Death By Association: Do Association Leaders Consider Social Media Their Competitor, Partner Or Neither?

On this week’s Twitter association chat #assnchat, Susan Kuhn Frost, @sweetSue, a small business owner, author and blogger who consults individuals, small businesses and organizations, and a former association executive, had an interesting response to moderator Robert Johnson, @rjohnston and me.

Robert asked the group “How best to balance association use of base communities with outposts (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)” I asked for more clarification and the conversation proceeded as follow:

Wow, there it was in colored tweets for the entire world to read: Social Media is a competitive threat to associations. This was not, nor will it be the last time that this issue is discussed as many others have talked about this issue in their blogs, magazine articles and other social sites. @SweetSue was proclaiming the threat once again. Yet, are association leaders listening or hiding their heads in the sand.

Both Joan Eisenstodt, @JoanEisenstodt, and I asked @SweetSue to talk more about how social media was a competitor to associations and she laid out the follow four threats, I’ve paraphrased and expounded on some of her thoughts for readability and clarity. Text in parenthesis is mine. (We use a lot of abbreviations in Twitter to get more into the 140-character limit and thus one reason why I wanted to clarify.)

How Social Media Is A Threat To An Association
1) Social media in a bigger and more obvious way provides alternative sources of information (free content) and connections (networking and relationship building).

2) Social media has made it easier now to launch an association. (Social medial provides opportunities to create your own tribe around an issue or topic, as Seth Godin has pointed out in his book Tribes.)

3) Associations can be outflanked by smaller social media savvy startups. (Small is the new big!)

4) Social media supports niche groups that large associations can’t. (It’s the revenge of the association special interest groups or SIGs. In 1999, part of my job was overseeing SIGS for a nonprofit professional association. Amazing how social media has brought back the resurgence of niche groups.)

Then @SweetSue along with several others including @deirdrereid countered that association value propositions could be enhanced and strengthened with Social Media.

How Social Media Can Be A Partner To An Association
1) Social media can enhance and strengthen the association proposition value.

2) Associations can smartly deploy social media to increase their connection to members and nonmembers (increase their social capital) and deliver value.

3) The future belongs to associations that become fluent in both online and offline leadership. (I’m adding that it also belongs to associations that are seen as a catalysts enabling and facilitating both online and offline interactions, relationships, encounters and meetings.)

Later after the chat, colleague and association chapter facilitator extraordinaire Cynthia D Amour (yes great name right. Wonder if it’s her stage name!) had the following conversation with me.

• Do you think all the misc groups out there will eventually come together and form/join/attach to an assn? @cynthiadamour

• Not unless associations provide gr8 value that attract, feed, engage & keep them. Have 2 provide unique & memorable things 2 @jeffhurt

• But what if some of the LI, FB, Twitchat groups decide they want to merge, get together in person, etc. ? Isn’t that like an assn? @cynthiadamour

• I think we have new name for them an Un-association! Isn’t this already happening? Look at BarCamps, Unconferences, WordCamps

Cynthia brings up some very valid points and ones that may create more fear in association leaders. Are members keeping their association dollars and instead using free social media tools to create new associations? I think in some cases, that might well be happening. Thus, the social media can be seen as competition.

What Will Happen To Associations That Ignore Social Media
Hiding your head in the sand and hoping social media is a fad is an option. I submit it is an option that will reap dire results. It is not an alternative your association leaders should consider.

Status quo and doing the same things you have always done, in the same ways you have always done them, does not mean you will get different results. Nor is association status quo safe anymore.

Some Views From C-Suite Executives
Last summer I received the following five evaluation comments after one of our webinars on Web 2.0 technologies and social media for corporations. Four of the comments were from executives at the same company. That company held a debrief for ten of their employees after the webinar. Read for yourself the first three comments and you’ll see how these C-Suite executives reacted to a webinar on why they should integrate social media. I suspect these thoughts are very similar to conversations that happen with many association boardrooms across the world.

Comment 1: As a gen X, this was just up my alley. Unfortunately, my company doesn’t get it nor the need to change old ways. Their loss.

Comment 2: Our group discussed the presentation afterwards and the majority of the group (all baby boomers) felt that we should not embrace technology because technology might implode some day. Wow, I suspect that the introduction of the phone and PC had the same impact on those that didn’t think we should use them…because what if they imploded. I disagree with the majority of the group and will be running their businesses in about five years anyways. Then they’ll wish they had been early adopters!

Comment 3: Our group had a brief discussion after the presentation. Our consensus is that although this is the reality of communication today, and in the future, and our younger generation conducts itself completely in this manner, the thought of being constantly available on the grid is disturbing. And the way our younger generation is learning to socially interact and communicate with others presents a real possibility of implosion. What would happen someday in the future if the grid went down? It’s not out of the realm of possibility. I can see those who live by the grid rolling up in the fetal position and just waiting for it to come back up.

Comment 4: I had a lengthy discussion with executives after the training. They get the importance of implementing these new tools but are fearful they will fail. They are unwilling to take the risk but are willing to let me take baby steps with them. The chasm between the generations is obvious with the technology discussion. The boomers are afraid of change, the gen x & y are already using it. I think this is similar to the introduction of TV when some businesses jumped on the new media platforms and others were left in the dust. Those that didn’t jump on the new media had to be bringing other value to customers or they lost their jobs.

Comment 5: Interesting that many of the “healthcare” companies already understand the importance of using these new tech tools but the dental benefits companies are slow to embrace. I struggle with the c-suite people having a “If we were made to fly, we would have been born with wings,” mentality regarding technology that many people had with the advent of the airplane. Regardless how those people feared change and flying, it occurred without them. Unfortunately, the c-suite has gone the extreme of too much security and not trusting their employees.

There you have it. The classic battle within companies and associations: ignore social media because it’s a fad, embrace it in small steps, or wait until baby boomers retire to do it right. Those comments are so telling of the current struggles organizations face.

So I leave you with these thoughts: Instead of seeing social media as one more thing to do or trying to understand it all before entering the social space, shift the thinking and see it as extensions of what you’re already doing. Consider the philosophies that undergird social media and the Web 2.0 world: authenticity, earning trust and attention, participation, permission-marketing, content creation and user-generated, and embrace those as new strategies for your association. If not, your shortsightedness may work temporarily and cause challenges for your association in the future.