Articles

What Is All the Buzz about Web 2.0 and Social Media and Will It Get Me a New Client?

Robert E. McLean, CAE

If it seems as if lately there's a whole new wave of technology floating around the Internet, you are right; there is. And the reaction of many AMC owners I spoke with at the Owners and Principles program in San Diego this August could be summarized this way: "I don't have time for one more thing on my desk and I don't have time to learn about any new technology."

As my nephews and nieces would say, dude, wake up. Whether Web 2.0 will help recruit any new customers is uncertain, but what is clear is that AMC owners need to know about Web 2.0 and all the concepts it encompasses for one simple reason: You must decide whether they are appropriate for your existing customers. In this article I offer an overview of some of the key terms involved and offer resources for seeing example of them.

Web 2.0

This term is a concept, not a product you buy, and is used to describe the Internet that goes beyond a series of websites. This new Internet encourages information sharing and collaboration by engaging as much as informing. The goal is to help build communities—much as associations do. Some people describe this approach with the term social media. If you attended the 2008 ASAE Annual Meeting you noticed the emphasis on this topic, which was the focus on many sessions and a special social media lab. Clearly associations are finding that Web 2.0 or social media are important to their future.

For several years there have been Internet programs that help build online communities, such as forums and listservs. The new media, however, offers more and different opportunities for engaging and educating people, including association members.

Online Communities and Profiles

Have you joined one? If you are a member of ASAE, you already have—online—and you have a profile. Earlier this year ASAE went beyond the traditional membership directory and created online profiles for all of its members. This was news to many of us until we stumbled onto them and found that we had no photo, no bio, and no connections, making it appear that we were isolated and unengaged.

Have you updated your profile and connected to any other members? You can do so easily by going to the ASAE home page ( www.asaecenter.org) and clicking on the "Update Profile" link at the very top of the page. You can then add other ASAE members to your network and join one of the 30 online groups ASAE has created based on sections (such as AMCs), events (the annual meeting), sports (golfers anonymous), or sexual orientation (GLBT).

There are a number of other non-association online communities you also can join, most for free. Some of the most popular include LinkedIn ( www.linkedin.com) and Plaxo ( www.plaxo.com). Younger members of the business world (including associations) also maintain profiles on more well-known sites as Facebook ( www.facebook.com) and MySpace ( www.myspace.com).

Do you really need to be on all of these pages? The answer depends on the circles in which you move and where you believe your next client will come from. Just as many of us "Google" prospective employees or check out their entries in these online communities, so, too, will the board members of associations who seek an AMC. What will they find when they look for you or your AMC online?

Blogs and RSS Feeds

I have been a frequent and harsh critic of these sites, which I find are usually insipid and filled with personal information and drivel and incorrect information. They may not be written by unemployed forty-year-olds who live in their mother's basements, as the joke goes, but they rarely are worth the effort to read them—or so I thought.

ASAE has created a new blog, Acronym ( www.asaecenter.org/blog) that I'm now reading daily, and there are two reasons why. First, it often contains information I find useful (including tips for understanding and using social media), and second, it usually takes only five or 10 minutes to read an entry—often less if I find the topic of no interest.

Don't have time to visit a blog to see whether it's been updated? You can receive a notice of an updated blog by subscribing to an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) "feed," an Internet application that typically is a document that summarizes the blog update. There's one for Acronym. Look for the RSS symbol, located to the right of the URL in your browser.

Wiki

This is the technology I'm most excited about. You've seen a wiki if you've ever read an entry on Wikipedia. A wiki is something of an illustrated glossary of terms with links, or a beefed up encyclopedia entry. What makes them different is that you can allow any member to edit, delete, or add entries—or limit such access to your leadership or members of a specific committee.

ASAE's wiki is Associapedia ( www.asaecenter.org/wiki) and it has great potential as staff education tool. If you have new employees who lack association experience, get them in the habit of learning new concepts and terms by visiting Associapedia rather than taking up a lot of your time.

Wikis also have clear benefits for your clients who have similar staff education needs. Wikis also can help reporters writing stories about your industry or legislator, regulators, and their often very young, very inexperienced and uninformed staff.

Most wikis are based on free software. Your cost is only integrating it into your existing website and then educating your members or leaders who will help populate it with relevant entries—and keeping them updated.

Podcasts and Vodcasts

ASAE has offered these tools for some time and most Friday's you'll find a link on the Acronym blog to a Vodcast. However, few AMCs and their client associations have found the need for these programs that deliver audio (podcast) or video and audio (vodcasts) programs in a digital media file. But are we missing an opportunity to offer a valuable membership benefit?

One reason why we see so many younger people constantly wearing ear buds is because they are listing to more than music. They are often listening to podcasts they've downloaded from iTunes or My Yahoo! If your client association members want to learn by listening or watching, and do it outside of the annual conference, why not find a way to do that?

Do We Have Time for All This? Do We Need All of This?

One reason why few of us have adopted this technology is because it requires new hardware and software we may not understand or know where to find or install. Also, the work is typically beyond the scope of services in our current contracts.

But most of these technologies are becoming widely adopted and the day may be near when our member expect this technology. There was a time when online dues payment and conference registration was considered too expensive and too difficult to offer, but today our clients expect these services. Is the day coming when your client associations—and their members beyond the board—expecting a Web 2.0 experience from you?

Robert E. McLean, CAE, is president of REM Association Services, an association management company located in Arlington, VA (near the nation's Capitol). He is a former member of the leadership of the AMC Institute and is currently in a leadership role with the American Society of Association Executives. McLean is a registered lobbyist who trains more than 5,000 grassroots lobbyists annually. REM manages numerous nonprofits, including national associations, societies, and foundations. The AMC also has several consulting clients, frequently facilitating strategic planning programs.