IT'S TIME TO EMBRACE SOCIAL NETWORKING (IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY DONE SO)

I f the future of Rotary depends on attracting younger members, then the future of Rotary depends on social networking. That’s the belief that is gaining adherents, and Rotary International has made its commitment clear. RI’s Facebook page, established in 2005, now has more than 35,000 fans, its LinkedIn group has more than 7,000 members, and its Twitter account has more than 6,000 followers.

But as regular users can attest, social media can be twit or miss, and status can change with the click of a mouse. Facebook, for example – despite having been originally designed for students – has gone mainstream, eclipsing its main competitor, MySpace, in popularity. Twitter, meanwhile, may already have peaked, based on reports of declining usage among U.S. visitors this fall. And one Rotary club that has succeeded in attracting new and younger members – the Rotary Club of La Jolla New Generations, Calif. – credits much of its growth to Meetup.com, a site that started way back in 2002 and appeared to have fallen out of favor after being popularized by supporters of presidential candidate Howard Dean in the 2004 election.

“Social media is something that a lot of folks don’t understand,” says Tim Plocica, classification and membership chair for the Rotary Club of Fort Worth, Texas. Plocica, 45, freely admits to being one of those people. He does not have a Facebook account, nor does his 510-member club – yet. “Even though we haven’t implemented it, I think the curiosity level is beginning to go up,” he says. “We’re watching what other organizations are doing.”

More than 200 miles away, the Rotary Club of Houston established Facebook and Twitter accounts a year ago, when a new member, Linda Boggess, volunteered to administer them. Current club president Michelle Bohreer, 45, says that about half the club’s 240 members are on Facebook. “They are not fully engaged yet, with photos and all, but they are getting there,” she says. Bohreer is certain that the club’s activity on Facebook is having a positive impact. “People come up to me and say they learned something about Rotary from our Facebook page,” she says. “Younger people are attending our meetings – they say, ‘I saw you on Facebook.’ We’re getting a great response.”

Before its weekly meetings, the Houston club holds a half-hour pre-meeting to answer practical questions, including technology-related ones. Although younger club members are making quicker and wider use of social networking than older members, Bohreer thinks resistance is less a factor of age than of getting past the learning curve. “Once Facebook entered the professional world, older members became more open to it,” she says.

"People come up to me and say they learned something about Rotary from our Facebook Page. Younger people say, 'I saw you on Facebook.'" - Michelle Bohreer
Rotary Club of Houston

Megan Bhatia is president of the Rotary Club of Chicago Financial District, Illinois – and, at age 30, its youngest member. Bhatia says it is “definitely” the younger Rotarians in the 30-member club who are the most active users of the club’s Facebook account, communicating with each other through the site and promoting club events among their Facebook friends. By posting a message about a project or fundraiser – or even a few words about something interesting or funny that happened at a meeting – Rotarians can expose their friends to an aspect of Rotary they might not have known about.

Still, Bhatia says, “I haven’t done much to encourage other members to start using Facebook. I don’t want to push people out of their comfort zone. People have to find that it works for them personally before they can do it professionally. When they see the benefits of it personally, then they can put it to use.”

Bhatia has yet to see the benefits of Twitter, however. “I haven’t quite figured Twitter out yet, but I would like to see how we can use it,” she says. Bohreer isn’t sold on it, either. “I do not tweet,” she says. “It’s too complicated for me.”

Dave Bittner, on the other hand, uses Twitter daily and has set up a link to the RI Twitter feed on his club’s Web site. Bittner, 40, is the resident technology guru for the Rotary Club of Columbia-Patuxent, Maryland, where about a third of the 43 members are on Facebook.

“If you want to attract a younger crowd, you have to be able to communicate with them in the manner to which they are accustomed,” he says. “I think there’s definitely an opportunity to expand your club, to spread a wider net, by using social media tools. Facebook allows you to be in touch with a larger circle of people in a more efficient way. Once people get that, the light bulbs go on.”

Although Bittner can’t cite a direct connection between membership gains and social media, “the quality of our new members is very good,” he says. “By that I mean that people already know something about us when they join. I think we’re moving in the right direction.” He adds that Facebook has also been useful for the club in selling tickets to fundraisers and increasing awareness of Rotary in the community.

For Rotarians who resist using social media because they see it as an attempt to supplant traditional communication, Bittner has a message: “Nothing can take the place of face-to-face interaction with people, and that’s one of the most powerful things about Rotary.” Bhatia concurs. “I think social media is a great tool to help support recruitment efforts, but ultimately it comes down to the personal connection,” she says. “That’s what Rotary was founded on; that’s what Rotary is all about. Nothing will replace the person-to-person connection.”

Nevertheless, to remain relevant, Rotarians must be open to augmenting the traditional member experience. “Rotary has to be awake to the changes that are going on in our world – how people meet each other and communicate,” Bohreer says. “Using social media is Rotary’s way of saying ‘Yes, we are aware’ – and that’s really important.”