Spring Ahead With a Fresh Look

Day one of daylight savings means you moved your clocks ahead by an hour and switched the batteries in your fire alarms. At least that's what happens in my house. It also means that you've got a good cleaning on your mind, renewed enthusiasm at work and at play, and a fresh look at life - and this goes for your website too!

Here are five quick steps to make sure your website doesn't look like the last vestige of winter:

1. Double check the "In the News" section of your site and move everything older than two weeks to your "archive" page. (1-A - create an "archive" page if you don't have one)

2. Read through EVERY page of your site to ensure accuracy, clarity, and consistency. If your website is anything like most it wasn't created in a single day by a single author which means the tone and consistency throughout may be slightly different. Check for spelling and grammatical errors too. (My biggest challenge.)

3. Click through every page and every link. Some links may be broken or no longer be available and this is a huge pet peeve for me and many others. There's nothing worse than not being able to access what you want.

4. Changed your logo lately? Then you better make sure the old version has been completely removed and the updated version everywhere it needs to be.

5. Changed staff or leadership lately? Update the "Contact" or "Board" page. Chances are you'll need to.

In our quest to stay on top of technology we often forget to do those things that matter most so take some time to walk through your site and make sure your house is in order. Your clients, members, and visitors will appreciate your efforts.

Photo Credit: Photo courtesy of www.public-domain-photos.com

Social Media Flower for Volunteer Leaders

In my role at Association Headquarters I often assist our client partners in developing strategies that implement social media into their communication plans. Shortly after seeing David Nour map out a communication plan at ASAE 2009, and after several conversations with Maddie Grant from Social Fish, (who I am eternally grateful) I got to work.

With the help of two of my colleagues, Elizabeth Cies and Mark Denato, I came up with the following illustration.

Please feel free to distribute this to your groups and a special thanks to Steve Drake ,whose constant efforts in the world of SM continue to focus on moving forward.

The Six Primary Components of the Social Media Flower

The Seed - Content Leaders: These are the experts of an organization and typically consist of members of the board, but can also include general members who are willing to submit original content on behalf of the organization. They are the seed and are responsible for the cultivation of the social media flower.

The Soil - Your Association: The association or professional society serves as the soil and field for the seed and provides the environment for the content, and future content leaders, to flourish.

The Stem – The Content: When original content is created it serves as the support system (the stem) for the flower. It flows from the content leaders, through the association, and directly to the Web site or blog (the stigma).

The Stigma – The Website or Blog: The website serves as the center of the flower whereby all things emanate. It hosts the original content and serves as the hub or home base for the petals.

The Petals – Social Media Tools: The petals represent the various social media tools that can be used to drive interested parties (members & nonmembers) to the Web site. These tools serve as:
• Communicators – relaying messages to the public
• Directors – pointing your audience to original content
• Marketers – raising awareness for the organization. The main purpose of the petals are to attract raindrops (members) and bumble bees (messengers).

The Bumblebee – Additional Messengers: The ultimate goal is to reach new individuals and new audiences, and social media tools make it easy to have someone else carry and convey your message for you. By creating original content, posting it to the web site, and employing social media tools to attract and direct members to the site, more and more individuals will learn about the organization.

Role of Volunteer Leadership
As outlined above, volunteer leadership plays a vital role in the success of online social media initiatives. It is our recommendation that a key group of individuals are appointed to play a highly involved part in the implementation of the associations social media strategy. This could be comprised of:
• One or two Board or Committee members
• Key enthusiasts from the organization’s Facebook page
• Technologically-savvy members responding to a “call for volunteers”

By having several members initiate and participate, the organization can experience increased success in grassroots awareness of its’ online presence.

Experience and Technology Create Opportunity

I'm a 38 yr old professional who is having a great deal of fun learning about how to incorporate social media/technologies into my personal and professional life. The two biggest challenges for me have been learning the nuances of the tools (Twitter, Hootsuite, Seesmic, etc.) and considering the whole personal/professional brand approach.

Fortunately, and largely because I've been working longer than some of my coworkers have been alive, I feel I understand my company's culture and brand to the point where I can work through these challenges. But it got me thinking about the other side of this equation. Do younger professionals who possess the technological skills struggle with grasping the culture and/or brand of their respective organizations? Do they have enough "worldly" experience to understand the long term implications of their actions, posts, comments, or approaches? Or, is their interpretation of the organization a true (or truer) reflection of the organization's personality or brand?

Perhaps by posing these questions we can introduce a new solution to closing the generational gap. By finding value in both generations we begin to introduce new pathways for meaningful dialogue about the value in combining technology with experience and insight.
For the time being I'll continue to sit down with my younger colleagues to explore their interpretation of our organization and, when possible, steal a tip or two about how to manage multiple Twitter accounts.

Bridging the "Bookends" and Creating Dialogue

I'm a 38 yr old professional who is having a great deal of fun learning about how to incorporate social media & and rapidly changing technologies into my personal and professional life. The biggest challenges for me have been learning the nuances of the tools (Twitter, Hootsuite, Seesmic, etc.), considering the whole personal/professional brand approach, and integrating what I've learned over the course of my professional career.


Fortunately for me, and largely because I've been working longer than some of my coworkers have been alive, I feel I understand my company's culture and brand to the point where I can work through these challenges. But it got me thinking about the other side of this equation and the recent online chatter over "bookend" generations.

Do younger professionals who possess the technological skills struggle with grasping the culture and/or brand of their respective organizations? Do they have enough "worldly" experience to understand the long term implications of their actions, posts, comments, or approaches? Or is their interpretation of the organization a true (or truer) reflection of the organization's personality or brand?

Perhaps by posing these questions we can introduce a new solution to closing the generational gap and filling the space between the "bookend" generations. By finding value in, and utilizing the stregnths of both (all) generations, we can begin to introduce new pathways for meaningful dialogue about the value in combining technology with experience and insight.

For the time being I'll continue to sit down with my younger colleagues to explore their interpretation of our organization and, when possible, steal a tip or two about how to manage multiple Twitter accounts. I will also work hard to help them understand the culture of our company, the importance of seeing the world through an old, wise man's eyes (not that old) and the value of engaging in a dialogue with those who may not know about Flickr, but know about the importance of teamwork, developing meaningful relationships, and the nuances of interpersonal communications.