What could be more meta than a conference for community managers to talk about community management? How about an association conference for association community managers to talk about managing association communities? Ok, sorry–I’m in post-conference stupor after my first-ever SFPE annual conference (Society of Fire Protection Engineers) and also still thinking about the Higher Logic Super […]
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 […]
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 […]
What Online Communities Can Learn About Events from DashCon
If you read this blog, you already know I’m kind of obsessed with the topic of online community, particularly where associations and online communities intersect. I’ve written before about how online communities present a real threat to associations because they allow people to connect around a common industry or interest without all the governance stuff, […]
How to Showcase Online Community Wins for Membership Marketing
Reading this article about Sermo, an online community for physicians, reaching 260,000 members, a part that jumped out at me was this one: “Over the years, physicians collaborated on tens of thousands of cases and although many successes go unreported, over 50% of iConsult cases posted are “Solved on Sermo.” Our average solve time is […]
Online Community Spurs Inter-Association Collaboration
Perusing Twitter yesterday, I happened to see an SLP (speech-language pathologist) tweet a link to this ASHA Leader article. It’s a great article about a grassroots movement among SLPs and other healthcare practitioners to figure out a way to reduce stress on clinicians and foster patient-centered care in long term care facilities. It’s also a […]
Using Online Community to Increase Member Retention
For the past few days I’ve been in Orlando at ASAE’s Great Ideas conference. I love this conference because it’s small and the content is good and it’s not all about the expo hall (as much as I love me some expo hall). Also, it’s sunny and warm here and not a snowflake in sight, […]
Why Online Community is About More Than Community for Associations
There’s been a flurry of attention over a recent Associations Now story about how Doximity, a private online community for physicians, is outpacing the AMA in terms of membership. I started to reply to one of the comments in the original story, but then my response got so long I figured I should just write […]
My 3 CMAD Wishes
Another year, another Community Manager Appreciation Day (CMAD). This time last year I was quitting community management. That lasted about ten minutes because I missed it : ) Now I’m back, or trying to be back, and continuing to fight the good fight for community management in the association world. Things are inching forward, with […]
New Resource from Online Community Results
Friend Ben Martin over at Online Community Results has a new resource to help introduce you to some of the vendors in the association community vendor space. The guide addresses many variables about each platform, such as resource library features, messaging, mobile friendliness, compatibility with AMS systems, open API, code base, design flexibility, and more. […]