Associations and Social Media – What are they REALLY Doing

Yesterday we were pleased to host a great Avectra Academy webinar which got beyond the “theory” of social media and dove into what associations are really doing to generate success with these new tools.

Here are a few highlights.

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Suzanne Carawan from ThePort presented their findings from the 2010 Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report (you can download it here). (Disclaimer:  ThePort is an Avectra partner). Some of the report’s key findings included:

• 90% of the organizations surveyed are actively using commercial networks including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube
• 22% of the organizations surveyed have private social networks or communities
• Organizations typically make monitoring and managing these communities (both public and private) the responsibility of ½ of a full time employee
• Facebook is the most commonly used public social media platform
• While public networks tend to have more than 1,700 members/followers, two-thirds of the private networks have fewer than 500 members.

Tom Morrison from the Metal Treating Institute highlighted his experiences building a private network using a solution provided by NFI Studios (Disclaimer:  Tom Morrison is an Avectra client and NFI Studios is an integration partner with Avectra). Tom’s highlights included the fact that:

• The biggest advantage of their private social network is that it has created a unified approach to touch all members.
• The network has delivered a number of advantages including providing a:
  • Competitive advantage
  • Voice for their smallest members
  • Connection with members who don’t attend meetings
• Tom started the network with 612 users and now has over 800 members
• 60% of their membership actively uses the system
• Tom highlighted that a key to success was to funnel members directly into the community after the member login and not merely provide it as an option off a side-bar link on the site.
• The key to launching the community was a successful marketing plan that not only built hype before it was launched but made a big deal of the launch and then sustained the buzz to keep people excited and engaged.
• Tom highlighted the need to make sure that you can integrate your private social networking platform into your Association Management Software (AMS). His recommendation was to select your social network platform first and then select your AMS so that you know you have something you can integrate with.

Avectra Comment: our association management software easily integrates with all of the leading social networking platforms including ThePort (Suzanne’s company), NFI Studios (who Tom uses), Higher Logic, Socious and more.  For more information, contact one of our sales reps.

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Tom and Suzanne covered a good bit of information in the webinar and this is obviously just the tip of the iceberg. If you would like to view the recorded webinar or download the slides, you can get them from our Avectra Academy website.

We also know that the subject of social media for associations is one that a lot of people are interested in and are trying to gather more information about. With that said, you may want to keep the following events in mind:

Association New Media Summit – June 8

Presented by our friends at Peach New Media, this one day event will include a number of speakers including Tom Morrison, Jeff DeCagna, SocialFish and me. For more info and to register.

Social Media Lunch and Learn – June 16

Presented by Avectra and Bisnow, this lunch and learn session will featuring Jennifer Edwards Abernethy, author of The Complete Idiots Guide to Social Media Marketing and a panel discussion with Kiki L’Italien, Suzanne Carawan and Maggie McGary. For more info and to register.

Buzz 2010 – June 16 | July 20 | August 18

Organized by SocialFish and SmartBrief, this series of breakfast meetings where top association and non-profit executives can hear directly from the leading minds in social media for business. For more info and to register.

It’s an exciting time for associations as they figure out what to do with social media and how to create their own networks. The good news is there are a lot of good sources of information out there and the early innovators like Tom are providing good case studies and road maps for success.