to drive traffic to your club.

With the very large number of users relying on social networks to help make decisions, it’s important to showcase your club and members in the best possible way. Here is a tip to help you create better images for use in your clubs marketing.

1: Choose a Visual Style

The first step to creating compelling imagery is to understand your brand i.e. your Rotary club and the aesthetic that best suits it. While photography focuses on featuring your members at the meeting or event, your brand’s personality needs to shine through in every photo, image or graphic you upload to social media.

Take some time to think about what you want your social media accounts theme to be. To help do this, go back and revisit the Rotary International brand guidelines, the guidelines include the colour palette, typography, correct logo, patterns, icons, and so on. This information will help guide your photography and graphics, and ultimately, show the professional look of your images.

Embedded in each social media post has detailed insights that will help shape your understanding of whether the images you are using to market your club is performing well with your target audience.

Some these metrics include:

• The number of likes your post receives

• The number of comments your post gets

• The number of users taking action on your post (i.e., clicking on your posts, clicking on your clubs website link in your photo description, etc.)

So using this information you can identify which photos or imagery you are posting perform best so you can replicate that success in the future.

Remember don’t just click your camera and post, take some time to find the perfect angle, use a filter or border show the best side of your club to the world!

Article by Evan Burrell