This is a guest post by Brandon Bowman. He is a Fiji, and he recently graduated from Western Kentucky University. We are excited for him to share his insight with us in a series of articles.
Recruits want to learn about your chapter. And now, they’re looking online. Point them to information you want them to find. Ask yourself, “Is this a good place for a recruit to learn more about our chapter?”
A Chapter Web Site
Use your homepage to showcase your most recent stories and accomplishments. A blog style format makes learning about your chapter and what you do easy.
Talk about recruitment and pledge education. Explain how they work, what to expect, when events occur, etc. Be transparent. And include your fraternity’s contact information.
Show your values. Listing and explaining them is a good first step, but show recruits you put words to action. Have sections about philanthropy and community service, academics, campus involvement, leadership, and brotherhood. If an alum or advisor can share his endorsement on the web site, all the better. The goal is to be clear about who you are and what you do.
Tip: The chapter web site, when done correctly, looks professional. If no one in the chapter can create or maintain a web site of quality, find someone on campus or in your community who can help. This might be a professor, peer, alum, brother in another chapter, or another Greek on campus.
Social Media
On Facebook, you may have a Fan Page or Group for your chapter. Whichever you choose, the chapter Facebook should do everything described above. Share photos, stories, and tag people in posts. Comment. Most importantly, use the same group every semester. People add to the page over time, so the value and usefulness for recruits will increase. Don’t make a different event/page/group each time. If you do, you have to recreate the value all over again. It’s a hassle your brothers and supporters don’t want to go through.
Other social media can be a useful platform for sharing anything about your brotherhood. Videos about anything fraternity can go on YouTube, Vimeo and your Facebook page. (Shout out to the recruitment video posted by Kappa Kappa Gamma at Baylor University!) Photos of your events can go on Flickr. Twitter can be used to say anything short. Or innovate! Connect with recruits in a fresh way.
Why it’s important. Recruits are going to look online. Instead of letting them wander until they find something, it’s best you give them a specific place to go where your chapter is telling the story.
In the end, choose one place you can continually commit to develop the most, and let that one place be a hub of links for visitors to find all of the other places you may be online. You can also add your headquarters’ stuff too. They may even have a recruitment-specific web site (like joinato.org).
What are some great examples of chapter web sites you’ve seen? What other ways fraternity’s can innovate?
To learn more, check out our most in-depth article on fraternity recruitment: The Complete Guide to Fraternity Recruitment.