Building and Sustaining Membership through Social Media Local Section Ideas

Goal Membership committee has goal to increase members by 3000 in FY11. To do this, we have created a tool kit of ideas for sections to implement on their membership. Membership success hinges on SWE being a PERSONAL and ENGAGING organization.

Retention As the new FY membership deadline passes, sometimes all it takes is a friendly reminder to your members to renew. We get plenty of reminders from HQ. These reminders are not personal. To improve retention: Gain names of those who have not renewed by 7/15 of fiscal year. Review list with officer team, and devide names to who knows who best. Make a phone call or send note in mail as a reminder about membership. Make it personal. Tactical tip: try doing this as a 20 minute section at your section’s leadership meeting – bring the cards, stamps, envelopes, and addresses and just “get-it-done” right then and there.

Building Membership Create an template to share with leaders and others in your section explaining the benefits of SWE. (Sample provided.) This is an that should be something easily forwarded to one’s manager, explaining the benefits. When applicable, include section on the companies policy for participation & reimbursement for Professional Society Memberships. This helps put that hotlink in the form of the potential member as well as their manager. Share this template with your leadership team and give them each a goal to send this message to at least 4 people throughout the year.

Use of Social Media Facebook, Facebook, Facebook Even my mother is on Facebook Use Facebook to invite members to events, including allowing RSVPs there and the option of them indicating on their “wall” that they are attending the event. Use photo tagging. Tag friends of your local section in photos & events so their other friends can see what SWE is about.

This shows up on member’s wall. A soft recruiting style.

Tag your members!

Twitter An Information Network! A tweet is a mini (140 characters) message Open exchange of information Creates “trending topics” from the top words or phrases in posts (tweets) You can follow anyone from celebrities to news organizations to our Tweets are public, and you decide which accounts you want to receive messages from Most information in this section can be found on

Twitter Lingo To follow somebody is to subscribe to their messages A tweet is an individual message A DM or direct message is a private message on Twitter RT or retweet is to repost a valuable message from somebody else on Twitter and give them credit Trending topics are the most-discussed terms on Twitter at any given is a public message to or about an individual on Twitter A hashtag—the # symbol followed by a term and included in tweets—is a way of categorizing all the posts on a topic Shortened URLs. To fit links into the short messages, Twitter shrinks some URLs down automatically Most information in this section can be found on

Twitter to Promote SWE Tweet about your section’s events, link flyers and website/blog posts Use “#” to tag topics that people can search for Follow engineers, women scientists, women engineers, local schools, engineering companies RT other people’s tweets about engineering or outreach events. For more information go to:

Twitter People like tips, links to interesting stories and blogposts, exclusive deals and a good sense of humor. People like the human touch and will appreciate posts with your thoughts and experiences more than you think They also like it when you say hi, respond to their questions, comments, praise, complaints and jokes Most information in this section can be found on