It would never have occurred to me a decade ago–or even five years ago–that in 2023 I’d still be writing about social media still being considered a shiny new thing to associations, or that associations would still be grappling with, essentially, social media 101. But of course, it should have occurred to me because what’s old is almost always still always new to associations it seems. But social media? I don’t even write about social media anymore, having given up on it as a profession after one last attempt in 2016 when a large, prominent association that recruited me specifically because they were interested in getting social media right and wanted someone with experience to help shape strategy and advise throughout the org.
Um, yeah…let’s just say between that experience and the utter nightmare social media has turned out to be for democracy, civility, online privacy, people’s mental health and attention spans, it’s hard for me to reconcile the old me–social media advocate and enthusiast–and current me.
Association social media fail 2023
But old habits die hard and when today I happened to come across an association’s Instagram post flooded with comments, my curiosity got the better of me…I mean, what association’s Instagram posts ever get any engagement at all, let alone dozens and dozens of comments? Almost all of which are negative…shocker. Like “I’m cancelling my membership” negative, multiple times over, plus many, many more calling out the association for being inauthentic, performative…and on and on. Reply(yes) from the org? Zero.
Seriously? We’re still using social media as bullhorn, just posting to post, tallying vanity metrics (if anything) and talking about how great it is that associations are using social media to engage members and the public, etc? Don’t even get me started on the fact that where is the crisis communications leadership from this org, the concern about alienating members and/or damaging the reputation of the profession the association represents? How is stuff like this still getting a pass, all while associations continue to pay lip service to “engagement” and “digital” and all the other things associations talk about while touting marketing automation and data-gathering as member engagement and talking about being digital-first when most association websites are still a nightmare to navigate and just today I had to email to request membership information about an association that I’m joining in spite of the fact that in order to do so I had to print an invoice to MAIL with my payment?
Sigh. Sorry to just jump into this apropos of nothing–suffice it to say that it’s not often that I actually have something to weigh in about other than my mental health or…well, that’s been about it for the past few years. : )
ChatGPT…not all shine
And while we’re on shiny and I still have a few minutes until dinner (aka pizza delivery), can I also throw into the mix the current frenzy over ChatGPT and generative AI in the association community? If we’re going to champion diversity, equity and inclusion and denounce racism and taking advantage of marginalized groups, we also need some collective education about how AI works and the myriad social justice issues inherent in not just AI in general but ChatGPT in particular. A good and low-effort place to start is by watching the documentary Coded Bias on Netflix. There’s also a great accompanying set of resources, including a discussion guide and a bunch of other great things (scroll down to the bottom of that page for more than are listed above the fold).
Then a few things to read about ChatGPT in particular:
- OpenAI Used Kenyan Workers on Less Than $2 Per Hour to Make ChatGPT Less Toxic
- The Dark Side Of ChatGPT
- ChatGPT: New AI system, old bias?
- ChatGPT could be used for good, but like many other AI models, it’s rife with racist and discriminatory bias
- ChatGPT: Who Owns the Data?
- Danger in the Machine: The Perils of Political and Demographic Biases Embedded in AI Systems
I’ll leave it at that for now. And thanks for humoring me if you read this far; bonus points if you have any thoughts to add or additional links to share.
I agree with ALL of this. In our sector there’s little competetive advantage in being the first adopter.
I believe part of the shiny object buzz is due to tech consultants who are crawling over each other to be the hot experts in the new new thing (to borrow a phrase from Michael Lewis). I don’t begrudge them growing and building their business, but association leaders must take all of this with a huge grain of salt and soberly determine whether they actually solve the challenges of their organization.
Hi Frank!! Great to “see” you! So true re: little/no advantage to being first adopter; in fact, my experience suggests that it’s actually more of a disadvantage where you have to justify over and over why X thing is worth doing when other associations aren’t doing it yet. Then, once something reaches mass adoption, or is on the way out, associations are suddenly on board…definitely the case with social media.
At the same time, I feel like we’re at an inflection point where associations seem more interested in moving fast, or at least considering/talking about whether they should jump on the latest thing. Which, as you say, is definitely driven by tech vendors and consultants (yes, I’m currently one of them in spite of my attempts to convince an association to hire me so I can go back to being an employee and not a business owner!) extolling the merits of every new or existing tech solution and/or product/service. Investing in new tech because it aligns with strategy or can do something game-changing that existing solutions can’t, not so much; ditto with hiring staff who have the skills and abilities necessary to justify expensive tech investments. I’ve worked for/with so many associations that invest in tech on the advice of a consultant (can you say Hubspot partner?) who recommends they implement X…let’s go with Hubspot, but there are many other examples, only to then be saddled with an expensive “solution” that nobody on staff knows how to use past the basics, which either means hiring more consultants to customize/implement or using only the most rudimentary features of the platform in spite of the fact that they already had or still have existing tech that can do the same thing, often more easily and certainly without having to have invested tens of thousands in new tech that didn’t, in fact, turn out to be the game-changer it was promised to be.
Yikes–sorry–I’m about a whole blog post in with this comment/reply…can you tell I miss having conversations about this stuff? lol Not to mention conversations, period. : )
Thanks for posting all of these resources,Maggie! Agree this is potentially a future misstep for associations (as someone who ALSO lived to tell the tale of association social media debacles). And, of course, I HAD to check to see if it was our good friends you were referring to in the beginning.
Lol–it wasn’t them…this time. Close relative, though. Hint–I also worked there in the past.
Maggie, well said. Shiny Object Syndrome is a symptom of something inherently wrong with nonprofit organizations. The “wrong” is that things sometimes seem like copies of copies of copies. Keep doing the same old same old the same old way, but the boredom that sets in makes anything different “shiny and new” if it’s worthwhile or not. And as we all know, not everything is for everyone – or every organization. When it comes to tech tools (and AI is a tool that has a very dangerous aspect to it) I’m never an early adopter because I need to see if it is worth anything or if it will work or if it really is different. Nonprofits need to leave the echo chamber they currently exist in and get some clear thought.