If you’re sitting behind your table you’re doing it wrong. If you have trophies and composites on your table, you’re doing it wrong. Successful tabling is about creating a positive interaction with your audience. Give this scenario a try:

Table Setup
Tablecloth, a pen and paper or iPad, and an activity prop.

Talking Points
Ask people questions about themselves to genuinely get to know them. No fraternity talk needed.

Objective
To have fun, get to know people, and have an excuse to follow-up. Imagine getting fifty names from any of the following activities and following up with a prize announcement and a message that says, "We had such a great time meeting everyone on campus! We will try to come up with another fun activity next month, let us know if you or anyone you know would like to join us. Sincerely, Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity" and include links to your Instagram account or website.

• Draw Your Friend Challenge: Draw a picture of your friend in under 30 seconds, take a photo of your drawing and use the hashtag #myfriendisart, enter your name on our list, and we will follow-up with a free gift certificate to a local restaurant.
• Guess the Score: Guess the score of this week’s football game going to be? Or attendance? Or temperature? Make a guess using this form, leave your contact info, and we will contact the winner with a prize!
• Mini Golf Challenge: Sink a put, get candy. Add your name to the list and we will share out the leaderboard to everyone who plays. We’ll try again next month to see who can beat this month’s champion.
• Trivia: Campus facts, movie quotes, song lyrics, etc. Invite two people to play against each other to answer a question about your school.
• Karaoke: Youtube, a speaker, and a microphone. Enter your name and vote for your favorite song. We’ll share the results to let everyone know the most popular song. Random raffle for a year of free Spotify.

Talk to people you see tabling on campus. Even better, spend an afternoon at your student activities fair and talk to every group in attendance. This is a great way to meet people and collect contact information.

Then, you can follow-up with folks to determine how best to partner, or to see if any students from another organization would like to be involved with Delta Sigma Phi.

Create and cleanup your chapter’s primary social media outlet. Be present online and share content that matches your chapter’s values and desired image. Content should be relevant, timely, quality, and selfless. Here’s what we mean:

• Relevant: We don’t mean relevant to the chapter; we mean relevant to the general student body. What important conversations are happening on campus or in society? These can be fun or thought provoking, but how can you share information that is already part of the broader campus dialogue.
• Timely: Post when you’re likely to get view and responses.
• Quality: A filter can only do so much. Ensure your posts, images and comments are genuine and aligned with contemporary social media trends.
• Selfless: Let others be the hero. Expand the focus of your content beyond what the chapter is doing and occasionally post about others. Additionally, be sure to comment on posts made by others and DM people or organizations to strengthen your connection.

Budget for a $250 scholarship that can be awarded to a deserving student on campus (they do not need to join to receive the scholarship).

Advertise the scholarship via social media (perhaps even pay for ads). Share details with your financial aid office and post flyers around campus. We recommend a scholarship that recognizes academic performance and either high school, college, or community leadership. Additionally, we recommend requiring an interview with finalists as an opportunity to meet with applicants and share initial information about Delta Sigma Phi.

Anyone who applies can be added to your names list, and a deserving student is able to alleviate some of the costs of their college experience. This is a great way to promote academic success and generate interest in fraternities.

Yes, winning the IFC trophy is a great achievement, however, if your chapter wants to prioritize recruitment, we recommend skipping the interfraternal basketball league this year.

Our recommendation – break-up into pairs and have chapter members join random teams. Instead of 10 people playing on one team and meeting zero new people, you can have 10 people play on five teams and meet 40 new people. Guess what, chances are that the 40 new people you meet also like basketball. Boom. Added to the names list.

Two best practices here:

• Nearly every service event your chapter organizes should invite non-members. This is a great way to boost your impact and meet new people.
• Having small groups of chapter members participate in other non-Greek service events is an even better way to meet new people.

Fundraising is a great way to rally people together around a cause. This could be a tabling activity, an online campaign, or both. Find a cause that is important to your community, or even partner with your school to fundraise for your development office. Put some work into marketing on campus and offer recognition and an award for the individuals or groups who contribute the most.

Check to see who from your high school will be attending your school. Invite them out to lunch or to join them for a tour. Is no one from your chapter an alumnus of a specific high school you would like to recruit from? Contact the high school and see if you can offer a scholarship for incoming freshmen.

Another idea: see if you can help sponsor a professional speaker who can share best practices for adjusting to college life with the senior class. Students who haven’t thought about fraternities will receive initial exposure, and students who think fraternities are only for parties might be intrigued when they see a fraternity sponsoring a study habits or anti-hazing speaker.