Friday Buzz: “A Member Online is a Member Offline”

“A member online is a member offline. You wouldn’t get to know somebody at a party and then completely ignore them and all of the things that you learned when you see them again at a different party.”

Marketing pro Colleen Dilenschneider is sounding the horn for membership pros to get involved on social media, and if you’re not there, you’re potentially missing out on an important part of your audience.

In her latest post on her Know Your Own Bone blog  (opens in a new tab)—pulled from a Blackbaud webinar she recently conducted—she breaks down several reasons why staff in all departments,  particularly membership and fundraising, should care about communicating with members in digital channels.  A key one is this:

“The web has changed our organizations more than simply ‘adding a social media arm,’” she writes. “It affects every department within an organization—and because digital engagement strategies are about PEOPLE, it arguably most affects those departments that work directly with audiences.”

Mom Knows Best

ICYMI: Thank your association’s donors by following your mom’s advice http://t.co/HB3xnKSzjY  (opens in a new tab) #assnchat  (opens in a new tab) #fundchat  (opens in a new tab) #csae  (opens in a new tab) #asae  (opens in a new tab)

— MediaEdge (@MediaEdgeTOR) August 21, 2014  (opens in a new tab)

Kasey Patton of Partners in Association Management has a lot of advice on association and nonprofit management, but she’s learned quite a bit from someone who was around long before she got into the association management game: her mom.

Writing for the company’s Partners Preceptors blog, Patton translates small things she learned from her mother into lessons for thanking donors. (And, of course, she offers them them with family photos  (opens in a new tab).)

Patton’s advice highlights a personal touch, featuring gifts, prompt responses, and handwritten thank-you notes.

“Moms have a way of making you feel special like no one else. They take careful time out of their lives to spoil you and let you know that you matter to them,” she writes. “That, in essence, is what you need to do to cultivate the right relationship with your donors.” (ht @AssocContent  (opens in a new tab))

Other notable links

Velvet Chainsaw Consulting’s Sarah Michel would catch a grenade for Bruno Mars  (opens in a new tab), who she says is an audience engagement example to follow.

“Laziness isn’t people not wanting to do something. Laziness is people who are faced with doing something they don’t wanna do.” In a one-minute video interview, that’s what Community creator Dan Harmon tells Fast Company about why people shouldn’t be afraid to be lazy  (opens in a new tab).

Don’t like Windows 8? Maybe you’ll be a bigger fan of Windows 9, which is supposedly coming at the end of September  (opens in a new tab).

(iStock/Thinkstock)