Promote your Rotary’s Public Image. A strong and vibrant Public Image is one of 2 proven key tactics for successful and growing clubs -- the other is a large number of service projects. Effective Public Image helps expand your reach and artfully tell compelling stories that demonstrate Rotarians as people of action. The Public Image Committee’s role is to help clubs to have a robust media and social media strategy, an up-to-date website and an engaging online presence in their local communities.
We suggest all clubs engage on social media to boost your Public Image. Social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, etc.) provide streamlined opportunity to get your stories out there. The various platforms can provide a direct way to push your news to the public. Here are some tips to think about.
How can my club boost our Public Image?
- Tell more stories about your meetings, events, fundraisers, speakers.
- Share more on social media about those things.
- Make the stories interesting, showing people in action and having fun (rather than posed photos). Video can be especially engaging. Member profiles are an excellent way to promote Rotary.
- Choose your ideal social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, etc.) that work best with your targeted audience.
- Stay within your bandwith and be consistent. The goal is to show your club to be active and vibrant. Post consistently – ideally multiple times a week. Set up a social media calendar and plan your posts. Using a scheduling tool to plan many posts at once makes this easier. When a prospective member searches your Facebook, will they find the content timely or stale?
- Make sure your website is up to date and shows current news and information.
- Be consistent with the correct, current Rotary branding. Be familiar with the Brand Center. It continues to have new assets and guidelines added for your use, including new Do's and Don'ts for using Rotary logos. If you have questions, please reach out to the PI Committee. Every Rotarian should take the Learning Center course Our Logo: Representing Rotary to learn more about using club logos.
- Tag, Share, Hashtags. Tag your members in posts and encourage them to re-share posts.
- Watch out for the security of your website and social media. (a) Make sure you have several members with login info for each of your accounts, so you don’t get locked out. (b) Avoid using copyrighted images or materials on social media. There has been an increase of Rotary Facebook pages being shut down for violation of rules related to copyright. Once you get put in FB jail even innocently, it’s difficult to return, so be wary.
- Take advantage of Rotary resources including People of Action stories. The People of Action message provides a simple, consistent answer to the question, "What is Rotary?" and rallies us around a single idea: telling, and showing, the world that we are people of action.
- Reach out to the PI Committee for help. Looking for a meeting program? PI Committee members are available to be speak at your meeting.