Top social media tips to grow your bowls club membership

It’s hard to ignore the impact social media has had on, well… everything! It’s a powerful tool that, if used well, could really boost your bowls club and raise its profile in the local community. 

Here are our top tips for making social media work for your bowls club. 

Make sure your profile is up to scratch

Your social media should be designed to make it as easy as possible for people to connect with you and learn more about your club. Some quick wins that will improve your social profiles include:

• Making sure all the information is up to date, such as contact info, address, and opening times
• There should be a link to your website
• Your profile picture and header image should be high-res and good quality. A good profile picture would be your club logo, and a nice header might be a photo of your club

Post regularly

One of the keys to achieving organic growth on social media and creating an engaged following, is posting consistently.

Interact with people

Social media, as the name suggests, is designed to connect people. It’s no use posting great content and having the best profile in the world, if you don’t interact with the people who engage with your page. This means replying to comments, starting debates and interesting discussions, and replying to enquiries that come through as private messages. 

It’s also a great idea to follow governing bodies such as the EIBA or Bowls England from your page, and interact with any posts that catch your interest. 

Encourage sharing posts to increase your reach

It’s always a good idea to encourage staff to share your posts. It doesn’t have to be everyone, every time, but having your team share club updates with their network will ultimately increase the reach of your posts. 

Giveaways are always a nice way to boost your reach and gain a bit of extra exposure. You could offer a meal for two at your club restaurant as the prize, and encourage people to enter by following your page, as well as liking and sharing the post with their network. 

The nice added bonus of this prize is that it means the winner and their guest will visit your club – the perfect chance for you to give them a tour and potentially win some new members! 

Embrace user-generated content

If you host any exciting events or competitions, encourage people to share their pics and tag you, or tag you in their Instagram stories as they play. Then, all you need to do is share their posts. It’s a simple way to showcase other people enjoying the club, while taking the pressure off you to create new content all the time. 

Pick the right platform

Think about which social media platforms your target audience use the most. It’s a misconception that you need to be on every platform to be successful – it’s better to post high-quality content on the platforms that are more likely to make an impact, than spread yourself too thin.

Summer, a social media executive at the Poole-based web and marketing agency that created Bowlr, goes into this in more detail in her video below.

Share engaging content

Some good content ideas include:

• Latest club news including key updates members might need to know
• Any big wins or successes
• Images and videos generally perform better than text-only social posts, so – where possible – include some nice imagery. It doesn’t always have to be professional photography – sometimes a candid, behind-the-scenes shot makes for a more engaging post
• Polls and open questions designed to start a discussion and get people interacting. One of Bowlr’s most successful posts to date was just a simple poll asking whether people preferred playing indoor or outdoor bowls. Sometimes, the simpler the better! 

Tag relevant people in your posts

Did you recently collaborate with another club on an event? Or perhaps you raised money for a local charity. Firstly, be sure to post about it! Secondly, tag the club, charity or relevant business in the post, so that they can interact, share and – ultimately – increase the reach of your post. 

Want to find out more?

We hope you’ve found these tips and tricks helpful, but if you’d like to learn more about harnessing the power of social media to grow your bowls club, please get in touch with b4b marketing today on 01202 684400. We’ll be more than happy to discuss your club’s needs and explore different social media options, including paid ads.