Monday Buzz: Membership Success Fueled by the Web

The Rhode Island Academy of Physician Assistants was founded in 1976, but it wasn’t until recently that its membership really began to take off. What was the cause of a sudden 25 percent increase in its membership? According to an RIAPA leader, a revamped website and a new focus on the internet and member empowerment.

RIAPA Past President Jim Carney recently sat down with membership management software company Wild Apricot  (opens in a new tab) for a talk about how smaller associations can bring new visibility and membership benefits to the forefront.

“It’s a question of being able to market yourself to the members and to the potential members,” Carney said. “And that’s what we weren’t doing a good job at. We weren’t getting our name out there, we weren’t getting any kind of a visual thing out there that people could go and look at.”

Creating a way for members to handle their membership dues online has proven to be hugely successful.

“They don’t have to print up any invoices and mail them in. They don’t have to make any phone calls. It’s completely seamless from the time that they arrive on the website,” Carney said.

And the academy is now looking to improve its newsletter production process to add more content of interest to current members. It also puts short blurbs about topics covered in the newsletter on the website in hopes of enticing nonmembers to join the organization to receive the mostly monthly newsletter.

For the full Q&A, which also touches on leadership and board policies, head over to Wild Apricot’s blog  (opens in a new tab). (And full disclosure: RIAPA does use some of Wild Apricot’s products.)

Chart of the Day

The chart above is pulled from a Nielsen Social report  (opens in a new tab), just one of many referenced in Oktopost CEO Daniel Kushner’s guest post on SocialFish  (opens in a new tab) on the importance of speedy responses on social media

Other Good Reads

“I’m a firm believer that Twitter will be dead within three years,” marketing expert Jose Espinosa tells Forbes contributor Andrew Cave, taking an interesting perspective on key problems  (opens in a new tab) facing the social network.

“To effectively manage and exploit a company’s knowledge, you need a metadata plan.” And to get off on the right foot, check out Optimity Advisors partner John Horodyski’s latest post on CMSWire  (opens in a new tab).

Advocacy organizations took to one of the world’s biggest stages Sunday with several Super Bowl ads promoting their causes. But Goddard Gunster CEO Gerry Gunster asks whether the NFL championship is the ideal place for advocacy ads on CQ Roll Call‘s Connectivity blog  (opens in a new tab).

(Robert Churchill/ThinkStock)