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How do you measure the ROI of your association membership dues? What is the value of your association membership? What dollar amount would you put on the value of your membership?
What tangible benefits do you receive by joining an association? How do you choose which association you’re going to join each year?
Is it based on the number of “leads” you receive for possible new business? Is it the networking opportunities?
Do you place a high value on the mission of the organization and want to align with it? Or do you join because you care about the industry and want to further its goals?
Perhaps you join because you want to learn new information, meet like-minded individuals and engage in community? Or maybe you join because you’re new to the industry and want to learn more? Or do you join so you can put it on your resume? Or because you’ve always been a member?
Associations by their very nature exist primarily for their membership. An association’s members are considered its owners, customers and stakeholders. Most have a governing structure that is “member-driven, board directed and staff managed.” (Or at least they are supposed to!) In most associations—whether charity, education, professional or trade–members have a voice and a vote. Members have a say in the structure and priorities of the association, the right to elect board members and officers, and the ability to approve bylaw amendments. The formal association structure goes far beyond the discounts, newsletter and information.
I have worked for associations for nearly 20 years and have learned the standard association elevator speech: “We exist to provide education, government relations, networking and research for our members.” Some people would add community to that list of services.
People usually join associations for one of two primary reasons: because they believe in the mission of the organization or they receive benefits that are worth the member fee.
So how do you measure the ROI of your membership dues? What benefits do you expect from your membership fees? Why do you join an association?
Share your views.
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.
If you’re like many associations and association chapters, you are not convinced social media is for your organization. Your volunteer and chapter activities already take a lot of time and you have no idea how to get started with social media, or even if you want to add one more thing to your daily to do list outside of your normal job. Nourishing and growing your member relationships while prospecting and developing new ones takes time. Your business and volunteer efforts require a lot of your energy, passion and mind-share and you are already overwhelmed with your daily tasks.
Instead of thinking of social media as something new, one more “to-do” item on your list, think of it as an enhanced way of doing the business you’re already doing.
Social media is a tool that can help your association and chapter:
- Listen to your current and potential members, and listen to conversations of others about your industry, association and chapter.
- Engage in dialogue with others about your chapter, industry, your projects, your mission.
- Build new relationships and strengthen existing ones.
- Showcase that your chapter is a conduit, connector and community enabler for your industry.
- Network with other professionals in your industry, chapter and association.
- Market upcoming events, projects, fundraisers.
- Source new ideas, projects, products, speakers, etc.
- Communicate with your members and maybe even recruit new volunteers, especially in today’s Web 2.0 world.
- Extend the attendee experience before, during and after an event.
- Engage virtual attendees to your meeting or event.
This is just a short list to get you started thinking. Add your reasons to the list.
Blogger Steve Woodruff recently published a free eBook: Build Your Own Opportunity Network: Getting Started In Social Networking with the purpose of helping people that are new to the social space network online more effectively. Woodruff describes social networking as a safety net that provides the greatest opportunities for you to build ties of shared interest, sympathy and connections.
Woodruff’s eBook is really about how to increase your Social Capital, the currency of business interactions and relationships. He gives specific steps on how to intentionally use social sites like Blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter as tools for increasing and maximizing your social capital, opportunity networks as he calls them.
What caught my attention was Woodruff’s image and discussion of participation levels. Woodruff states, “I’ve identified five levels, as follows, each with greater or lesser degrees of interaction, transparency, and disclosure.” Here are his five levels of participation:
- Passive Outposting (Zoominfo, etc.)
- Formal Connecting (LinkedIn, etc.)
- Lifestreaming (Facebook, etc.)
- Engaging With Private Communities (Ning, etc.)
- Open Web Networking (Twitter, etc.)
Steve Woodruff's Participation Levels. © 2009 Steve Woodruff
Using Woodruff’s image, the higher you go with your participation in the social space, the more transparent you become, the more you disclose and the more micro-interactions you have. Thus, the more you participate and share, the more you increase your social capital. So as I say, “Participation is the new black and transparency is the new gray.” If you’re not participating in the social space, you’re not increasing your social capital or nurturing your online relationships.
So how does this apply to nonprofit associations? As a nonprofit employee, I’ve found many associations and their staff resisting social networking and social media for a variety of reasons including lack of staff support, fear of change, fear of unknown, lack of clear vision or strategy, perceived lack of tangible ROI, etc. Often, these associations are willing to embrace Plaxo, Zoominfo or LinkedIn yet their involvement in the social space stops there.
So, I wonder. Do associations have social capital? Can associations be conduits for opportunity networks for their members? Or do only the individuals at these organizations and their members have social capital? Should associations allow their employees, even further encourage their employees, to increase their social capital thus increasing the association’s standing in the public’s eye? And if their employees are more connected, does it ultimately benefit the organization? Likewise, I think that associations have yet to capitalize on the social capital of their members and see the social space as a conduit connecting members with potential new members. Further, I think that an association’s lack of presence in the social arena sends a louder message about their “corporate culture” and underlying beliefs. Their absence speaks loud and clear to members and potential new members alike.
Using Woodruff’s Levels of Participation, I submit that some association leadership have yet to embrace two of the foundation principles of social networking and media: participation and transparency. While some leaders in association boardrooms are still waiting for social media to implode, others have jumped into the social arena with both feet and are using it successfully. Even though the public has been crying for transparency and participation from brands and business, many associations have yet to embrace these trends. They are still using the last decade’s black and gray.
Some associations are chanting the mantra, “We have a Website. Isn’t that enough?” In a Web 2.0 World, if you want to engage your 2.0 members and prospective members, a Website is not enough. I firmly believe that today individuals are looking for associations, businesses and organizations in the social network sites they frequent. The Website silo is no longer enough. Ultimately, these organizations need to have several Web properties like a blog, a Facebook Fan Page, a LinkedIn Group and Twitter account in order to succeed in today’s Web 2.0 environment. And of course, all of these Web properties should be connected with each other and the main Website.
What do you think?
Special thanks to Steve Woodruff for the use of his Participation Levels image and allowing me to continue the conversation of his original thoughts.
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