Membership

Social Media Roundup: Use Your Spotlight Sparingly

The spotlight your association can offer members is important; here's how to use it the right way. Also: In Canada, associations are getting used to working with less.

The spotlight your association can offer members is important; here’s how to use it the right way. Also: In Canada, associations are getting used to working with less.

Your members should be the stars of your content, obviously. But there’s only so much spotlight to go around.

Why you should take care in putting your members center stage, and more, in today’s Social Media Roundup:

Turn on the Spotlight

Time to make your members the stars? Perhaps. But that doesn’t mean it’s all upside. MemberClicks’ Sarah Hill ponders whether member profiles on association blogs or elsewhere are good or bad. Among the issues she raises: While the content is easy to create, it could be seen as fluff; it gives the association a face, but it could bring  negative attention to the group if something bad happens. And while it’s good to get members involved in content, profiles can create an appearance of favoritism. “Nobody wants to be left out, and if your membership is smaller and more intimate, being ‘profiled’ could be seen as a status symbol,” she writes. “If you do choose to profile members, ask for volunteers or keep it random. And get in everyone!” In other words, be careful with how you use that spotlight; you don’t want to dull its impact. (ht @MemberClicks)

When Less Has to Be More

Bad news for Canadian associations: According to a recent report by Greenfield Services, many associations in the Great White North are trying to work miracles with small staffs and small budgets. The firm’s 2013 Pulse Report notes that many associations with more than 2,000 members have budgets of less than $5 million, and one-third of those groups work with 10 or fewer staffers. The problem is even more acute at smaller associations, leading more than 30 percent of respondents to raise concerns about strategy, budget, and research. “Every organization should operate as efficiently as it can. But after years of scraping by on the barest possible budgets, many Canadian associations are scraped raw,” the firm’s Meagan Rockett writes. “They’re so lean that they can’t afford to invest in the educational programming or member engagement strategies that will help them thrive, rather than just surviving.” How do you make it work with less, when you need more? (ht @GreenfieldSrvcs)

What are you sharing these days? Tell us all about it in the comments section below.

(iStock/Thinkstock)

Ernie Smith

By Ernie Smith

Ernie Smith is a former senior editor for Associations Now. MORE

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