Membership Tips and Tricks
Rylie Wright, First Vice-President
Hey there Nebraska FCCLA! With the new year starting up, it’s important to remember that getting new members to join your chapter is still a very achievable goal! If your chapter’s new year’s resolution is getting more involved members, this blog is for you! I wanted to share some tips and tricks that I’ve gained over the years all about gaining new members through social media and activities. So, let’s get started!
Everyone likes food
Now, this may seem a bit cliche, but it’s true! In the past, I’ve definitely seen an increase in interest if there’s ice cream, spaghetti, or any other food involved with the meeting. Normally, getting a tub of ice cream or even cookies, vegetable trays, etc. isn’t that costly either. One thing I’d suggest (for advisers) is to have your FCS classes make some food for meetings! You could incorporate the recipe into your lessons and teach your class while supplying your FCCLA chapter with snacks for the next meeting!
Use your younger members
This tip is also pretty simple! GET YOUR YOUNGER MEMBERS INVOLVED! Sometimes it’s easiest to focus on the seniors and juniors who have been in FCCLA for years, but the underclassmen are going to be taking on chapter offices and leadership positions in your chapter’s future. It’s good to get them involved as much as possible, whether that’s in activities or talking to them about STAR and the National Programs. If your chapter allows junior high members, then focus on them too! Don’t forget about the younger students when doing chapter activities and having meetings.
Get competitive
Who doesn’t love a little competition? One easy way to get more members involved in things is to have competitions. I know for my chapter, every year we have a food drive. We’ve slowly gained more interest in the food drive because you can form teams and compete against other members of your chapter. Whoever wins gets a small prize, sometimes even just bragging rights works as a prize! It’s an easy way to make community service fun, and you can make anything competitive!
Use social media to your advantage
I know you’ve probably heard this before, but social media is a great tool to get members involved and catch interest in FCCLA! I have a few different tips for social media because of my experience in pageantry and as a state officer, so here are three of my tips!
- You have to use a different approach for every type of social media app. You can use the same posts and scheduling for Facebook and Instagram, but to use your social media to the best of your ability I’d suggest doing something different! My chapter uses Facebook to relay information more to adults and parents, and we use Instagram and TikTok to get in touch with members and students!
- Use stories! Stories sometimes work better than posts, because everyone wants information relayed quickly and succinctly. Having a countdown on your story or a Trivia Tuesday like Nebraska FCCLA does can get involvement and pique interest without much work!
- Try and post consistently, but not constantly. This is something us state officers learned at SOLA over the summer! Posting something every hour of every day will make the algorithm of whatever app you’re using not want to share all of your posts, and you most likely will not get as much engagement as you might have hoped. But posting very Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at a specific time won’t upset the algorithm and you can get the most out of your social media accounts! If you’re super serious, I’d suggest looking into a scheduling app for social media posts. This can help keep your feed consistent!
That’s all I have for you today! I hope you use these tips to grow your amazing FCCLA chapters so that the endless opportunities in Nebraska FCCLA can be shared far and wide! Have an amazing day.