5 More Social Media Do’s and Don’ts for Chambers of Commerce in 2025

As you head into your social media planning and content creation for 2025, here are five more things to do and not do to encourage engagement, highlight your members, and grow your Chamber.

#1 DON’T share a ton of posts from other businesses on a Chamber page

I will argue that your Chamber of Commerce Business page is not the place to continuously share the specials, deals, events, and announcements from your members – at least not individually and not all the time.

You have to think about the primary audience for your Chamber’s Facebook Page. Is it the general public? Is it your members? Or is it tourists? Or is it all of the above? Then, you have to plan your content to serve each of these audiences best or focus on your primary audience the most.

While sharing these posts from member businesses helps promote those businesses – you’ll likely see very low engagement rates with these posts and, as a result, see your organic reach plummet.

I have a few suggestions for this type of content.

1.  If you’re using Chambermaster or GrowthZone – post these on the Hot Deals feature. You can enable the Hot Deals newsletter which automatically sends it out to those who sign up for this email list. This automated email service is great. It serves both those that are interested in finding local deals and the businesses that have the deals. Hot Deals are also placed on your website automatically – you just have to promote this feature in the community.
   
2. Select one day of the week where you gather all of the business news and deals and post them as one single post with images each week. This is training your audience to look for this information at a certain time while also keeping your member businesses happy. You might consider creating a blog post on your website weekly with the same information.
   
3. Create a Facebook Group that the Chamber manages where the goal is to allow businesses to share their own deals and announcements in the group. You’ll need to have some volunteer business leaders to help you monitor and manage this community.  A Facebook Group has great possibilities for engagement and for allowing your member businesses to post their own information – but it can be a lot of work.

#2 DO create and post videos

Video content is the number one thing viewed on social media.

Chambers of Commerce have a lot to share about their member businesses, town, staff, and what a Chamber does. So, create some videos about these things!

Your videos don’t need to be highly edited or well-polished; you can use your iPhone, a microphone, and a ring light, and you can be ready to shoot!

Here are some ideas for video content to get you going:

• Highlight unique places in your community with a quick video tour
• Highlight your member businesses with a video tour and interview with the owner
• Welcome your new members each week or month with a video welcome on your social media channels (don’t forget to tag the businesses in the text)
• Have a weekly video tip on how to get the most out of your Chamber membership
• Shoot some behind-the-scenes footage of your next event to get people excited about it

Posting video content is more about being consistent with creating it and getting comfortable behind the lens.

You can start shooting videos you won’t post to get comfortable with the process.

#3 DO share user-generated content

Share it on your page when someone says something positive about the Chamber or an event! This is the best form of endorsement – because it is authentic.

When sharing user-generated content, it is good to contact the individual or business first to make sure they are ok with the share. Then, you can ask to take a screenshot and repost it or share the original post – but get it out there!

Keep the non-digital format of user-generated content in mind too. For example, if you get a note or letter from someone, take a photo and share it.

Who better than other Chamber members to talk about the great things the Chamber is doing?

#4 DO respond to comments and DMs promptly

Relationship building is essential – even on social media. You can help build that know, like, and trust factor among your followers by responding to comments and direct messages, eventually turning them into members.

Try to respond to comments and messages as quickly as possible. If that means in a few hours or the next day, so be it, but do the best you can.

Communicating with the people who interact with your Chamber helps build community.

#5 DON’T try to do it all yourself

You can’t do it all by yourself.

You can’t have a presence on every social media platform while creating great video content, writing great blog posts, planning and scheduling all your social media, taking photos, and creating a conversation on social media.

It’s just too much for a small staff to handle.

So, be strategic.

Figure out where your members are spending their time. Which one or two or three social media platforms should you focus on?

Once you have determined where you will have a presence, focus on planning and making the most of your time.

By scheduling out everything you need to do well in advance, you can batch create content; you can shoot tons of photos in one outing, create several videos in one sitting, and more.

For those things that aren’t your forte or that you don’t have time for – hire it out. Find a contractor or hire another employee to fill the gap.

BONUS TIP:

Here is one tip that can help you create content without starting from scratch: curate content on some topics.

Find excellent content written by experts, carefully review and vet that content, and share it with your members. You can include a link to an article in a newsletter or even create tips in an image format to share on social media.

While unique content that you have written yourself is important, you can also help your members by creating lists of curated content on specific topics and saving them the research work.

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Need help with social media, content creation, planning, or content ideas? We can assist you with creating a content calendar or write the content for you! Just submit an entry on my “Let’s Talk” form and we’ll be in touch.