Is social media a threat or an opportunity for associations?
It’s both.
Social media as disruptive technology is rewriting the association business environment. It puts associations between a rock and a hard place.
Do we defend the rock? Associations have value. In person meetings have value. We have to charge for virtual attendance because it costs us.
Or do we leap forward to the hard place? We’re going to do everything digitally. I’m going to stop paying association dues because I get so much more from online resources.
Neither is “right.” All deep good in life, in business, and especially in recessions, comes from the courage to chart a new course that seems impossible. It’s only impossible when viewed through the lenses we now wear.
Ring of Death movie download Passing through a tight spot comes when we find the opening, reframe the issue, bring in new voices, lose the fear of new ideas, and summon the courage to make imperfect decisions. This is the water that always finds a way when the road seems blocked.
Social media not only offers new tangible opportunities to associations for revenue. The ETHOS of social media communication also offers new opportunities that can reinvigorate the heart and soul of associations.
Look at how well this discussion on Jeff Hurt’s blog has moved in just a few hours. What if he wrote a print article that only went to paid members? None of this creative exchange would he happening.
At the core of my decision to pay membership dues to an association is the value proposition: am I getting my money’s worth? I may pay because it keeps me credentialed, or because it provides a benefit plan.
But if I can be drawn in to a community in which I am present at the cutting edge of discussion in my field — and it was at my fingertips every day, and I grew as a person because of the intensity of engagement — I would pay in a heartbeat. I couldn’t be without that.
That is the opportunity that associations have. It is what they can become. I don’t know what will happen to meetings (they are evolving — not disappearing — in the Internet Marketing world, but that is for another post).
I do know that our willingness to engage in the process of becoming fluent in social media — to be the water, not the rock or the hard place — is how the elite associations of the future will evolve from today’s confusion. You know what I mean, the associations EVERYONE raves about because they are so remarkable, so valuable.
And if today’s’ associations don’t do it, internet entrepreuers and social media pros will. The are creating new business models now, as we speak, that put these technologies at the center of intensely valuable networks.
There’s no time to waste — this recession is the 11th hour.
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association social media,
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