We often hear, and it was recently affirmed in the Angerosa Research Foundation’s Web 2.0: How Associations Are Tapping Social Media report, that the reason many associations fail to execute social media initiatives is because they lack an internal champion or advocate. The benefits social media can bring to an association are significant and include engaging younger members, creating member interaction, connecting event attendees and driving membership growth. That’s why it’s so important that someone in your organization becomes your association’s social media champion. Here are some tips for how you can become that very important advocate in your organization:

• Don’t be intimidated
  We often work with clients who are interested in social media, and some have been for some time, but have been paralyzed by their fear of the tools and technologies to get them started. It’s understandable that social media can be scary, but don’t let it prevent you from meeting your association goals. If you can’t do it on your own, look outside your organization to a company for help to get you started.
• Do your homework
  Get familiar with the social media tools that are out there. You need to understand not only what they are, but also how they can be used to work to meet the needs of your association and its members. Social media is an active media. Simply setting up social media accounts will not position you in a way for success. Social media will be effective only if you learn how to harness its power to work for you.
• Network with colleagues
  Just like you would talk with fellow association executives on other new initiatives, projects or issues to get their input, there is no reason not to do the same with social media. Seek colleagues who have embraced social media and learn how they are using it with their association. Your association’s needs won’t be exactly the same as others, but it will give you a frame of reference and some good case studies to use to help build your case for social media.
• Establish goals
  Once you’ve grasped the fundamentals of social media and connected with others already using it in the association community, think about what you want social media to accomplish for your association. Are you struggling to recruit younger members? Are you trying to address member attrition? Or are you trying to increase your website’s traffic so that you can generate more online revenues? What’s important is that on the front-end you think about what you want your social media indicatives to accomplish so you will have a case for why you need to pursue these efforts and how they will bring value to your organization.
• Set a strategy
  Now that you know what your goals are, you need to determine which social media tools, alone or in combination, will be part of your social media strategy. This is when the preliminary research and networking you did will pay off because it will allow you to customize your strategy to that which is optimal for your association.
• Make your case
  You’ve created a social media strategy for your association and now it’s time for you to make the case to the key decision makers. Be prepared: Develop a list of obstacles you predict will be raised by your senior leadership. Share how other associations are successfully using social media. Paint a picture as to how you would implement your strategy in phases, and how it will be measured.
• Execute your plan
  Congratulations! Your social media project has been approved and you are ready to implement it. Once it’s in place, don’t forget how important it is to keep up with the content and the tools. Social media requires constant attention and fresh content so make sure you have the resources in place to maintain the quality you planned for. And if you need help, contact us.

Hammock has entered into an agreement to become the official social media sponsor of the Society of National Association Publications and its annual Association Media & Publishing conference to be held this year, June 3-4, 2009 in Washington, D.C., at the Capital Hilton.
To generate interest in the event and provide a place online for attendees to set up user profiles, discuss the agenda, interact with speakers and network, Hammock has created a pre-event online conference community for SNAP. The site, which launched this month, is managed and hosted by members of Hammock’s social media team.

For most associations, events are an integral part of their annual calendar. Despite the effect of the current economic situation on many events, the good news is that events provide associations a perfect opportunity to leverage the power and excitement of social media. There are so many ways an association can engage its members before, during and after an event with social media tools. Providing this type of new and exciting value to attendees is a smart way to provide additional member benefit and reverse shrinking attendee numbers for future events.
Here are five tips for associations looking to engage their members before an event through a social networking community site:

The New York Times yesterday had a very interesting article and accompanying diagram, which they referred to as the “Celebrity Twitter Ecosystem, ” showing which celebrities follow each other on Twitter.

How to use social media to recruit and retain members
In today’s economy we’re all trying to do more with less. Associations are no different. Budgets are being carefully monitored to ensure that any potential waste is eliminated. Tough choices are being made.
This leaves associations in a challenging place—with the need to minimize costs but find a way to retain and recruit new members. What are they to do in this environment? Although each association is unique, here are some ways to take advantage of the power of social media to effectively recruit and retain members:

In this economy, magazine advertising sales can be a challenge. That’s why it’s more important than ever to make sure your ad sales team is getting the support they need from you to be successful. We recently held an annual advertising sales meeting for the sellers of MyBusiness magazine, which we publish for our client the National Federation of Independent Business. We partner with the advertising sales rep firm the James G. Elliott Company on the advertising for MyBusiness. With our recent meeting still fresh in my mind, here are five tips to consider when conducting your annual magazine sales meetings:

Razorfish releases their 2009 Digital Outlook Report

With their annual report, Razorfish, the “agency for marketing, experience and enterprise design” shares their perspective on the year ahead in digital media. At 160 pages, along with their trend predictions for the year, the report is packed with information on how digital ad spending was allocated for Razorfish clients in 2008. Here are some of my favorite highlights from the report:

• Social advertising will grow up.
  Display advertising in the broader Web, too, will become more social, as linking display advertising to forms of social marketing — like blogger outreach, social credits, engagement programs and widgets that let you mix in your own content— become more important. However, there are no guarantees that this will be completely figured out within the course of the year.
• Social influence research will become more important than social measurement.
  Do you want to know how? By focusing on meaning rather than measurement. To think in terms of social as a channel that should be measured like TV, print, radio or digital is missing the point. Instead, the greatest value in social for marketers will be in the real-time insights it provides. Razorfish calls this Social Influence Research and it is going to drive marketing campaigns, product development and customer service programs. There will be an evolution from measuring sentiment to understanding opinion and synchronizing it with the Net Promoter scores. Why? Because marketers care about opinion much more than they do about sentiment.
• Emerging media will not kill advertising but change it forever.
  The digitization of media has empowered people with complete control over their media consumption; they are able to watch, read or listen to whatever they want whenever they want, and that typically includes advertising. Efforts to force attention to ads without providing value will fall on deaf ears and blind eyes, challenging traditional ad models.

  Digital is impacting more than what you might typically describe as “media” — it has created entirely new channels and continues to radically blur the line between the real and the virtual worlds. New, immersive experiences leveraging incredible human-computer interaction models have leaped from the pages of science fiction novels and become reality. Taken together, these trends are NOT killing advertising. They are simply changing its role. According to the report, advertising is now less about reach and less about changing attitudes but about more engaging experiences, which leverage new digital capabilities to deliver value to the audiences that interact with them. It’s about marketer making themselves useful, plain and simple.

Most of us are in a constant and fierce battle–with our email. The daily grind leaves us weary and frustrated. No need to fret though because help is here! Read these quick email tips from the New York Times. They’re super simple and will get you on the path to an organized in-box in a matter of hours!

As a group, we’re big movie buffs here at Hammock. We often end our Monday morning staff meeting with our latest reviews of which movies we saw over the weekend. Our own Jamie Roberts in the last year has even seen AFI’s list top 100 films. Most of don’t have quite that depth of background in film history under our belts, but we still like to share our picks for Oscar. When I asked my co-workers who they’ll be rooting for on Sunday night, this is what they shared:

Results from the Angerosa Research Foundation

Many association executives we talk to are interested in social media and how other associations are taking advantage of social media tools. A report recently released by the Angerosa Research Foundation provides some data and benchmarking for this in their study “How Associations are Tapping Social Media.” The report covers a range of related information including overall trends, wikis, blogs and strategic issues.

Probably of the most interest to many executives are what benefits associations are reaping from these social media efforts. The report is definitely worth reading, but in the meantime, here are the top seven benefits from the report for those associations who are using social media tools:

1. Relevance to younger members
2. Opportunities for member interaction
3. Improve member retention by increasing engagement
4. Connect before/after meetings
5. Increase the frequency of brand interaction
6. Create member-generated content
7. Source of non-dues revenue

The report indicates that there were other unexpected benefits mentioned by respondents including increases in knowledge about member issues, member interaction and responses to public policy and advocacy issues.

Click here to download a PDF of the executive summary. If you are interested in a social media strategy for your association or if you have questions about social media, contact us to learn how Hammock can work with you to help you meet your association’s goals.