Picture this, one of your members just had a wonderful business lunch with a client. Getting to know each other the conversation eventually gets around to "what do you do when you are not working". Your fellow Rotarian takes advantage of the opportunity to brag about your Rotary Club. The client's curiosity is piqued and says what's Rotary? Your member hands them the Rotary "see us in action card", tells them the name of your club and invites them to your next meeting. Upon returning to work, the client googles your club's name.
 
If this truly was one of your members and the client did google your club name, would that client be inspired to accept the invitation based on what was discovered in the Google search?
 
The District 5790 District Services team has been wondering the same thing. So, we performed a very basic study of the Internet presence of every single one of the 69 Rotary Clubs in our district.
 
Rotary has a powerful story to tell and it is up to us as Rotarians to protect, promote and deliver our Rotary messages with a unified voice and look in all of our interactions with those not associated with Rotary. Whether that means wearing our Rotary pin or making sure our club Facebook pages and websites are using a consistent style and images as adopted by Rotary. Doing so is vital to enhancing our reputation as a world class organization.
 
Further, increasing the public's understanding of Rotary and our clubs in particular, we are strengthening our ability to make an impact in our communities. In addition to face to face relationships,  impressions of our clubs and Rotary are made through social media sites and club web sites. For this reason, Rotary is asking district leadership to evaluate just how effective each club's Internet tools are representing Rotary in general and their club in particular.
 
In response, the District Services team has performed a study of every club's Internet presence. The study looked at two factors:
1. How well clubs are utilizing the Rotary brand information on their digital formats 
2. How well the clubs promote their own programs and activities through the Internet.
 
Ultimately, would the information found on the Internet about your Rotary Club drive the viewer to seek more information. And, if they wanted more information could they find it? Is the meeting day, time and place available? If they wanted to contact someone for more information, could they? Does the information on your website connect them to a much larger world wide organization? 
 
The following are summary results of what what was in our survey district wide.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The criteria used for the observations in evaluating both the club websites and the club Facebook pages was drawn largely from a Rotary document entitled "A Quick Guide for Rotary Club Websites". We also referenced a 2016 Rotary Social Media guide entitled "The Style Guide for Rotary Clubs on Facebook and Twitter"
 
Summary Findings
 
We were pleasantly surprised that 96% of our Rotary Clubs had some type of "hit" when we Googled their club name. This, in spite of the fact that only 77% of our clubs have a website and only 72% had a Facebook page. Why the difference? Because Google search uncovered several media placements about their clubs. And many of those clubs did not have either a website or a Facebook page. We did not attempt to record the dates of these news articles because in most cases the articles were several months or even years old.
 
Sadly, only two clubs met 100% of the minimum criteria for an ideal Rotary Websites as shown in the Rotary Quick Start Guide. Four clubs managed an 85% score for their Facebook pages, but those were the high scores.
 
If we accept that a weighted score of 75% is acceptable, then only 13 (19%) of our clubs have a minimally acceptable websites. For Facebook pages, 18 (26%) have effective Facebook pages. For the 2015-2016 Presidential Citation, only 15 clubs self reported meeting the Presidential Citation criteria of Public Image which included an up-to-date website and the use of social media. So, these survey results are consistent with what club presidents know about their own club Internet connections.
 
It should be noted that this survey did not assess website's quality issues such as appearance, ability to navigate the home page, quality of images, quality of content, etc. Nor did we monitor such things as use of recommended font (Open Sans Condensed Bold, Aerial Narrow or Georgia). These are all issues even the best Club and District websites need to address and continuously improve their product. Members of our district services team are evaluating the district websites where this story appears to improve its appearance, navigation, effectiveness and overall attractiveness. This is not a task that can be done in just a few hours, it takes evaluation, planning, scheduling and in some cases training to better learn how to use the tools to obtain the look we seek. While this survey may appear to be a criticism of our Rotary Clubs and the Rotary volunteers that spend hundreds of volunteer hours doing a Rotary Club Service that few understand or appreciate, please know we understand the challenge and we encourage our club presidents to give the folks that do this work a shout out and some formal recognition to your club members as often as possible.
 
Next Steps
 
We will be e-mailing a link to this story to the presidents and public image chairs (if known) for the 69 clubs in our district. That e-mail will include downloads for the two Rotary Websites and Social Media Guides mentioned earlier in this story. If those presidents would like to know how their club can participate in a continuous improvement plan to improve Rotary's image and their club image in the community please e-mail district Webmaster Bob Troyer. Either he or a member of our team will visit with the club members responsible for the the task of continuously improving your club's website and social media pages.
 
In addition, we will make ourselves available to visit your club and present a program on this very subject so that your members understand the importance of a quality Internet presence for your club and the processes necessary to make the improvements.