Page 50 - FINAT Yearbook 2014

MORE AND MORE FINAT MEMBERS AWARE OF THE ONLINE MEMBER BENEFITS
FINAT COMMUNITY ANNO 2014 –
LINKING THE LABEL INDUSTRY ONLINE
In 2011, during the FINAT congress in Sicily, the new FINAT website was launched. Since then, online communi- cations have become more and more important for the association. Since last year, the FINAT website has been further optimised and the amount of unique content and information exclusively available to members behind the password has been multiplied. But today’s member platforms are not only about the consumption of information and services, they are also about engagement! About Member-to-Member interaction, about the use of social media, and about the use of internet technology to establish a ‘virtual association’ to bring FINAT behind your doorstep, onto your computer screen, tablet of smartphone.
Within the Marketing Committee, the PR & Communications Subcommittee has activated the use of social media and other (online) communication tools. The subcommittee has started to put structure into FINAT’s online community presence, to set up measurable goals and to make sure that we keep on target. The subcommittee (chaired by Rob Verbruggen of Avery Dennison) is supported by Elke Verbaarschot at the FINAT secretariat, who is acting as the (online) community manager. Elke has a functional oversight of the social activity on the FINAT network to achieve the predefined objectives.
STATISTICS SHOW SUCCESS
In 2013, the first online prioritization report was composed, on basis of the 2012-2014 Website and Community Strategy Plan. Main targets of this report were:
• Attracting more visitors to the general FINAT website;
• Increasing awareness and number of profiles on the Members Area
• Intensifying the use of FINAT social media channels
These targets resulted in a redesign of the homepage of www.finat.com, more blogs and more activity on the social media channels (twitter and LinkedIn). Together with the more attractive visual appeal of the homepage, the navigation structure of the website was improved and a so-called ‘mega drop down’ menu made it even easier to access the right content on the open website.
Over the past 12 months, website traffic increased by 100 visitors per month on average to reach a total number of 3035 visits per month. Total website traffic on the public domain of FINAT increased from 2009 to 2013, with 10,7%. A very important indicator of success of the FINAT website is the increase in new members acquired via the website. With 18 new members via the website in 2013 and already 5 until May in 2014 (against 4 in 2012), this is the biggest source of new applications (43% of new members in 2013 and 56% tot dusver in 2014)!
Clearly the industry knows how to find FINAT online and understands the benefits of joining our community.
This increase in visitors also has a great deal to do with the increase in use of social media channels. With an average of 4-5 blogs per month and more tweets, the FINAT community has shown more activity which led to an almost 50% increase in the number of LinkedIn group members and an almost doubling number of followers on Twitter! In one year, the LinkedIn Group (fig. 1) went from 1200 in March 2013 to 1750 members by the beginning of May 2014. On twitter, a year ago FINAT had 175 followers, a number which increased to 340 followers (fig. 2). These figures show that the FINAT online community on social media is very important to the industry and it already does create more awareness for the label association by attracting traffic to our own ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ platforms.
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FINAT YEARBOOK 2014 |