Hellloooo there! Been about a million minutes since I last posted here–or anywhere, other than my journal–but I guess that’s what happens when you become your own boss. It’s been a wild year to say the least, but kind of an awesome one. I’ll save the long story for another time, but short story: I’m […]
Tips for Handling Graphic Design When You’re Not a Designer
A few months ago, Beth Brodovsky, a long-time Twitter friend made via trusty #assnchat, invited me to join her for her podcast Driving Participation to chat about the challenges of being a communications pro at a small staff association. To me, one of the biggest challenges of wearing all hats communications/marketing/web/social media/editorial is graphic design. It’s like “one […]
Why Associations Should Be Planning Their LinkedIn Exit Strategy
Ah, LinkedIn…where would my blogging be without your Groups feature? It’s been a few months since I’ve written about why associations shouldn’t rely on LinkedIn Groups and speculated about whether LinkedIn is in the (albeit slow) process of phasing out the groups feature, but a few recent things have ramped up my suspicions and made me think that […]
Cool Tool for Associations: Canva for Work
CANVA FOR WORK IS HERE! Ok, sorry, but I’ve been waiting for months for Canva for Work and I finally got access to it last week. Long story short: it’s pretty awesome, especially for small organizations with no in-house graphic designer and/or no budget to outsource graphic design. In this day and age where communications […]
What Associations Can Learn from Reddit’s Volunteer Moderator Revolt
According to MGI’s 2015 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report, more and more associations are tying member retention to private online communities, citing that “for associations reporting more participation in their private social network, 53% report an increase in membership over the past year, compared to 22% whose membership declined.” Not bad, right? Not to be all […]
Pros and Cons of Periscope for Associations
I just returned from Association Media & Publishing’s Annual Conference, which was awesome. I learned a ton, met some great new people and enjoyed being back in the association media community. I was also lucky to hang out with cool friends like Monica Bussolati, who thought we should experiment with Meerkat and Periscope to livestream parts of […]
Five Cool Tools for Small Staff Associations
If millennials get a bad rap for job-hopping, apparently I was born ahead of my time given my track record over the past several years. In the past year and a half I’ve cycled through five jobs, finally landing at what I hope is my final destination for a long, long time (knock wood). I […]
Reason One Billion Your Association Community Shouldn’t Live on LinkedIn
Despite all evidence to the contrary given my lack of posts over the past months, I’m still here. And yes, I’m still obsessed with the same issues, if maybe a tiny bit less since I just spent the last year working outside the association world. But it seems like no matter how hard I try […]
Associations With Engaged Communities Have Higher Retention Rates
If you read this blog, you know I’m obsessed with two things: associations and community management. I’ve been happy to see a slight uptick in associations hiring community managers this year–although salaries seem to be significantly lower than the average salaries reported in the Community Roundtable’s recent salary survey (the average salary for community manager is almost $70k; […]
Why Community Manager Should Be Your Association’s Next Hire
It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about my favorite topic, association community management, right? I’m not currently working in the association world, but I still strongly believe in the importance of associations and can’t help but think “how does this apply to associations” when I read pretty much anything. This was especially true when […]
