How to Drive Membership Sign-Ups Through Social Media

There’s nothing quite like the thrill of a new member signup. Whether you’re a member club, an exclusive pool, a gym, or another kind of subscription-based business, we’re sure you’re familiar with the high of expanding your membership base! But with so many businesses vying for potential members’ attention, it’s only getting harder to seal the deal. To actually convert people into paying members, you need to get eyes on your offerings. Before you run off to work your email list or launch paid ads, consider this: driving membership sign-ups through social media!

Social media is no longer just nice to have; it’s essential for driving memberships and subscriptions (and engaging with existing customers or members). After all, 54% of users use social media to research products or subscription-based services.

Don’t miss out on those prospective members! By working your socials, you can:

• Expand your membership numbers
• Reach new audiences
• Prevent churn by nurturing current members

Social media is the perfect place to showcase your care and attention to detail. Members will love seeing a more authentic side to your organization. After all, social media is the perfect place to play and have fun!

Read on to learn the how and why behind driving memberships through social media.

Why should you devote time to your socials?

How do you get more signups? Easy: Meet your customers where they are. These days, that means heading to Instagram, Facebook, X, or even TikTok. After all, 90% of consumers use social media to communicate with brands - including your members! If you neglect your socials, that’s a huge missed opportunity. 

You can use social media to:

• Engage with your current members to build loyalty
• Highlight special deals
• Expand your audience
• Advertise seasonal events or offers
• And more!

The more your members (and potential members) are invested and tuned in to your offerings, the more likely they are to continue their membership. When you’re constantly reminding them of the benefits of joining, they’ll be happy to shell out for the continued joy of being a member! 

Of course, you shouldn’t just post to social media willy-nilly. To succeed, you need a plan. That means understanding your ideal members, building content they’ll love, and engaging with your followers. We’ll cover the details - keep reading to learn how you can use social media to support your current marketing efforts!

Why is utilizing social proof essential for building trust?

Social proof does wonders when it comes to increasing membership! After all, who wants to join a poorly-reviewed community? Or worse, one without much social proof at all?

People are followers by nature, and hearing a positive experience helps push them in the right direction. It’s no surprise that testimonials can increase conversions by up to 34%!

Social media is an ideal platform for informally showcasing testimonials. Because social media is more about authenticity than perfection, you don’t need the same time and attention to detail that a testimonial on your website might require. 

Here’s what you can do to drive Membership Sign-ups through social media-

1. Understanding your target audience
2. Creating content your ideal member will love
3. Use different content formats to entice members
4. Leveraging paid social media to increase your reach
5. Creating engaging ads
6. Engaging with your community
7. Content formats to build community

Time to show off ➡️

1. Understanding your target audience:

What is the foundation of any successful social media endeavor? Knowing your audience. 

Once you identify your audience demographics and hone in on their needs, you can start building your social media strategy accordingly. By analyzing factors like age, location, interests, and other online behaviors, you can create content that really resonates with current and potential members.

2. Creating content your ideal member will love

A secret to killing it on social media: content is king. Content is what your audience sees and engages with, so it’s essential to make every post count. The goal is to provide value before people sign up, giving them a glimpse of the benefits they’ll get when they actually become members.

Keeping your ideal member in mind is key here. What are their pain points? What do they need to know?

Obviously, every brand’s content will be different, but delivering value could look like this:

• A gym or sports facility posting stretching routines or guides on proper form
• A members-only club showing off how to make their club’s signature drink
• A demo of something your members usually learn in class
• Sharing special deals on signups or events open to non-members

Great content delivers value before people sign up to be members, giving them a taste of what they’ll get if they do sign up. Once they see your killer yoga flow, they won’t be able to resist!

3. Use different content formats to entice members

From videos and infographics to Q&A sessions and user-generated content, there are plenty of ways to deliver value or otherwise entice potential members! If you’re just starting out in your social media journey, it’s helpful to test different formats to see what performs best.

Your audience may prefer an infographic on yoga poses for back pain to a video demonstrating the flow - and that’s okay! Once you start seeing traction on certain posts, creating similar posts will help you keep the momentum going. For example, if you posted that yoga infographic for back pain, try one for hip pain next. You could even do an “Ask Us Anything” post for your audience to ask about poses for specific ailments.

Luckily, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time. Using the same information in different formats, using creative online templates for infographics, and repurposing old content are all great ways of creating fresh posts without putting in a ton of work. Work smarter, not harder!

4. Leveraging paid social media to increase your reach.

Even if you’re on a roll with your social media presence, it never hurts to have a little help from your friends. Paid social is essentially a cheat code for expanding your reach (if you have the budget, of course). It’s the perfect way to reach potential members who might otherwise miss your content, increasing the likelihood of more interested followers! 

Not convinced? Investing in social ads can boost your brand awareness among your target audience. In 2023 alone, social media ad spend was over $200 billion.

Most social platforms offer incredible audience targeting options to expand your organic reach with paid ads. 

5. Creating engaging ads

Reaching a new audience is great. Still, you want to actually engage them, converting viewers into followers and signups.

The key to building a great social media ad is not to build an ad at all. Even if you’re paying to promote the post, it’s best if it seems like an organic part of your intended audience’s feed. That means building valuable content that will entice them to learn more!

User-generated content is the perfect way to excite new users about your business. User-generated content gets 4x more click-throughs than traditional ads, making it a lucrative option for increasing your visibility and reach.

6. Engaging with your community

For membership-based businesses like yours, community is everything. For members, interacting with you (and fellow members) can make or break their experience. From creating a sense of belonging to fostering loyalty, community is essential for enticing and keeping members.

Social media is the ideal place to build and nurture your community. You can do everything from hosting live sessions and creating interactive content to talking to people in the comments and answering questions.

Bottom line: engagement like this helps foster a sense of belonging and loyalty, which helps drive memberships (and retainment!).

7. Content formats to build community:

Does a text post give you the same warm-fuzzy feeling that a great conversation does? No? That’s what we thought.

The right delivery goes a long way in building connections with your members. A few great formats for engaging members include:

• Fun and relevant polls
• Live streamed Q&As and events
• Contests
• User-generated content
• Questions for your community

From the comment section to the DMs, anything that facilitates participation or conversation is perfect for community-building. Help members connect and get to know each other, and get to know them, too! The more you genuinely care about creating a community, the more members you’ll attract.

What helps in Driving sign-ups across platforms?

Of course, driving membership sign-ups isn’t a one-size-fits-all situation. To see results from your efforts, you’ll need to consider:

1. Your audience
2. The platforms you use

Not every membership cohort will be on every platform; it’s important to decide which platforms are important for your business. That way, you can prioritize where to spend your time and build your community.

While LinkedIn is perfect for professional associations and business or alumni clubs, a platform like Instagram is better suited to fitness clubs and lifestyle-focused facilities. For children's clubs and activities, a place like Facebook might be the best place to focus your time.

No matter your audience, taking the time to see where they spend their time online is essential for identifying where to focus your social media strategy. Understanding the nuances of your audience and implementing specific strategies will do wonders for your signups!

Conclusion

Building your member community on social media will help you generate signups!

Social media is a potent tool in driving membership growth. From understanding your audience to engaging with them and building a community online, the right social media presence does wonders for your business!

After all, people want to belong to organizations that share their values. Whether it’s where they send their kids to swim class or the studio where they practice yoga, people want to connect and build community (even if they don’t know it).

Happy community-building!

Prioritize your members, create an exclusive community, and adapt to their preferences to build a thriving brand community. When it comes to choosing the right membership platform, Omnify has you covered. Try it for yourself with a 7-day trial – no commitments, just the opportunity to experience hassle-free administrative management.