Social Networking for

Associations

Inside
Executive Summary
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Executive Summary
Membership development is the lifeblood donation efforts for non-profit based
Outline
o f a n y a s s o c i a t i o n . N o t - f o r- p ro fi t associations.
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associations in particular are looking to
expand a growing network of new and 3.) N o n - d u e s r e v e n u e . W h a t a r e
Creating a Sense of Community
existing supporters, advocates, and associations doing to boost their
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participants in which an increased to raise budgets while strengthening their
Creating a Culture of Information support is a primary objective. services for members? Associations
Sharing are doing everything from providing
Pg. 7 All associations have four major one-stop shopping to helping their
objectives in common: members generate new business,
Social Networking 1.) Sustaining membership renewals train their staffs, fill jobs, and find
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based on improved member
engagement, collaboration, and
Doing More With Less Doing more with less. Associations soften
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work within a very constrained budget
2.) Increasing membership by offering environment limiting capital expenditures
Implement Quickly and Affordably
additional or improved awareness, and technology investments.
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services, and/or products. This
usually includes fundraising and

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 A. How?
Social networking software promotes and supports individual
II. Outline
Social networking can play in the life of an
involvement, participation, and the development of a sense of
association. When member networking is
community within any distributed membership based
successful, its members become more satisfied,
organization. Social media are invaluable tools for building
engaged and loyal.
engagement, supporting collaboration and creating knowledge in
associations. Social media can be used to promote attendance at Declining membership renewals, stagnated membership growth

meetings, conferences and and diminishing response rates to direct mail campaigns are just a
networking events. Build online, few examples of the negative
interactive communities, quickly, effects that online social networks

easily and cost effectively. Members are having on many associations

within the network can create their today. The reality is that online
own personal profiles, network with Social media are invaluable tools social networking sites like

other “like minded: members, Facebook, LinkedIn and Plaxo are

for building engagement,
manage and coordinate events, doing a better job of providing cost
participate in peer groups, email or
supporting collaboration and effective, easy to use tools to

RSS feeds to create community creating knowledge in connect and network people

specific information, discover new together. The statistics don’t lie-

associations. Social media can be
career opportunities, and much over 250 million people- belong to
more. Remember outsourcing?  used to promote attendance at at least one online social network.
More startling is the fact that this
That was yesterday.  Today’s new meetings, conferences and
pool of cheap labor is everyday growth has occurred in the last four
networking events. years.
people using their time and energy
to create content and solve This is a huge problem for
problems.  Crowdsourcing has the associations and potentially
potential to upset the entire apple threatens their very existence. The
cart—the way in which work is organized, talent is employed, need to “ do more with less” is the new operational imperative.
research is done, and products are made and marketed. There Old static web sites and “ push-based” marketing campaigns are
are implications for individual businesses, associations (think of no longer effective. Members are demanding more value, services
the opportunities for both creativity and cutting costs) and society and control at lower costs.
in general.
A new breed of associations are starting to emerge- with very
The key benefits of implementing a social networking solution to different business models. They have figured out that you cannot
any association include: ignore the social networking trend but need to embrace it. Many

1) greater stickiness- members stay engaged in the social have already begun to integrate social networking tools as part of

networking site longer their program offerings. It makes a lot sense as the core value
proposition of any association revolves around knowledge
2) Return members- engaged members return more often
sharing, collaboration and networking- the fundamental building
3) Member loyalty- higher renewal and donation rates blocks of social networking.

4) Membership intelligence- associations can track usage This whitepaper highlights the critical role that social networking
patterns and activity to create more targeted programs. can play in the life of an association. The premise of this paper is
that if member networking is successful, members become more
satisfied, engaged and loyal.

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 Specifically this paper will examine mechanism to more pro-actively
how social networking software helps engage and communicate with
associations to: membership on services, products,
and benefits. Social networking
‣ Create a sense of community
software offers existing and
within an association
prospective members a one stop
‣ Promote a culture of
communication and shop, where they can access to the
collaboration most recent news, connect with
‣ Improve relationships and other members, pay their
networking capabilities membership fees, register for an
‣ Create new revenue streams upcoming event—anything that is

Why Should I ‣ D o m o re w i t h l e s s ( c o s t
savings)
related to their role in the association.

Care About Social

One of the primary reasons
associations should take advantage
of social networking software is that

Networking? III. Creating a association members already share a

common interest. A sense of
Sense of community is a vital component
Customers have lost trust in traditional
sales, marketing and service (the three Community when building critical mass in an
association, club or professional
areas commonly referred to as “CRM,” or Social networking can play in
network. An online community,
Customer Relationship Management). the life of an association.
powered by social networking
According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, When member networking is
software is conducive to creating
“the most credible source of information successful, its members
critical mass around a cause,
about a company is now ʻa person like me,ʼ b e c o m e m o re s a t i s fi e d ,
which has risen dramatically to surpass profession, institution or industry.
engaged and loyal.
doctors and academic experts for the first
time.” The survey relates that in the U.S., Communities act as a single place on To create a sense “community”, your
trust in “a person like me” increased from the web (public or private) where members must be able to interact,
20% in 2003 to 68% today. association members can securely participate and network within the
share and collaborate together d e d i c a t e d e n v i ro n m e n t . A s a
“The connections enabled by social regardless of social, political or minimum, your online community
networks are the glue that put the humanity g e o g r a p h i c b o u n d a r i e s . Yo u r must allow member to:
back into business to solve the trust association’s community can be of
problem. In other words, the organizations any size (small, medium or large); ‣ set up and share personal
that will win are the ones that most easily profiles
scale (local, national, international);
enable individuals to build relationships and
communities with people they trust. “
scope (interest or practice); and can ‣ create relationships with other
be managed regardless of members with similar interests
and backgrounds
geographic boundaries or time
zones. ‣ state opinions on topical issues
using blogs
Associations generally set up an
o n l i n e c o m m u n i t y t o i m p ro v e
‣ discuss issues using online
forums
collaboration, knowledge sharing and
networking amongst members. For ‣ publish, share, comment, tag,
search, bookmark and rate
example, most associations need a information

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 A. Protect Your Brand website and a private “clubhouse”, delivering value above and
beyond a standard website solution.
When implementing an online community using social networking
software, be sure that the software offers a collection of Authorized members or administrators can use straightforward
administration tools that help you to enhance and protect your and fully integrated content management tools to create, update
brand, membership and intellectual property (IP). Typical and post static and dynamic content to the online community.
administration tools should include:
The community can be structured and designed to reflect the
organization of the association itself, and branded with a uniform
‣ Brand - page layouts, logos, fonts, styles, CSS
look and feel to communicate a consistent message to the public
‣ Page Layout - page templates, site map, navigational along with potential new members and key stakeholders.
items

‣ Security - login, forgot password, individual and group C. Improve Membership Services
permissions, roles
Not only do associations require the ability to increase
‣ Membership management - invitations, reminders membership and develop communities, they also need to create
‣ Application Controls - for applications such blogs, new and innovative ways to increase membership and fundraising
forums, wiki, calendar, member directory, campaigns. Social networking software can improve your ability to
raise online memberships, collect membership fees and funding,
‣ Document sharing, video sharing, audio, commenting,
rating, tagging and garner support for association objectives.

‣ Notifications - email and RSS (to drive members back to Members can be required to “sign up” to the online community in
the community) order to access value-add member services from the association.
This may include publishing their member profile; connecting with
B. Public Versus Private other members; joining groups or creating, commenting or rating
Portions of the online community can remain private, while other content within the online community using blogs, wiki or forums.
sections can be made available to the public, allowing
Associations can set up the online community and allow members
associations to communicate member benefits, products and
to “sign up” for free or pay online using an ecommerce gateway
service offerings to current enrolled members, prospective
(Note: requires a merchant account to be set up and activated).
members and the public. The community serves as both a public

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 When a member joins the online community, the A c e n t r a l i z e d m e m b e r d i re c t o r y e n a b l e s
association can track member activity and usage associations to create a social directory or “yellow
trends. This is extremely valuable information when pages” in which personal profiles of all registered
creating tailored programs based on member members are displayed, and can be accessed and
groupings,activity and/or contributions. sorted. Custom groups or chapters can be created
by community administrators so that each member
The association can also integrate online fundraising
in the group is automatically assigned a specific
applications which automatically collect donations or
level of access rights within the community. For
fees from both members and the general public via
example, a “Discover Group” can be created within
an open API (application programming interface).
a not-for-profit organization to engage members in
Upon completion of the transaction, members of the
taking trips overseas to see firsthand the impact of
association and general public are automatically
specific programs and report this back to the
issued a tax receipt. This store-front e-commerce is
organization.

Personal stories and experiences can then be

shared across the network to “spread the word” and
Social networking software can automate the reach an audience of potential new members or
supporters. A for-profit organization can use Groups
registration of new members, including the creation to run a Mentor Program, offering a very tangible
and sending out of invitations, along with benefit to first time members.

authenticating member enrollment and expirations. Within the community, members can share
professional and/or personal information depending
on policies set by community administrators.
Groups and chapters can be browsed online and
securely integrated with the community’s members can select which groups or chapters to
administrative functionality and web content join.
management.
Member Directory allows association members to:

‣ browse groups or chapters

D. Consolidate member
management ‣ select groups of chapters to join

Social networking software can automate the ‣ browse member profiles

registration of new members, including the creation ‣ request access to private groups
and sending out of invitations, along with
authenticating member enrollment and expirations.
‣ view private groups or chapter content based
on permissions
Using an online community, member relationship
‣ subscribe to group content (blogs, wikis,
management is centralized in one familiar location forums)
that makes available detailed information about
‣ register for chapter-specific events
members, pending memberships, contacts,
committees, events, publications, financial ‣ send messages to group members
information, volunteer programs and more.
Redundancy and multiple data sets are eliminated
because the management and storage all of
membership-related information occurs in one
location.

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 E. Integrate event and campaign management

Many associations hold events and conferences once or twice a year where
members can meet and network. A social network extends an association’s
networking capacity; instead of meeting once or twice a year, members can
connect year round regardless of their location. Associations benefit by offering their
members a way to connect outside or beyond a specific conference or event. For
example, attendees can connect, collaborate and share ideas long after the event is
over via the online community. Members can share their experiences, provide
feedback on the event, discuss topical issues or upload content such as conference
presentations to be downloaded by other members. This can be a huge value add
to members as well as providing a huge cost-savings to the association by hosting
some events totally online.

Social networking software integrates campaign management so that associations

can easily organize current, planned and ongoing events that attract a subscribed
member audience. Whether its objective is an upcoming event or fundraising and/or
cause-focused, an online community provides the ability to organize, invite and
manage all content, registration and scheduling of any type of event. Members are
able to easily search, view and access an online calendar of events, which is fully
integrated within the community. A private community of events or chapter-specific
events can also be posted and accessed by members who have permissions to
access the private pages of the association’s online community.

Social networking software offers the ability to collect, manage and manipulate
membership list(s) in order to target and reach all or segments of this list via email.
Facilitators are able to subscribe members/groups to events so that they can

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 receive immediate information. Because associations tend to
host a good number of events, members need to be able to
easily find event-related information and facilitators should be
able to create recurring events for monthly or annual meetings
with and between members. Social networking software allows
associations to leverage a community calendar that provides this
functionality.

III.Creating a Culture of Information Sharing

A. Eliminate Silos
With employees, members, volunteers and other stakeholder groups geographically dispersed
across the globe, associations often have to contend with isolated silos of information. Important
data, including policies, programs, service offerings, news and member information is often
unorganized or hard to find. This often results in redundant data, duplicated efforts, unclear
communications, and costly delays. A social network provides a secure central location to house
and manage all of an association’s vital information (policies, procedures, meeting minutes,
programs etc), replacing silos of information with easy to use knowledge or data management
functionality.

Information within a social network can span multiple locations, giving authorized members
access to the community from anywhere, via a secure Web browser or mobile device like a
BlackBerry.

Authorized members are able to upload files, documents, images, video and audio files and
manage membership access to this information. From a member perspective, people are able to
search for this information, rate it, download and comment on it. Version control and detailed
audit histories guarantee that members have access to the most recent version of a document,
both inside and outside the firewall.

Because security and privacy of information is guaranteed, members are able to deliver sensitive
information at any time to geographically dispersed members. Confidentiality and protection of
data is assured with industry standard SSL, passwords and audit trail.

B. Encourage Open Dialogue

Effective, targeted and timely communication is essential for keeping association or network
members engaged. Associations need to be able to consistently and accurately communicate to
their members the ongoing benefits of membership renewal and cost-justify membership
expenses through news, press releases, email and other forms of communications. Social
networking software for associations enables users to optimize “push” and “pull” mechanisms to
drive communications and improve member engagement.

Targeted promotions describing new or expanded services, products, upcoming news, events
and initiatives can be pushed out to members. As a solution, social networking software for

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 associations delivers powerful and intuitive tools for bulk emailing
(to groups or chapters), messaging and creating e-newsletters.
Announcements can be published to community members to
introduce new members, highlight upcoming events, and
promote new publications. Sophisticated member management
functionality allows administrator or facilitators to track interaction
on a one-to-one basis.

Subscriptions are available as a pull mechanism to improve

access to up to date or important information. Members can
subscribe to content in a community-wide library or resource
collection to enable proactive member awareness and
communication. Offsite content can be embedded into an online
community via RSS feed integration. Blogs, forums and wikis
(see below) can be created within specific groups or site-wide to
increase member participation, collect feedback and member
input, and open up lines of communications.

C. Promote Information Sharing

Lack of member engagement results in non-productive
membership and lower renewal rates. Not only do associations
need to improve member engagement; they also need to focus
on improving and promoting relationships between members.

Social networking software for associations provides an

environment in which members can experience the value of
creating connections, deepening relationships, offering insight
and exchanging stories and experience. These mechanisms
include private group or chapter areas, blogs, forums, wikis and
polls.

A blog is an online editorial or article that expresses an author's

opinion, observations or expertise on specific topics, events or
activities. Members can be encouraged to create their own blog
on a specific topic and solicit opinions from other members
within the association. Associations can use blogs to encourage
dialogue between members and gather feedback regarding new
products and services or past events. Blogs can be specific to a
chapter or site-wide. Sharing experiences and receiving
information in such a loosely structured way promotes a free-
exchange of ideas and deepens relationships with an
association’s key constituents. Associations can also make use
of forums to improve communications and build relationships.

Forums facilitate interaction and collaboration, providing an

online place where members can gather and discuss relevant
topics and pose questions to one another. By committing to
respond quickly to forum posting, facilitators can ensure that

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 members stay involved for longer time frames, following a specific online
conversation.

Wikis can be implemented to encourage the exchange of innovative ideas

and integrate the brand with the overall strategy and direction of an
association. A wiki is a collection of web pages that a community can
access, contribute to and modify online. A wiki can be set up as a “living”
collaborative document that always contains up to date information.
Members inside and outside of the association can use wikis to actively
contribute to the development and refinement a program or best practices,
for example.

Online surveys, polls and rating functionality also present a cost-

effective way to reach out to both current and new members. By delivering
automated push and pull mechanisms for communications and moving all
information online, social networking software significantly reduces paper
and distribution costs typically spent on sending out promotions such as
quarterly newsletters, for example. Social networking delivers an
environment where members can go to network and collaborate on
specific association services, events, programs and products–enabling
them to further understand the associated value and benefits they are
receiving from their membership.

By providing mechanisms to aid in monitoring member participation, trends

and issues (via blog postings, viewing comments, accessing individual
contributions) social networking software helps organizations improve their
understanding of their own members to provide more effective membership
benefits.

IV.Social Networking
A. Endorse Connections
Association members spend a percentage of their time on social networking sites like
Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. Consumers of these sites are drawn to online communities
that allow them to connect and share common interests with other like-minded members. This
new technology is focused on profiles of individuals and mimics real-world social interactions in
which people develop profiles and reputations that persist across relationships. By associating
their profiles with specific groups, members can build trust within the association that extends
to all group members. This is the value of social networking, as well as the ability to share ad
hoc information and tap into expertise from around the world.

Social networking software for associations permits members of professional networks, clubs,
foundations and agencies to login to a secure online community and create personal profiles,
join specific interest groups, build connections with other members and communicate directly
within the association. Every registered member of an association is provided with a private
and secure place to store, organize and manage their personal information related to the
community. It is a Facebook®-like environment where members maintain personal and

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 professional information and provide extended biographical established, members can share a “space” whereby people and
information. Contacts can me managed and connections made information associated with a specific group or shared interest
with a member’s peers. can collaborate, socialize, and interact.

External social and professional networks can be management, Associations and their members require the ability to understand
along with subscriptions, bookmarks, photos and more. the organizational structure of the association and its members. A
member directory gives facilitators and association staff the ability
Members can use their profile to:
to see who’s where/what in the organization/association by a
‣ Raise profile visibility with other members dynamic organization chart format.
‣ Maintain contacts
Members can use the member directory to see and connect with
‣ Maintain personal blogs with file/audio/video sharing members based on criteria including country, region, area of
enabled
interest or expertise, job, organization, and more.
‣ Post an online resumé/CV

‣ Manage career postings

‣ Manage personal preferences and alerts C. Know Your Members

‣ Upload personal photos to galleries Associations historically have limited insight into the actual make-
up of their membership, including their interests, areas of
expertise and relationships within the association community.
B. Promote Relationships Social networking software for associations provides measurable

Members require the ability to easily and quickly search and mechanisms for tracking membership activity for additional insight

connect with relevant content and other members within an into an association’s “membership persona”.

association. Social networking software for associations provides Detailed member profiles provide access to a member’s interests,
robust search functionality which enables members to easily areas of expertise and even display
search find and save targeted details about where members
content that is published or contribute most in the association
posted by other members. community. By monitoring member
Making it easy to connect to Making it easy to connect to p a r t i c i p a t i o n a n d a c t i v i t y,
information promotes information promotes collaboration associations can improve their
collaboration between members understanding of their members and
based on shared interests or
between members based on shared
better tailor their products and
work, specific projects, regional interests or work, specific projects, services to suit these members’
groups and more. For example, if needs. Membership information can
regional groups and more.
a member wants to connect with also be collected via online polls to
other members that share a survey the engagement and status of
common interest in “global issues members and services offered.
in technology” or is looking for a
Social networking software for associations takes organizational
targeted group of individuals who may have created a community
administration one step further by helping associations
around “global issues in technology”, a social network enables
understand the interactions between members and their product
this member to be kept up-to-date by subscribing to areas and
or service offerings, providing insight into how their offerings are
people of interest.
consumed, how effective these offerings are, and whether or not
Social networking software nurtures members who want to they are fulfilling their memberships’ needs.
collaborate in small sub-communities of common interests and
relationships by enabling members to socialize and collaborate
with a targeted subset of members based on shared interests
and/or initiatives (groups, for example). Once a group has been

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 V.Doing More With Less VI. Implement Quickly and
Social networking software for associations helps Affordably
organizations to overcome traditional obstacles and
methods—such as static websites and costly Most social networking software solutions use a
push-based marketing campaigns—to offer SaaS model (software as a service). This is based
extended reach, expanded revenue streams and a on an association “renting” the software based on
leading edge, proven technology. a monthly or yearly subscription pricing model.

Social networking software helps organizations do more with less This type of delivery model minimizes upfront costs in technical

to: infrastructure; the need to hire in-house expertise and accelerates

time to market. The entire solution is maintained by a third party
‣ Improve member engagement, loyalty and commitment—
company with expertise in software development, support and
offering an online environment where members can
connect, network, participate and feel that they play an customization.
active part in contributing to the association’s mission,
cause and key objectives. Additional to the SaaS costs to the association may include:

‣ Increase membership renewal by facilitating member ‣ Design services

interaction, collaboration and discussion ‣ Integration services
‣ Attract new membership through viral member activity, such ‣ Training
as blogs, forums, peer groups, and social networking. ‣ Extended support

‣ Reduce print and distribution costs associated with

Social networking software for associations makes it easy to
traditional print publications and marketing programs by
delivering targeted and timely promotions directly to manage an online community by providing a suite of intuitive
members via online events, blogs, newsletters, and administrative tools which allow facilitators to take total control—
announcements.
to update content, run reports, import/export member data,
‣ Save time and money spent on campaign and event approve member postings, and more. The secure administrative
management by moving events online and enabling
back end is easy to use and component-based to satisfy an
organization to save previous event coordination information
as best practices—to reduce duplicated efforts. association’s growing needs.

‣ Improve offerings to members through e-commerce to raise An online community delivered on a SaaS (software as a service)
online memberships, collect membership fees and funding, model is the most effective way to manage an association online.
and garner support for association objectives.
As a hosted service offering, implementation of an online
‣ Implement a solution quickly and affordably using a SaaS communication can happen immediately, with little to no upfront
(software as a service) based delivery
investment required in technology, expertise or experience.

Other SaaS benefits include:

‣ Fast to deploy - no installation of hardware or software

‣ Cost effective - no upfront investment
‣ No additional work for IT staff
‣ Zero maintenance
‣ Reliable - guaranteed uptimes
‣ Secure - SSL, password protected, audited

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