Social media is a fantastic free way to boost your club's presence online and engage a diverse new audience. With so many social media platforms available, it can be quite overwhelming to know which ones to use to target prospective players.

Here's a quick rundown of the main social media platforms which could work best for your club:

Twitter

• Great for engaging a diverse adult audience (the majority of users are 35 to 65-years).
• The power of Twitter is the ability to retweet so it’s great for getting your message out there.

Facebook

• Great for building a community of advocates and increasing word-of-mouth marketing.
• Its demographic targeting capabilities can help you reach people who are likely to be interested in your club.
• Facebook has a much older following where 60% of All UK users are aged 25-54 (only 4% of ALL 13-17 years in the UK use it).

Instagram

• Instagram allows you to promote your club and culture in a friendly, authentic way without directly selling.
• Great for engaging women where 57% in the UK have an account.
• The audience is a lot younger than Facebook where a quarter of teens have an account. 26% of all UK users are 18-24yrs and 30% are 25-34yrs.

What to publish

• Publish fun photos or videos from group sessions to advertise future sessions.
• Access stock images and videos from the England Squash club toolkit.
• Encourage players from your sessions to post photos/videos from the session on their social.
• Share/celebrate success stories from across the club (e.g newly qualified coach, player of the month)
• Share exciting club news (crowdfunding, renovations).
• Share opportunities that help raise a player’s game (e.g the England Squash Referee Award)
• Encourage engagement (contests / takeovers).
• Tag relevant people into your posts such as partners, sponsors, local businesses, your Active Partnership, news outlets.
• Join in with social media campaigns and use their hashtags to get seen.

How to attract quality followers

• Choose a recognisable/intuitive username and profile picture consistent with your club branding.
• Create a compelling social media profile description and let potential followers know who you are, and the reason you're worth following. Be sure to include a link to your website.
• Create great visuals and add them to your posts - it pays off in engagement and people clicking through to your website.
• Invite existing contacts to follow you. Reach out to your friends, family and existing members and ask them to follow your club. The more followers you have, the more engagement and potential shares.

Increasing reach

• Increase reach through targeted ads such as Facebook Boosted Posts (see our guide below).
• Increase reach through tagging in multiple organisations such as your local active partnership or a sponsor and encouraging them to retweet or share.
• Use other Facebook groups you’re in to promote the club and its activities.

Promote your activities locally to reach as many people as possible. Make use of local community Facebook groups and display posters in the local area – such as noticeboards at your post office/newsagent or local shop.

Here are a few suggestions of people, groups and organisations to contact.

• Your Active Partnership will have contacts with many local community groups and could help to promote your activities.
• Tell your local press about your club and its activities.
• Find out which local community groups and businesses are nearby and get in touch to tell them about your activities and invite them along.
• If you're part of a multi-sport club, invite the players from other sports sections to have a go.
• Ask your county squash association to help promote your club.
• Link up with local schools, colleges and universities.
• Get in touch with your local council and councillors.

Word of mouth marketing is the most valuable form of marketing - it creates trust, it builds your club’s perception and it’s low-cost.

Social media
Social media is a must - 81% of social media users said that their purchases are impacted by friends’ social media posts.

• Incentivise your followers to create and share pics, videos and gifs on social media. Offer free equipment or coaching. Giving your members a reason to share with others can skyrocket your word-of-mouth marketing.
• Create a sense of community. Showcase your user-generated content prominently on your website or main profile.

Identify and engage potential advocates
Some of your existing members are likely to make referrals, while others aren’t. The key is to identify which individuals are most likely to recommend you to their friends, family, etc, and then engage those people.

One of the first things someone will do when researching a new club is to search for them online and look for their website. A website ultimately shapes newcomer’s perception of your club from the off. You therefore need to think of your website like a shop window – you want people to stay and explore.

• Ideal for promoting your club - show who you are, what you do and how to get in touch with you
• An opportunity to showcase club culture and show prospective players that you’re a fun, inclusive club.

How to convert them (e.g get them to contact you), you need to ensure:

1. your website has a vibrant design
2. the content such as the photos, videos and text is engaging and inclusive (for all genders and all backgrounds)
3. is easy to navigate and find information on all your different sessions/provision
4. you can demonstrate why they should join (what’s in it for them?)
5. how to get in touch.

Advertising your club on Facebook is an effective way to target prospective members and showcase what your club has to offer. Below is our quick guide to getting started:

Why advertise on Facebook?

• One of the most effective ways to target and reach a specific audience group (based on age, gender, location, interests) and advertise activities at your club or build your following.
• Your posts aren't showing up in all your followers’ Facebook newsfeeds – in fact the average Facebook post reaches 6% of your followers so if you have 200 followers on Facebook, only 12 people will see your posts! So advertising on Facebook can be an effective way to reach all your followers.
• Facebook advertising costs a fraction of what other online marketing channels cost.

Getting started
In order to advertise on Facebook, you need to ensure your club’s account is a Facebook Page and not a Profile or Group. More info here including how to convert your Profile to a Page.

Not got a Facebook account yet for your club? Set up a Page here.

Facebook advertising – two different options
Boosted post: this is the simplest way to advertise on Facebook and a great way to maximise visibility of your squash activities and grow your following. A boosted post is simply a regular Facebook post that you pay to reach a wider audience. When you boost a post, you choose three things:

• Who you want to reach: you'll pick a target audience of the type of people you want to connect with (including age, gender, location, hobbies)

• Your max budget: exactly how much you want to spend over the course of your entire ad campaign

• How long you want to run your ad: once you click?‘Boost’ and your ad is approved, people in your target audience will see your ad in their Facebook news feed for the duration you've set.

Further reading: Getting started with boosted posts.

Facebook Ads: these are created through Facebook Ads Manager and offer advanced advertising features to help you reach your specific marketing goals and reach a more defined audience. To set up your Facebook Ad account, go to?Facebook Ads Manager and select your ad account and fill in your details.

Further reading: Getting started with Facebook ads manager.

How to decide on which type of advertising
Before deciding whether Boosted Posts or Facebook Ads are best for your club, you should assess what your goals are and what you want your post or page to achieve. Key differences:

Further reading: The difference between boosted posts and Facebook ads

If your club is looking to build a following (Page Likes) and promote your squash sessions (Brand awareness), we recommend starting with Boosted Posts.

Further reading

• For further advice on getting started with Facebook advertising, visit the Facebook Help Centre.
• For advice on making the most of Facebook, check out this quick guide from Club Matters.

Tips to increase the visibility of your website

1. Register your site with Google Search Console

• A free service that allows you to submit your website to Google and tell it your website exists (key to it appearing in search results).
• Through the console you can also check who is linking to your website. (External links are very important to the performance of a site in Google search results).

2. Register your site with Google My Business

• Can help it appear in relevant geographic search results and great for local exposure.

3. Create backlinks to your site

• Backlinks are links from other sites to your site, and in a very simple sense Google counts them as ‘votes’ for your content. How to generate backlinks:

- from outreach - ask other sites to includes links to your content on their sites (higher-quality websites count more than those from lower-quality one)
- add your website to the England Squash Club Finder as well as your local active partnership, and online directories like Yell.