Social media has evolved over the last decade, and even more so over the past 6 months. Not only has it changed the way people interact with family, friends, businesses, and associations – the way we consume content has completely changed.

Social media users are now spending an average of 2 hours and 24 minutes per day on an average of 8 social networks and messaging apps. 
Source: Global Web Index

Over time the consumer expectation of the content they see on social media has changed. Attention spans are shorter and the consumer is equipped with an average of 8 different platforms to keep them actively scrolling. Making your association standout in 2021 will be key for member engagement and retention!

How to make your association stand out in 2021? 

Member-Centric 

Putting your members first may sound simple, but fully understanding what that means is a little bit more complex. Being a member-centric association is one that prioritizes its members’ experiences above anything else. That means not only giving your members what they want but also anticipating their needs. 

Associations that provide a superior member experience will drive engagement. Member engagement will ultimately drive retention – lack of engagement is why 43% of members don’t renew. Engaged members also create advocates which enables a strong referral network for recruiting new members, especially millennial professionals.

Short-form Video

It’s no secret that short-form video is now one of the most engaging forms of digital content. With the growing popularity of Tik Tok and with the release of Instagram’s latest feature called Reels, bite-sized easy to digest videos have become a staple in social feeds. 

If you’re looking to diversify your membership demographics to reach young professionals, Instagram Reels might be a platform your association spends some time exploring. With 15-second Reels, you can push content to your followers within the Instagram platform. This means new eyes on your content and potential for new members. You could also use Reels for new member shoutouts, onboarding, and promoting events. 

Personalized Marketing

Personalized marketing is nothing new, and is essentially the art of using data to tailor your marketing to a target segment. Large brands have made waves doing this over the years, most notably, Coca-Cola’s 2011 #shareacoke campaign, where they replaced their brand logo with consumers’ names and encouraged people to share photos on social with a branded hashtag.

What started with 150 of the most popular names in Australia soon grew into a global concept. The summer the campaign started in Australia, Coke sold more than 250 million named bottles and cans in a nation of just under 23 million people. Coke encourage consumers to share their experience on social, #ShareACoke even became the number one global trending topic. It’s resulted in over 1 billion impressions. The campaign continues in some countries, adapting a message that is fitting for 2020 “ Share a Coke with Front Line Heroes”.

Personalization is an incredibly effective social media marketing strategy, and with tools like Facebook’s Pixel, you will have a wealth of data at your fingertips! Adding the Pixel code to your website is simple and will allow you to see what your website and career center visitors are most interested in and create personalized ad campaigns or content down the road. 

Going Live

Going live on your favorite platforms can bring back some of the human connection that has become so vital in 2020. It’s estimated that 1.1 billion hours of live video was watched in 2019! Live video has become so growingly popular that other platforms have added the feature to their platforms, including Twitter, YouTube, and most recently LinkedIn.

Live video is so popular due to the high level of interaction and engagement that it can generate. Capture your members’ attention and involve them in the conversation! Schedule a few announcement posts prior to your scheduled day of going live that people can anticipate to join your Live video. Push notifications will notify your followers when you go live so they can easily access that video content. 

Expert Tip: Tailor these videos to your members’ needs!

2021 looks to build upon and expand on the social media marketing trends that began in 2020. Further growing and creating a member-first experience will have the greatest impact on your association. Your social media marketing strategy should begin with that goal as a solid foundation to build upon. A member-first experience will not only grow your membership numbers but will additionally increase your retention rates, driving members to renew their dues with your association year after year. 

The post Social Media Marketing Trends to Test in 2021 appeared first on Web Scribble.

The key here is to take the same concepts you would use at an in-person career fair but modify them to fit in the virtual world of recruiting and job hunting. You can still create those personal connections with employers despite being separated by a computer – it will just take some getting used to!

Here are 7 tips to help you find a job during a virtual career fair. 

1. Do Your Research 
2. Update Your Resume
3. Schedule Interviews with Employers
4. Practice Your Elevator Pitch
5. Create a List of Questions 
6. Stay Organized
7. Follow Up

Do Your Research 

Once you’ve decided to attend your association’s virtual career fair, research the employers that will also be attending and looking to hire qualified candidates like yourself. Visit their employer profile (if they have one with your association) and check out the jobs they have posted on the career center. From there, you can easily view the types of positions they are looking to fill and you can determine if any of them are of interest to you that you’d like to interview for. 

After you’ve made a list of the potential employers and jobs you want to pursue, browse their websites and LinkedIn pages to learn more about their company, what products or services they sell, company culture and more. A helpful way to find out more about their company culture is to read online reviews from current and previous employees. This will help you better understand the environment, management and co-workers you’ll be working with and determine if this is still a good fit for you. 

Update Your Resume

When was the last time you updated or refreshed your resume? If it’s been a while, be sure to take a look and update it with any information or work-related experiences that will make you stand out from other candidates. Recent graduates should consider any internship experiences they’ve had, class work or projects that are relevant to the position, or other jobs held where those skills would translate to desired positions in your industry. Also consider any online courses or certifications you’ve received that would make you a more marketable candidate. Things like software or program certifications will be very attractive to recruiters since they won’t have to spend as much time training you in the programs they use regularly. 

Another option is to create variations of your resume that are tailored to specific employers or job descriptions. For example, if you are applying to a few different jobs within the same industry, but have different job descriptions and desired skill or work experiences, you can develop different versions of your resume so you hit on all the major points that a specific company is looking for.

Schedule Interviews with Employers 

Now that you have your list of employers and an updated resume, start reaching out to employers to schedule interview times with them. Be sure to keep track of who accepts your requests and get them scheduled in your calendar so you don’t accidentally double book. This will help you plan out your days and give you enough time to prepare for each interview. 

Also, be on the lookout for employers reaching out to you for interviews. If you have a job seeker profile set up through your associations job board, make sure your updated resume is readily available and share your contact information. 

Practice Your Elevator Pitch

As cliché as it may sound, practicing your elevator pitch in front of the mirror or with a friend will help you nail that first impression. It’s important to capture the recruiter’s attention and efficiently convey your qualifications for the position. When you feel comfortable with what you want to say, the message will be concise and you’ll sound more professional. It also shows that you have invested time and energy into the interview, which many recruiters will notice and appreciate. 

Start your pitch by sharing the relevant work experience and highlight the skills you have that the recruiter is looking for in a candidate. Be sure to reference the job post to use keywords and phrases that pertain to your qualifications. This shows once again you’ve taken the time to research the position and prepare for the interview. If you are a recent graduate, your pitch will be slightly different. You’ll want to introduce yourself and follow with your major, year in school and area of interest, followed by any work-related experiences you’ve had that qualify you for the position. 

Once you feel comfortable and confident with your pitch, you’re ready for the real deal!

Create a List of Questions

As you interview with multiple employers, have a list of 2 to 3 questions to ask them, but be sure to tailor the questions to each employer and job description. This helps you better understand the role and the company so you can make an informed decision about your future career paths. This is where your research from earlier will come in handy, but also make sure the questions you ask could not be easily answered from their website. Well thought out questions go a long way with recruiters and shows you put in the time and effort to prepare. 

Some examples of insightful questions to ask are:

1. What kind of challenges have previous employees faced in this role or what challenges do you believe a person in this role will face?
2. Are there any growth opportunities within this position?
3. What skills or characteristics do you believe it takes to be successful in this role?
4. How will success in this role be measured? 

If you are a recent graduate, some questions you may also want to ask are:

1. How has your degree prepared you for your current position?
2. What do you like most about your role and working at (insert company name here)?
3. How have your college experiences prepared you for your career?

Stay Organized 

As stated before, keep your calendar updated so you can keep track of your interview schedule  and attend other workshops during the career fair (if offered). This helps take the stress out of your week and easily see what you need to do next. 

Since your interviews will be conducted virtually, test any of the video conferencing tools you’ll be using the day before to make sure they are working correctly so you’re prepared for any mishaps that could take place. Familiarize yourself with the platform and any functions you’ll need to use like muting, screen sharing, and more. 

During your actual interviews, take notes of your conversations with the interviewers. Write down things you liked and disliked about the role or the company. When you refer back to your notes later, this will help determine which roles you want to pursue and the pros and cons that come with each position. 

Follow Up

Following up with employers after you’ve interviewed or talked with them is a crucial step in landing a job. A day or two after your interview, send the recruiter a follow up email thanking them for their time. Since they have probably interviewed many people in that short period of time, reintroduce yourself and use your notes to include personal anecdotes within the email so they can also easily recall your conversation. If you have examples of your work, be sure to link to them or include them as attachments.

Some examples of personalizing your email are including a topic you discussed that you both had interest in or a memory from, or anything you enjoyed about the conversation that was memorable. Let them know if you’d be interested in moving forward with any potential next steps in the interview process with something as simple as “I look forward to hearing back from you about any next steps.” This helps speed the process up so they know you are interested in the position.

Attending virtual career fairs can still have the same impact as attending in-person career fairs and networking face-to-face. Similar concepts can be taken from live events and applied to virtual events with small modifications and adjustments. Try these 7 tips out at your next virtual career fair to land that dream job!

The post 7 Tips to Help You Land a Job at a Virtual Career Fair appeared first on Web Scribble.

To continuously host successful virtual events, tracking metrics that will help you improve event marketing year after year is essential. This is the easiest way to measure success, see which areas need improvement and which ideas need to be scrapped. When you have access to previous years metrics, you can easily set new goals based on prior events that help you continuously make improvements and have an idea of where your metrics should be through each phase of marketing and promotion. 

There are many different metrics you can track, but these 4 virtual event marketing metrics will give you the best information to use to make informed decisions. 

1. Click-Through Rate
2. Registration Numbers
3. Cost-Per-Click
4. Conversion Rate

No Events? No Problem! Help Your Members Get Hired with Virtual Career Fairs. Save your spot for our upcoming webinar on September 29th at 2pm EDT to learn more about our Career Fairs platform and how to leverage your virtual career fair to back-fill lost non-dues revenue from canceled events.

Click-Through Rate

Another way to determine the effectiveness of your event marketing is to track click-through rates. Click-through rates tell you who was interested enough to click on your ad, email link or call to action and potentially take action. Tracking this metric tells you how effective your keywords, images, copy, artwork or videos are in persuading your audience to take action and register for your event. 

To determine what resonates with your audience, run a few test campaigns to see which type of marketing messaging and graphics will work best for you and let those stats guide your decision making. For example, if marketing materials with a guest speaker’s face generates a higher click-through rate, this tells you using faces in your marketing is more interesting to your audience, so you’ll want to incorporate that into your event marketing plan. 

Registration Numbers

Registration numbers show you where you want to be or where you should be (if you have access to historical data) at various points of your registration cycle. This helps you benchmark how well your marketing plan is performing through each step so you know how effective (or ineffective) your marketing efforts are. With virtual events becoming more prevalent, your cycles and pacing of registration will differ from in-person events since you will be able to promote right up until the event goes live. However, you can still use data from in-person events as a blueprint for your virtual events registration process. 

Once you have repeated this process a few times, your numbers will become more precise and you will be able to make accurate projections and set appropriate, attainable goals to continuously improve your event marketing. 

Cost-Per-Click

Cost-per-click tells you how much you’re paying every time someone clicks on your ad. Like click-through rates, you can look at overall cost-per-click or drill it down into specific ad groups or keywords to see where your spend is making the most impact. Not every advertising platform is going to have cost-per-click charge, but if you use this as a form of effective advertising, it’s important to know which ads will have the most impact and be worth your investment. 

For example, if you have a high cost-per-click that drives conversions, keep it. This ad generates the most interest from your audience so you know you are effectively reaching them and this is worth your investment. Conversely, you might have a keyword that drives impressions, but little to no conversions (registrations). This indicates it’s time to change the keyword or the ad altogether. 

Conversion Rate

The most important metric to track is your conversion rate. Your conversion rate tells you how many of the people you targeted took action and registered for your event. Measuring conversions tells you overall how successful your marketing was and if you met the goals you set in the planning stage. Did you meet and/or exceed your goals, or did you fall short? Carefully evaluate your conversion rate to see what worked, what didn’t work and what you can improve upon for your next event. 

To accurately measure your conversion rate, you’ll want to consider using an attribution model to determine how credit for a conversion is assigned to touch-points throughout your promotion process. The most common models used are last click and first click. Last click means the very last interaction they had with your marketing materials before they converted is given credit for the conversion, and first click assigns credit to the very first interaction they had that led to a conversion. Either method will help you determine where your conversions are coming from and which marketing materials and channels work best for your organization to drive registrations.

Understanding how your audience perceives and interacts with your event marketing materials will help you improve your strategy to get your maximum return on investment and increase your registrations every year. The more information and understanding you have, the easier event marketing will become. Throughout the process, be aware of how well your materials are performing and which ones result in more interactions or registrations. Test your strategies, examine results and shift investments accordingly.

The post Boost Virtual Event Marketing by Tracking These 4 Metrics appeared first on Web Scribble.

In order to improve virtual event attendance, you’ll want to have a strong, well-developed marketing plan in place to make sure you are reaching the appropriate audiences and communicating the benefits of attending the career fair in an effective and clear manner. 

Here are 5 marketing strategies to use that will help you increase your attendance rates at your virtual career fairs.

1. Create Graphics for Your Website
2. Promote in Association Newsletters
3. Advertise on Social Media
4. Share Within Your Online Communities
5. Send Targeted Email Invitations 

Interested in learning how to host a successful virtual career fair? Sign up for our webinar on September 30th at 2pm EDT – No Events? No Problem. Help Your Members Get Hired with Virtual Career Fairs. 

Create Graphics for Your Website

Your website is one your most valuable marketing assets and is an effective marketing channel to promote your events. Along with your homepage, your career center is one of the two of the most visited pages, so utilizing that space to promote your virtual career fair is a great way to drive more registrations and attendance. 

If you have rotating banners on your homepage, adding one for your virtual career fair that will take them directly to the registration page when a website visitor clicks on the banner can be a great way to drive registrations. This helps streamline your registration process and makes it as simple as possible for visitors to engage with your marketing materials. You can also include smaller banners on the sides and footer of your website to stay consistent and give visitors more ways to find the event page. 

Consider adding banners to your career center page as your career center and virtual career fair will be working together. There are several places you can display banners on your career center – job seeker dashboard, employer dashboard, footer, career center homepage and on the sides where widgets would appear. Advertising your virtual career fair on your career center will drive large amounts of traffic to your events page that will ultimately lead to more registrations. Especially when you promote your event on both sites, more visitors will search around your career center for open opportunities and create job seeker or employer profiles, which will lead to more career center engagement as well. 

Promote Your Career Fair in Association Newsletters

If your association sends out weekly, bi-weekly or even monthly newsletters, include advertisements for your upcoming virtual career fair. Your members already know this newsletter contains the most important information about your association and the industry you serve, making this a great channel for marketing all of your events. 

Just like on your website, include an eye-catching graphic that will make your members want to click on the image to find out more about your virtual career fair. Make sure to include direct calls to action that prompt members to register, the date(s) and time of the event, how they can access the virtual career fair, and any other important information they will need to know. 

After getting sponsor and exhibitor signups for your virtual career fair, you can include the specific employers that will be exhibiting during the event. Direct members to check out their profiles and the job board for positions they are trying to fill, and ask them to update their resume and job seeker profiles so employers can easily reach out to them in advance for interviews. This will help promote your career fair to members that haven’t registered and give them a hint of what to expect during the event. 

Advertise on Social Media

Social media allows you to reach a larger audience in a short period of time – especially if you allow non-members to participate in your career fair. Just like you would promote your career center, create graphics with consistent branding to promote the career fair with a link that takes them to the events page to easily register. Depending on how much time you have available to promote on social media, create a plan or a calendar to keep track of how often you should post about it (generally 2-3 times a week), when to post about it, which channels you are posting on and the kind of messaging you are using in your ads. 

Another approach to social media advertising is to create an event page on LinkedIn or Facebook that members and other job seekers in your industry can easily view, find where to go to register and read all the important information about your career fair. Using this approach also allows for more exposure since members can share the event on their profile and tag their peers in the comments section to let them know about it. 

Share Within Your Online Community

Your association’s online community is a centralized location for all your members to interact with one another and with your association, which makes it the perfect place to promote a virtual career fair. Since your members within the community are consistently engaging with content posted in the platform, promoting your career fair from within will help draw more attention to it and increase registration numbers. 

What also makes an online community an effective marketing tool is that once a post is shared, your members can create conversations about the career fair, ask each other questions, and even speak with staff members to get more details about your virtual career fair. Not only does this method increase registrations, but also strengthens your member community, member retention and overall satisfaction of your membership experience. 

Send Targeted Email Invitations 

One of the most effective ways to grab the attention of all your registered job seekers and registered employers from your career center is by sending out targeted emails inviting them to attend your virtual career fair. This method is very effective because it is sent directly to their inboxes and creates a more personalized interaction. 

In order to maximize your emails reach, make sure to create catchy subject lines that make the receiver want to open your email and learn more about what your career fair has to offer. For example, if you are running a discount on employer packages, mention that in the subject line to create a sense of urgency so they act immediately on the offer. 

Within the body of your email, be sure to note the date and time, who will be attending (members, job seekers, hiring employers, etc.), how they can access the virtual career fair (desktop, mobile or both), and where they can go to register for the event. As a quick tip, use calls to action like “Register Today!” hyperlinked to the career fairs landing page so views can easily access the page and quickly register. For an employer targeted email, direct them to your package options page or include a phone number for them to call so they can learn more about your event and easily purchase their employer spot. 

Defining and planning your virtual career fair marketing strategy will help your association figure out which methods are most effective in reaching your goals and target audiences, and determine how to improve for future events. All of these strategies can be accomplished with a small budget and don’t require months of preparation for them to be successful, making it easy for associations to quickly pivot to virtual career fairs and continuously improve attendance rates simultaneously. 

Ready to make the switch to virtual career fairs? See how Web Scribble’s virtual Career Fairs software can help your association improve attendance and backfill missing non-dues revenue by scheduling a demo today!

The post 5 Marketing Strategies to Improve Attendance at Your Virtual Career Fair appeared first on Web Scribble.

With some help from technology and professional associations, nurses can seamlessly immerse themselves into a virtual networking world that fosters professional growth and advances the profession. 

Here are 4 ways nurses can virtually grow their networks by joining a professional nursing association:

1. Attend Virtual Events
2. Join an Online Community 
3. Engage with Peers on Social Media 
4. Utilize Association Job Boards 

Interested in hosting a virtual career fair? Schedule a demo of Web Scribble’s Career Fairs software to learn more!

Attend Virtual Events

As a nurse, it is important to build your network with meaningful connections to remain top of mind so when new positions become available, your peers think of you and refer you for the job. Experts say that between 70 – 85% of people found their current position because of networking, so it’s safe to say that building relationships with peers can play a huge role in your career progression. 

Joining a professional association relieves the burden of finding networking opportunities since they host these kinds of events regularly and you can trust they will connect you with influential people. Perhaps one of the greatest benefits that comes from networking within a professional nursing association is the ability to connect with peers from all over the world with diverse backgrounds in education and experience which offers a great way to gain different perspectives and improve your knowledge of nursing. 

Here are some examples of virtual networking events professional nursing associations might host:

1. Annual association meetings
2. Members-only happy hours
3. Career Fairs 
4. Networking mixers

Join an Online Community

Online communities are an authentic space where nursing professionals can communicate with one another (and association staff members) to share ideas, offer advice and foster relationships with other passionate nurses. Interactions on the platform can be anything from asking “help desk” related questions for association login problems, to sharing industry information and more. 

Being active on an association’s online community will help build your network as you continue to engage with your peers and keep your name relevant within the community. Also, online communities are an easy way to find relevant virtual networking events that your peers are attending or events your association is hosting internally.

Engage with Peers on Social Media

Similar to an online community platform, social media networking on your associations page or other nursing-related pages is an effective way to grow your network. 

For example, if your association has a LinkedIn page, consider sharing, commenting and tagging your peers in their posts to start conversations within the nursing community. Since LinkedIn is a more professional social networking medium compared to others, it is a great space to interact with other serious nursing professionals and add them to your network. Also, LinkedIn is all about adding connections, so that makes it an even better place to manage your connections and display them with pride. 

Social media has the power to connect you with nursing professionals all around the world and connect with people outside of your association, as well. Being able to connect with peers outside of your immediate network circle (which includes your association and place of employment) gives you access to supplemental information and job opportunities, but also allows you to refer them to your association so they can share their wealth of knowledge with a greater audience of your peers. You can make these connections by following relevant hashtags or other nursing pages, commenting on those posts or creating your own posts to start conversations and gradually build your network.

Utilize Association Job Boards

Association job boards make the job hunting and employer networking process easier for nursing professionals since you have direct access to nursing-related jobs, better ways to search for those jobs, and can find jobs that are specific to sub professions and nursing specialties. You can also trust that your association is providing quality employers that will meet your specifications and help you advance in your career. On the job board, you can create a job seeker profile that gives employers easy access to your resume, references, certifications and qualifications as they search for potential candidates. A job seeker profile can greatly expand your network with recruiters since they can easily view your profile and reach out to schedule interviews. 

Access to an association’s job board will also be helpful when networking during their virtual career fair. Before the event, you can browse the employers that are attending, view their open positions on their employer page, and connect with recruiters online if their company and position fits your needs. Some virtual career fair platforms even provide the option to reach out to employers to schedule interviews ahead of time! Employers attending the career fair will have the option to view your job seeker profile and reach out to you for interviews as well, making it effortless to grow your network.

Building a network with the help of a professional nursing association will unlock many new career opportunities and form strong relationships with your peers that helps advance the profession. You will have countless options that fit with your schedule, lifestyle and goals so you can always find a way to advance that works for you. Take advantage of the opportunities professional nursing associations provide to grow your network and become the best nurse you can be. 

Want to learn why hundreds of associations trust Web Scribble to be their job board partner? Schedule your free Job Board Demo with a Scribbler today!

The post 4 Virtual Ways to Grow Your Network with a Professional Nursing Association appeared first on Web Scribble.

The steps nursing professionals can take to advance the profession will have huge impacts and can lead to long-term growth and change. 

The 4 things nurses can do to advance the profession:

1. Become an Active Nursing Association Member
2. Continuously Improve Your Education
3. Become a Mentor for New Nurses
4. Attend Virtual Events and Conferences 

Want to learn more about Web Scribble’s live and virtual Career Fairs platform? Schedule your personal Career Fairs demo with a Scribbler today!

Become an Active Nursing Association Member

Immersing yourself into the community of a professional nursing association will provide many benefits not only for your career, but the nursing profession as a whole. Professional associations stay on top of trending news, issues and topics so all members of the organization are always aware of new information. Knowing this information and having an easy, reliable source to turn to will allow you to apply it into your daily work life, which ultimately propels the profession forward. 

Joining an association also connects you to like-minded individuals that share the same passion for nursing as you do, creating a strong community within nursing and within its sub-professions. Having connections like this is another way you can stay on top of current events and issues within nursing, especially when you have global connections. Conversely, you also connect with individuals who may have different views from yourself, which allows you to gain new perspectives on specific topics and continuously improve your knowledge on the matters at hand. 

Being a part of a nursing community also helps prevent burnout. Currently, nurses around the world have had to step up their game and become the front line of defense against COVID-19. Having a support group during these stressful times can help combat nurse burnout through networking opportunities, socializing and support groups. It never hurts to have people in your corner cheering you on and pushing you forward!

Continuously Improve Your Education

Associations offer an abundance of online courses and certifications that helps advance the profession through continued education opportunities. If you specialize in a specific area of nursing, you can find current courses to take that keeps your mind sharp, improves your skills or helps you learn a new one. Staying up-to-date on topics and trends within your speciality is critical for the advancement of nursing and becoming a well-rounded, educated professional. 

The flexibility that comes with online courses and certifications is perfect for nurses who have busy schedules and can’t always make it to in person classes. 

Become a Mentor for New Nurses

Passing on your expertise and knowledge to the next generation of nursing professionals can actually help you learn more through questions and explaining procedures and processes. The more you discuss your area of expertise, the more you strengthen your own knowledge on the subject matter. As you have insightful conversations with your mentee, you gain new perspectives from their questions, their educational background as well as their own experiences. 

Being a mentor is also a great opportunity to teach newer nurses the proper skills to become the best nurse they can be. As you already have years of experience within the profession, teaching younger nurses what you know, explaining your experiences and why you do what you do helps shape the minds of the future leaders of nursing. You can pass along your expertise within a specific field, share tips and tricks to dealing with certain situations, and how they can contribute to the advancement of the nursing profession. 

Attend Virtual Events and Conferences

One of the most important things nurses can do to advance the profession is to regularly attend events and conferences that give nurses the opportunity to obtain new knowledge, information and meet other nursing professionals outside of the workplace. 

Especially for nursing specialties, attending conferences can have a huge impact on the advancement of nursing. It’s a place for passionate leaders within the profession to come together, share their expertise on a subject, educate other professionals on a new process or procedure, and grow their network. Never underestimate the power your career network has on the advancement of your profession! Continuously sharing and exchanging ideas is what fosters growth within professions and pushes individuals to become the best they can be. 

Another way virtual events help advance the nursing profession is through career fairs. Career fairs help by setting a specific time that is solely dedicated to helping nurses find their first job, advance in their career or make a career switch to a sub-profession. Career fairs advances the nursing profession by connecting job seekers to relevant opportunities where they can make a difference in the nursing community. Job seekers can gain “facetime” with recruiters to grow their network and share why they would be the best candidate for the position. Virtual career fairs, events or conferences can open the doors to better candidate pools and more attendees since a virtual event can fit into a busy schedule easier and doesn’t impose a travel or cost barrier.

Nurses around the world have the power to make influential impacts on the nursing profession through continued education, networking opportunities and finding a nursing community they can depend on for support and as a source of reliable information. No matter the size of your contribution, anything nurses can do will make lasting impacts on the advancement of the nursing profession. 

Want to create a live or virtual career fair event that drives registrations, improves engagement and connects qualified nurses with hiring employers? Schedule a demo of our Career Fairs platform with a Scribbler today!

The post 4 Things Nurses Can Do to Advance the Profession appeared first on Web Scribble.

After you think about these questions, turn to your association and assess the prospect journey you currently have in place. Would your process entice you to join, or does it seem a little bland and in need of a makeover? Are you highlighting the benefits that would persuade you to join? 

Follow these 6 steps to create a prospect journey that drives conversions:

1. Make it easy to find your association
2. Understand your current prospect journey
3. Create value for your prospects
4. Make it flexible
5. Show authenticity 
6. Create an engaged member community

Want to improve your member retention strategy by building a strong, dependable membership community? Join our 30-minute webinar on August 27th at 1PM EDT, Improve Member Retention by Building Your Membership Community Through Digital Engagements!

Step 1: Make it Easy to Find Your Association

Have you tried searching for your association with a Google search? How easy was it for you to find using keywords and related phrases? 

The first step to improving your prospect journey is to make sure prospects can easily find your association in a search engine. A majority of people are going to use keywords related to the profession they are in to find relevant associations they could join or when searching for industry-related content. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a critical part of improving your visibility on a Google search. Take some time to audit your website’s content – including your blog posts and other resources – and update keywords to reflect how prospects search for industry-related information so your association and content will show up higher in Google search results. 

You’ll also want to consider how easy it is to find your association on social media channels like LinkedIn and Facebook (or other platforms that are popular within your industry). If professionals within your industry are active online and continuously engaging with your content, it can easily become a new channel to funnel prospects to your website. 

A simple way to make sure your content is staying relevant is by using hashtags that are popular within your industry. When you use those hashtags, prospective members can find your posts if they follow the hashtags and actively engage with posts using them. Include your associations website in your social media bio’s for a seamless navigation between both platforms, along with any important event dates that would interest prospects who engage with your profile. 

Step 2: Understand Your Current Prospect Journey

To understand the improvements you need to make to your prospect journey, experience it for yourself first. Think of this like the secret shopper concept – pretend you are a professional in your industry who has found your association and begins searching around your website. Think about what parts of your journey are positive, what needs improvement or what is missing. 

1. Is your branding cohesive and easy to look at, or has it become inconsistent over the years?
2. Can you easily find where you should go to join the association? 
3. Do you know exactly what you should do next from the directions given by the association? 
4. What does this process look like on a mobile device? 

Understanding the process your potential new members are going through when they engage with your association is critical for making improvements and recruiting new members efficiently. 

Not only should you check how effective your prospect journey process is, but how effective your content is at supporting the process. Produce and create content that non-members would be interested in and find valuable enough that they would pay a membership fee to read more, like problem-solving and career advancement resources like Career Paths or online learning and certification courses. 

Step 3: Create Value for Your Prospects 

To convert your prospects into active members, show them your association is of high value for career advancement opportunities and will give them the necessary tools to reach their goals. 

Throughout your prospects’ journey, include value statements in your graphics, landing pages, and other informational pieces to convey the importance of your association. Use phrases like “Free Training’s”, “Become part of something bigger”, or “Amazing Value” so prospects understand your association goes above and beyond to create meaningful membership experiences. 

If your association creates weekly content – whether it’s an online training, webinar, or critical industry information – market this value point so prospective members know you are continuously updating and adding new resources. This not only creates value, but also scarcity and urgency, which can be a major deciding factor for many prospects. 

Step 4: Make Membership Flexible

Does your association offer tiered or leveled membership options? One price point can limit who converts to a member and neglect those who would benefit from a reduced membership, like early careerists looking for entry to associate level positions. 

Tiered membership levels help attract members in all stages of their careers and creates an opportunity to upsell higher level memberships later when a relationship has been established or they are ready to invest in more member benefits. To properly market each membership level, highlight the best benefits that come with each so prospects can see which one will best fit their needs. Within your membership portal, make the transition seamless between levels so members can easily change their membership without having to jump through hoops!

Conversely, make it easy for members to downgrade their membership as well. Although it’s not what you want your members to do, it’s a good option to have in case they experience a financial crisis or need to take a step back from membership for a period of time. Remember, they will have the option to upgrade again when the time is right, and allowing them to downgrade will make them feel more positively about your association since you were accommodating to their needs. 

Step 5: Show Authenticity 

Every association has a story, but the way you tell it is what sells your association over another. Associations with a genuine, interesting and captivating story will have the most success at drawing prospects in, making them want to learn more and then become part of your organization. 

Many associations offer similar items in terms of resources, but maybe from you they also get a membership community, personalized interactions, and a feeling of belonging to something bigger. These are super important benefits that shouldn’t be overlooked and are important factors for many prospective members that want to get the most out of a membership. 

If you aren’t sure how to sell this aspect of membership in writing, considering using video to convey your sense of community and other abstract benefits. To kick it up a notch, include members testimonials and reasons why they love your association, why they decided to join and why others should consider joining, as well. Your video doesn’t need to be professionally produced or edited in extravagant ways – you don’t want it to feel scripted or inauthentic, so keeping it simple and to the point will yield the best results. 

Step 6: Create an Engaged Member Community 

Associations with an engaged member community won’t have to put in as much effort into recruiting new members – your members will be your advocates and do the work for you! When members genuinely love your association, they will be happy to participate in surveys, short interviews, share success stories, and provide referrals. Not to mention, they will also be more engaged on social media by sharing your posts and inviting friends, colleagues and peers to your webinars or virtual events. When prospective members see frequent member engagement and positive interactions, they become more interested in your organization, want to learn more and become part of your organization to feel that sense of connection. 

To continuously maintain and improve your membership community, host frequent networking opportunities like member happy hours and virtual career fairs so members can easily connect with other members to grow their network. Especially during an era of virtual interactions with large crowds, it’s an easy and effective way to make members feel connected to your organization and like-minded people.

There are many pieces to the puzzle for recruiting, but making sure their prospect journey is seamless, genuine and informative will make it that much easier for your association to obtain new members. Take the journey yourself to see exactly where your association’s experience is at to determine what has been working well, what needs to be improved, and what needs to be scrapped altogether. 

The post How to Create a Prospect Journey That Drives Conversions in 6 Steps appeared first on Web Scribble.

Nursing is one of the most specialized professions that requires years of experience and education to advance in the field, especially if you want to pursue a niche sub-profession like critical care or emergency room nurse. 

Professional nursing associations are the perfect place for dedicated nursing professionals to advance their careers and continue their education surrounded by like-minded individuals that share the same passion for nursing. These associations offer many benefits that will support your desire to become an influential presence in the field of nursing. 

Here are the top 5 reasons why you should consider joining a professional nursing association:

1. Networking & Leadership Opportunities
2. Continuing Education Opportunities
3. Access to Mentor Programs
4. Make Your Mark on Health Policy & Practice
5. Niche Job Boards

Looking to host a virtual career fair to get your members the jobs they deserve? See how Web Scribble’s Career Fairs software can help you and your members and request your personal demo today!

Networking & Leadership Opportunities

One of the many perks nursing association members receive are the exclusive networking and leadership opportunities. As a member, you gain access to virtual, in-person, and hybrid networking events that can help grow your network. Building a network can help you solve challenges in your local healthcare setting, discover new best practices, and connect to job opportunities you may not have otherwise known about. 

Networking events are great places for sharing ideas and information with colleagues to learn about their perspectives and experiences. Virtual networking can make this a little more challenging, but many associations and members have seen great success using LinkedIn pages or other online community platforms to connect with colleagues. When you make a connection with peers in your field, you have the opportunity to advance your career. This happens once a connection is established and a professional relationship starts to build. The more effort you put into your professional relationships, the more you’ll get out of it. 

Becoming actively involved within your association not only opens up networking opportunities, but it can also help you develop valuable leadership skills. Many professional organizations, such as the American Organization for Nursing Leadership, are dedicated to leadership or even offer leadership educational opportunities. When you do become a member, you might also be eligible for tuition discounts or educational scholarships offered by the association as a high value benefit. 

Continuing Education Opportunities

Another reason to join a professional nursing association is the access to continuing education opportunities like certifications and courses. Earning certifications is critical for continuing competency in the nursing profession – which leads to improved patient care, systems and personal career outcomes. Not to mention, this is an essential step in advancing the profession.

In the era of virtual learning, nursing associations give you access to online certifications, which makes achieving these certifications less complicated for working nurses. Some associations even offer discounted rates for certifications and other educational courses!

What is also great about joining a professional nursing association is the access to speciality journals, magazines, professional or peer-reviewed publications and newsletters with practice-related information. Having this kind of information at your fingertips will help you stay up-to-date and knowledgeable about all things nursing-related, making you a well-informed candidate or practitioner. 

Access to Mentor Programs

Associations are the perfect place to find experts who can help you advance your knowledge and skill set to grow professionally. Each mentor’s range of expertise and years of experience can provide you with a plethora of resources to get you to the next level in your career. 

They can give you tips and advice on which certifications or courses to take, which programs to enroll in, hospitals or facilities to apply to that are looking for candidates like you and much more. Mentors have a wealth of knowledge that can guide you through your career path and help you when you hit a bump in the road. They have been through and seen it all, so learning from a mentor will be extremely rewarding and beneficial for your career development. 

Make Your Mark on Health Policy & Practice

Most associations have comprehensive advocacy efforts at a local, regional and national level that offers the opportunity for you to make a positive impact on health policy and meet other individuals in the nursing profession. Being a part of an association that has these kinds of relationships within health policy can help make influential decisions that can dramatically improve health professions. 

Associations are also the source of professional standards and are often connected to certifying bodies. They provide the best access and guidelines to your specific area of interest within the nursing profession, making it that much easier for you to learn all you need to know to be a successful nurse. You also have the option to join specialized nursing associations, like the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses or the Emergency Nurses Association, where you can take a deeper dive into those specialties and hone in on those practices professional standards. 

These associations have a responsibility that they take very seriously to promote the best practices and educate nurses on what is new and what is changing in the profession. 

Niche Job Boards

A nursing associations job board is more effective for job search than a massive job board because they only focus on posting jobs that are relevant to nursing, whereas massive job boards have hundreds of industries they serve. When you are searching for a nursing job on an association’s job board, you confidently know you are exposed to high quality employers and career options. 

Additional benefits include the option to create a job seeker profile where you can upload your resume, cover letter, recommendation letters, display certifications and manage your applications all in one platform. This makes it much easier for employers to find you, assess your qualifications and quickly contact you to set up interviews. You, as the job seeker, can sign up for job alert email notifications that send relevant job opportunities directly to your inbox when an employer posts a job that meets your preferred criteria. 

When you join a specialized nursing association, you’ll be able to access jobs that are specific to your specialty without the headache of searching through massive job boards to find those types of jobs. These associations will understand the market on an intricate level, giving you top employers and job opportunities on a regular basis.

Professional nursing associations provide many benefits for nursing professionals looking to advance their careers and continue their education. They are a centralized location for all things nursing and provide members with unlimited opportunities and options to grow into the nursing professional they have always dreamed of.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed how organizations of all shapes and sizes engage with their members, supporters, and partners. 

You’ve likely already shifted many of your association’s strategies to the virtual sphere when it’s made sense for your organization. Virtual events have quickly become a necessity for associations and nonprofit organizations alike, and they can be an effective way to engage members, keep up your important conversations and initiatives, and raise non-dues revenue. But has anything fallen through the cracks or been lost in translation?

For organizations that are new to virtual, online-only events, one core aspect might be missing from their virtual engagement strategies: effective follow-up.

Following up with event attendees and growing engagement has always been essential for strengthening your base of support, but it’s now more important than ever. As disruptions and uncertainties rock practically every sector of the economy, maintaining close ties with members, growing non-dues revenue, and boosting retention will be critical for associations like yours.

At OneCause, we specialize in online auction and virtual strategies and software for fundraising organizations. We’ve seen firsthand how adapting with the right tools and tactics can help nonprofits not only engage but grow their bases of support despite ongoing challenges. 

However, follow-up is one element that can be easily neglected when working with new strategies and tools for the first time. Here are a few follow-up and retention best practices we recommend to any organization that’s hosting or planning a virtual fundraising event:

1. Immediately follow up with attendees
2. Closely review your event’s performance
3. Identify key participants and contributors
4. Offer attendees new ways to engage

Whether you’re planning your next virtual event or have already hosted one or more virtual events, these best practices can strengthen your entire strategy going forward. Let’s dive in.

1. Immediately follow up with attendees

This general best practice was likely already a part of your regular engagement strategy, but it’s worth repeating. Immediately follow up with event attendees and donors to express your gratitude, outline their next steps, and simply keep your organization on their minds.

Over the past several months, your team’s plans were probably canceled or radically altered due to the pandemic. This has probably led to the challenge of reallocating event budgets and other resources in response to these changes. If resources were shifted towards virtual engagement, don’t let your hard work and investments go to waste! Quick follow-up after virtual events is the first and most basic step towards boosting retention from one engagement opportunity to the next.

After a virtual fundraising event, consider these ways to follow up with attendees:

1. Automate donation receipts and thank-you messages. If you’re using dedicated fundraising software, automated email capabilities should be included. If not, don’t let this task fall by the wayside! If you can, use automation to personalize the names and messages to help build deeper engagement.
2. Send a post-event survey. Feedback on your virtual events will be invaluable as society continues to adapt to online-only engagement. Immediately after an event is the best time to get fresh thoughts and opinions from members.
3. Provide engagement and virtual volunteer activities. Offer attendees new ways to continue engaging with your organization after the event ends. We dig deeper into this point below in tip #4.
4. Promote your next virtual event. If your virtual fundraising event went well, this is the perfect time to encourage attendees to check out and register for your next event. Include a link to your next event’s micro-site or registration page, and consider offering a special perk or registration discount to repeat attendees.

Digital communication has been increasingly central to association member engagement and retention strategies over the past decade, and if there’s ever been a time to lean heavily into digital engagement, it’s now. 

Immediate follow-up with event attendees, typically via email, is an essential part of laying the foundation for continued engagement. This is particularly valuable if your attendees generously gave to your organization during a virtual fundraising event. 

2. Closely review your events performance

If your organization is already well-versed in using data to guide your event strategies, make sure that good habit doesn’t get lost in the shift towards virtual engagement. Reviewing your performance, strengths, and opportunities for improvement is a critical part of the event follow-up process. Plus, it’s essential for improving your strategies over time.

Additionally, while associations often host conferences and other professional events, fundraising or engagement-centric events might be a newer experience for your team, so be sure to take the same strategic approach to data collection and analysis as you would other types of events. Using dedicated event planning tools will be essential for generating and reviewing data from your virtual events. 

Start the performance analysis process by setting appropriate goals and KPIs before the virtual fundraising event begins. For a virtual fundraising event, your organization might look to metrics like:

1. Overall revenue generated by the event
2. Cost per dollar raised
3. Event-specific metrics, like total bids received during an online auction
4. Event attendance and engagement
5. New attendee acquisition
6. The number of repeat attendees from your last event
7. Online engagement with your event’s marketing materials

Each of these metrics can provide invaluable insights into the performance of your virtual event strategies, helping you shape your future plans based on the effective strategies used at this event. If you’ve sent post-event surveys to attendees as part of the follow-up process, make sure their responses are compiled and thoroughly analyzed, to uncover potential opportunities for improvement. 

If your total event revenue from an online auction is lower than expected, you can drill down to find the total bids received or revenue generated per item. Then, if you find that any number of items received few or no bids, you can further analyze the specific starting prices and minimum bid raises that you set for them. If your pricing strategy was off and engagement decreased as a result, record that insight and incorporate it into future virtual auctions. For a complete walkthrough of this process, check out the OneCause guide to auction item pricing.

By looking closely at how attendees engaged with your event and how that relates to your overall performance, you can continually improve your virtual events to provide a better experience and generate more non-dues revenue over time. 

3. Identify key participants and contributors

In addition to reviewing your event’s performance and specific elements that may have helped or hindered reaching goals, reviewing engagement at the individual level is another important part of the post-event follow-up process.

This step will look a little different depending on the specifics of your particular virtual event, but the idea is to identify any attendees who made a significant impact. This could include any attendee who:

1. Made the largest donation during a virtual fundraising event
2. Placed the most bids or won your big-ticket auction items
3. Was the most engaged with your event’s sessions
4. Engaged early and often with your event’s marketing materials
5. Went out of their way to share your event on social media

Identifying these highly-engaged and generous attendees during the follow-up process has a few important benefits.

First, it lets you conduct more personal outreach to the participants who made the most difference for your event. For fundraising events, this would definitely include attendees who made sizable purchases or donations. If you rely on support from high-level donors, this process is invaluable for your future prospect research efforts. Do some additional research on highly-engaged attendees to help guide your development team’s efforts. We recommend this DonorSearch overview of affinity to give markers to look for while researching your virtual attendees.

Additionally, take a close look at online engagement before your virtual event. Supporters or members who effectively served as online ambassadors to promote your event and secure more registrations will be valuable volunteers to reach out to again.

More generally, identifying key attendees is also useful for refining your outreach strategies over time. By finding the participants who engage deeply with your events and are motivated to give to your organization, you can take note of their shared characteristics and develop types or personas to target in the future.

For example, if your key attendees all have similar histories of engagement with your organization, focus on them when promoting your next event. Segment your contact list or member database by historic engagement markers, like previous event attendance or length of membership, and develop a tailored promotional campaign to reach them.

4. Offer attendees new ways to engage

After initially following up with your virtual event attendees and studying your performance data, take some time to consider ways in which you can ask participants to deepen their engagement with your organization.

For virtual fundraising events, other avenues for engagement might include:

1. Registering for your next event if it’s been fully planned and finalized
2. Making a separate donation or setting up a recurring donation to support your work
3. Signing up for a virtual volunteer opportunity
4. Renewing or upgrading their membership 
5. If eligible, requesting a matching gift from their employer on any donations made during your event

Incorporate this strategy into your post-event follow up and other marketing communications. Consider your event’s target audience or average attendee. What new opportunities for engagement will be most appealing to them? Tailor your messages and new requests based on their histories of engagement and generational demographics.

Remember that you may offer one of a number of different ways to stay engaged based on how each individual attendee interacted with your virtual event.

For instance, if you’ve planned and hosted a charity auction, how each participant engaged with your auction should inform the new opportunity for engagement that you promote to them. Big bidders and winners from your event should be funneled towards growing their impact, while attendees who didn’t place any bids over the course of your virtual auction might rather engage by making a smaller donation, following you on social media, or volunteering.

The main idea is to actively encourage more engagement, and not to just hope that the positive experience of your event was enough to keep attendees engaged with your organization.

Planning and hosting virtual events is a fairly new undertaking for many organizations, including associations branching out into new methods of generating non-dues revenue. However, remember that the same best practices for in-person events around follow-up and retention still apply.

By incorporating these virtual follow-up tips into your event strategies, you’ll see increased attendee retention and boosts in engagement, shoring up more support for your organization in these times of disruption. Best of luck!

Author Bio

Joshua Meyer brings over 14 years of fundraising, volunteer management, and marketing experience to his current role as the Director of Marketing for OneCause. Currently, as a member of the OneCause sales and marketing team, Josh manages all of the firm’s marketing efforts. He has a passion for helping to create positive change and loves that his current role allows him to help nonprofits engage new donors and achieve their fundraising goals.

The post Guest Post | Following Up After a Virtual Fundraising Event: 4 Tips appeared first on Web Scribble.

Creating a new member welcome experience that possesses these characteristics will help your association retain members for years to come and will help grow your membership base significantly. 

So, what should your association be doing once a new member joins? Here are 6 tips that are sure to help you welcome new members without overwhelming them:

1. Immediately send an informational kit
2. Confirm their decision to join was the right one
3. Make it easy to find high value content 
4. Help them find their tribe
5. Shout out new members 
6. Stay connected

1. Immediately send an informational kit

Before you start promoting all the amazing benefits you offer, immediately confirm with the new member that what they did was successful. Confirm their payment went through with an auto-responder email and that their information was received. This helps make the new member feel secure in their purchase and become familiar with your payment process. 

Now you can send out the informational kit so the new member will have all the information they need to begin their member journey in one place. In the kit, re-state the member benefits they now have access to so they feel good about their investment. Include a link to a landing page that has more in-depth details about the benefits they can access and begin using. 

Pro tip: Personalize your email with a staff member’s name instead of a noreply@ address! These types of addresses indicate lack of human connection and support – which is not the best way to create a member community. Humanize your communications with a staff member’s name to make new members feel comfortable.

The last piece to include in your informational welcome kit is a short, 2 to 3 question survey asking why they decided to join your association. Again, you don’t want to annoy your new members by asking them to fill out a long, tedious survey, so just keep it short and sweet!

2. Confirm their decision to join was the right one

As stated before, joining an association can be a huge step and investment for a new member to take, so confirming their decision was in fact the right one will make all the difference in their comfort and engagement level. 

Congratulate them on this achievement and reinforce they made the right choice by including a line like “Congratulations! You’ve just joined our exclusive network of almost 5,000 professionals in your industry!” 

Including a line like this signals this was the correct decision, makes them feel confident in their decision and can find comfort in knowing they are joining other like-minded individuals in their industry on this journey.

3. Make it easy to find high value content

To ensure there are no miscommunications or questions about the benefits offered through your membership, include links to resources and landing pages that describe your benefits in detail. 

For example, creating a landing page for your career center is a great way to explain the benefits associated with using this benefit and is an easy way for members to refer back to it months or years later. It helps keep all your information in one place so members and prospective members can easily review it if they have questions about the career center. 

Be sure to include links to sign up for your newsletters, blog subscription and events calendar so new members can quickly sign up for communications and register for any upcoming events or webinars. 

4. Help them find their tribe

Including links to social media channels, online communities, member directories, mentor programs and other networking opportunities helps your members become acquainted with their peers and grow their professional network. Networking opportunities are often one reason why many people decide to join associations, so making it easy for them to connect with their peers creates a sense of community and appreciation for your association. 

Pro tip: Include introductions of staff members they may need to contact at some point if they need assistance with payments, experience account issues or need help navigating their member benefits. Introducing these employees at the beginning of membership helps make new members feel comfortable reaching out for assistance and so they don’t have to dig around your website to find the correct phone number or email address.

5. Shout-out new members

When new members join, considering giving them a shout-out in your newsletters, on your website or in a social media post to make them feel welcome. Be sure to ask each new member for permission to share this update before you send out any announcements. When a new member agrees to this, have them send you a head-shot, a short bio about themselves, what they are most excited about in joining your association, and any social media handles so other members can connect with them. 

This is also a great way for existing members to see who has recently joined so they can reach out, offer guidance or advice, and build their own professional network as well.

6. Stay connected

After 45 – 60 days, otherwise known as the honeymoon period, send a follow up email or give new members a call to say hello and see how their member journey is progressing. This can be an opportunity to provide advice on which services they should use or remind them of member benefits they haven’t taken advantage of yet by reviewing your AMS and career center data. 

This is another chance to send out a brief survey to gauge where they’re at in their member journey. Are they enjoying being a member? Do they see and feel the value in this membership? Do they feel engaged and noticed by your association? 

Knowing how your new members are feeling after a month or two into their membership journey will help you better understand member expectations so you can improve your onboarding process for the future and retain more members. 

Your first few interactions with new members are critical to improving member retention rates and the overall success of your onboarding process. Developing a new member experience that is positive, informative and valuable will help you achieve these goals and create lifetime members. 

Experiment with a mix of these 6 tips to see which ones your members respond to the most and get one step closer to creating the perfect new member welcome experience. 

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