Apart from having our own website as a tool to create and increase brand awareness, we need to increase our use of social media as a means of generating publicity. Think about all the hours spent on a project. An example, packing care bags for psychiatric patients.  How much time is spent doing this? Who knows about it? Imagine if the public were more aware of our work in providing support and care to psychiatric patients? Ask yourself why Rotarians are shy in promoting our work to the public?

Rotary declining membership is a problem. Many people still consider Rotarians stereotyped as “old white men”.  What are we doing about this at Hawthorn?

Social media can provide the following:

·       attract new members to our Club

·       grow interest in what Hawthorn is achieving

·       intensifies the public’s trust in Rotary and our projects

·       promotes interest in our website

·       allows for comments and this conveys the support for what we are doing

·       generates ideas from reading other Club’s work and events

·       increases our website traffic

Rotary embraces social media as an important tool for Public Relations, attracting new members, connecting with like-minded people and organisations and creating new opportunities to serve.

How many of you know that I often write articles for Eastsider News, Rotary Down Under, Networker, Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria? 

We have some wonderful Rotarians at Hawthorn, to who our Bulletin Editor is very grateful. We need more of us to step up and write a short piece for our Bulletin, which our Social Media member Ari Talantis, then publishes into Facebook, Instagram. 

What we do know is that every article in Bulletin, social media gives us more visibility.

More visibility creates more interest in Rotary Hawthorn which then hopefully creates more members.

I rest my case in providing the positive spin for social media and Club self-promotion.