Two years ago, District Governor Tony Jannetta visited the Norristown club and participated in the monthly board meeting.  He had come prepared and he already knew that, other than a new Facebook page, the Norristown club was not showing up in web searches and was conspicuously missing in the world of social media.  He pointed out that by not establishing a club digital footprint and web presence, the club was missing a huge opportunity to be found by potential candidate Rotarians.  So he challenged the club.  
 
The club responded by forming a small web committee and building a web site using Google Sites (we had no budget at the time and Google Sites is free).  Also we were able to take advantage of some of the most powerful Google web capabilities such as "dynamic list table" page templates, built into the tool set. As webmaster, you choose the data columns (fields) on the list data table you want to track, pick the column validation type (text, dates, checkboxes, predetermined dropdown values, email address etc), and the initial list table view sort order.  Web visitors can then view, sort the table by any column and add, delete or change data in the rows. This allows you to build about any web database you can imagine.  Club Runner offers a set of tables for a few of the common lists you might want to keep but they are predefined categories and data fields not dynamic.  We use dynamic list tables for for sign up sheets, and tracking all kinds of things (club assets, committees, speakers, visitors, board decisions, grants, brainstorming ideas)  You can also embed spreadsheets). 
 
Once our public website was functional, we built another private for members only site (requiring login) and a third site focused specifically on "Membership Building" and “Speaker Planning".  The websites reside on Google today, and which is extremely fast and reliable.  The public site gets between 100 and 350 actual hits per month depending on topic
 
Since the time that the site went live, we have also licensed Club Runner, but mainly to augment our other services with online attendance, dues management and eBulletin publication.  With the website functioning, we also setup a LinkedIn account and a Twitter account.  On the homepage we advertise a Google Voice phone number (free) established for the club where people can leave us messages.  These can be routed and forwarded to any phone.
 
Two years have passed and we have accumulated followers and we are learning to use these channels to inform, advertise, market the Rotary Brand and attract Rotary member interest.  It is a lot of initial work and time investment but, it is starting to pay off.  In fact, our most recent member and most recent prospect found us through the web, and we have had numerous interested candidates find us and inquire this past year.  We get about 10 membership inquiries per year.  A portion of the club's public website is dedicated to marketing the Rotary brand so that others understand what Rotary does and can make their own membership decision.  We also registered our physical meeting place address as a business with Google Places, so that the club would start showing up on Google Maps.
 
The club website is the internet gem of every club, even though other channels are more socially engaging.  So our other channel (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+) posts all  include a link to direct internet visitors back to the website stories where the complete story and a lot more comprehensive Rotary brand information, can be found.  Once on the web homepage, visitors can get the big picture about Rotary.  In fact, multiple internet channels point to the very same story in most cases.  Thereby drawing in an audience.  This is a common technique used with web blogs to grow a blog audience.
 
The cardinal rule of any website is to keep information current and updated or refreshed regularly. If web visitors see the same content they saw on their last visit or it is obsolete information, they will never visit again. The Norristown Club site is updated twice a week.  The club tweets on Twitter at least once or twice a week (usually with pictures, and we often get retweeted by others) and we have found that once we have followed and attracted about a hundred Twitter followers, it gains momentum and people begin finding and following us on their own, unsolicited.  The same is true for LinkedIn which is updated weekly.  Progress is measured using Google Analytics to report the number of web visitors that come to the site and which pages get visited.
 
Using numerous social media channels to engage and direct people to the website
 
Engaging in social media and making it work for you, is not something you can do over night, but if you plan and commit to maintaining and updating what you build, sooner or later,  the benefits of club visibility and web presence will get your club noticed.     
 
    *  Getting Your Club Noticed" is one of several mini-articles covering Internet and social media topics relative to our "digital" club.
www.NorristownRotary.org