I’m sure you’ve read a blog post before and thought, that is a great blog and provides the content that I’m looking for. Similarly, a good blog post can spark a lot of engagement for your audience. So, as an association, are you blogging relevant content to engage your members? If not, now is a great time to start.
Association blogs can boast several benefits, such as:
- Establishing your association as an industry thought leader
- Increase your member engagement and draw new members
- Increase traffic and SEO ranking on your association’s website
- Build rapport with your community
- Enhance professional relationships with partners + sponsors
Not sure where to start? Here are some tips on creating content for blogs that will engage your members and have them hitting subscribe to your blogs.
1. Repurpose Old Content
Why re-invent the wheel? Your association has worked hard and spent a lot of time already creating e-books, whitepapers, webinars, social posts, and more. Repurpose this content into an informative blog post. Keep in mind not to just copy and paste old content. Rather, present it in a new way that will provide value to your members. That might be something as simple as updating data and trends from an e-book or webinar. A blog is an effective way to give your content an extended life and stay relevant and valuable to your members who might not have seen the original content in the first place.
2. Understand Your Members Interests
The more relevant your blogs are to your member’s interests the more successful they will be. Research from Community Brands shows that job opportunities are the number one reason those early in their careers join an association. Once they join, job opportunities, career advancement, and mentoring are in the top 10 of benefits they value most. Blogging about your career center and the benefits it offers is just one way to spark the interests of early-careerists, job seekers, and even passive candidates. If you have a career event coming up, blog about it, call out sponsors and let your members know you’re providing them the resources they’re looking for to help advance their career.
3. Collaborate with Thought Leaders in Your Industry
When you have content that is relevant, diverse, and interesting, the more readers you will have. One way to do that is by inviting thought leaders in your industry to guest blog or provide relevant quotes and content. When you collaborate with thought leaders or associations that share similar audiences, you could draw new readers from their network. You can even take it a step further and ask for blogs from your members. They have knowledge of your industry and are the best ones to know what topics are relevant and are important to your members.
4. Blog what you know
Having the resources to blog might be an issue for your association. Along with repurposing content you already have, write about what you know or content that you are utilizing in other areas for quick and easy posts. Here’s a list of simple blogs you can easily write about in under 30 minutes.
- Benefits of joining your association
- If your association drives non-dues revenue through professional certifications, write about which courses and certifications would be beneficial
- Reasons to attend your annual conferences, webinars, other upcoming events
- How to start a career in your industry – point them to your career planning portal
- Quarterly blog post from your Executive Director to keep members in the know
Remember, your blogs will be successful if you are providing your members relevant content that they’re looking for. Once you start blogging you’ll reap the benefits of engaging your members, driving more traffic to your website, attracting new members, and increasing your SEO.
Looking for more ways to engage members through your job board software and increase non-dues revenue? Request a demo to learn how YM Careers can take your job board to the next level.
