A Wise Investment in Social Media Strategies and Solutions

Psst….you. Yeah, you. I gotta good deal for you. A fool-proof investment strategy. One that can’t fail.

Scared yet? You shouldn’t be. I’m not referring to placing all your money on black or red or in the latest stock. I’m suggesting an investment that is going to pay off exponentially — an investment in people, your people. In the past, organizations looked for drones who fit the mission’s mold. There was one figure-head who represented everyone and many of those employed by the company or doing business with them had never even had any direct connection to this individual. But with the democratization of marketing and this newfangled thing called social media, where everyone (employees and customers) are brand evangelists, these figure-heads have been toppled.

In a recent post on HarvardBusiness.org,  authors Jeanne C. Meister and Karie Willyerd pointed out the necessity for companies/organizations to embrace what is no longer a fantasy land of what could happen in the future (like our childhood dreams of flying cars), but is happening with social media (like Dell selling $3,000,000 worth of computers on Twitter).

It’s time to think about the future and I don’t mean twenty years from now. I mean this time next year, next quarter even. How are you remaining competitive/relevant? How are you becoming part of the conversations that are occurring in cyberspace? How are you investing in your employees, members and/or customers? How are you empowering them?

We all embrace technology at different rates. Some are beta testers before the rest of us even know it’s available. Some of us jump on the bandwagon after the celebrity endorsement (you know who you are, even if you won’t admit you did it for Ashton), some (like me) need to weigh the pros and cons and talk to people who are currently using it before they invest time and money and others will go kicking and screaming into the new era.

I was on an NTEN Ask The Expert  call recently with Seth Godin and Beth Kanter. It’s impossible for me to recount every gem they shared but a couple of things stuck with me. Godin said we’re in the middle of an industrial revolution…and that new (social) media puts a sharper point on our need to tell our story.  He wasn’t telling us what to do merely pointing out that things are never going to return to the way they were prior to social networking. Things have changed. They will continue to change and you will be called upon to give your advice, story, expertise. If you’re not willing or are unequipped to do so, you may just find that you’ve brought about your own demise and the tradition you’ve clung to on how things have always been done, has relegated you to something of an antique.

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YourMembership.com - The Complete Online Member Community

Nonprofits and Generation Y

As part of their Member Appreciation Month we have a guest blog post on NTEN’s site. Check it out and let us know what ya think.

Even if you’re not a nonprofit, Gen Y can be of value to your organization. This article suggests how you can bring them on board and keep them there.

Three Reasons to Get In On Social Media Now

We do have rush hour in Florida but your view looks like this.

The annual migration of the snow birds has begun here in Florida. I am by no means an ornathologist. I am referring to the folks who come down here to enjoy our balmy breezes while the sludgy, gray, cold envelopes the rest of the country. I can’t speak for all Floridians but I love to see them. Come spend money; buy houses. Lots of them.

Anyway, I was on my way to work this morning, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I think it surprises the snowbirds and tourists that people actually live in Florida year-round. Most of them believe that as soon as the north begins to defrost, we shut down the borders and close up for the season. This was evident by the surprised look on the man’s face as he sat in the driveway of his condo complex looking up and down the road at the rush-hour traffic. I could almost hear his thoughts, “When did all this happen? How am I going to get in there?” His face was painted with an equal combination of eagerness and fear. The only way he was going to be able to accomplish his goal of joining the masses was to either squeeze himself in with no regard to the frightening things that could happen or he’d have to rely on the kindness of a stranger.

Social media may feel that way to some of you. You’re sitting on the sidelines watching others in this teeming, frantic virtual community. (To give you some perspective, the web has undergone a 40,000-fold increase, to 200 million plus, in the number of websites since 1994’s approximated 5000. Now that’s traffic!) You want to be a part but frankly, entering the fray kind of scares you. 

You’ve heard the arguments about how you can’t afford NOT to but let’s explore the why behind it.

3 reasons to get involved in social media now:

1. Keeping up with the Joneses — no, I’m not referring to doing something because your neighbors are. This one’s all about your competition. How are they using social media? Research their web presence and reputation. Think about what clients or members you might be losing because they are represented and you are not. Don’t believe me? There are over one million blog posts daily. Do any of those belong to your competition?

 

eMarketer

2. Becoming part of the routine — our members’ schedules fill up fast. So do their Internet habits. People surf the same old sites on a weekly or daily basis. They check email, they visit a favorite social networking site. The longer you wait to develop your online community, the less time and interest your members will have. Becoming part of their daily Internet routine is what you want. Most people go where they are comfortable and can get worthwhile content. If you’re not providing it, you’re not meeting their expectations and they’ll find it elsewhere (See chart on consumer web attitudes. Customers’ views on what they expect from corporations may not be that far removed from what they expect from your organization. Can you afford to wait around and see?). Once consumers or members have a routine established, there’s even greater competition for their limited time.  Getting them interested in adding something may mean prooving that you are more valuable to them then their other sites. Are you up for the challenge? Don’t get me wrong — the occasional drop-by users are nice but wouldn’t you rather have core people who check your site religiously? They’re out there so make sure you are too. 

 3. The technology is ripe — most people shy away from buying technology until the price comes down and the “bugs” are worked out. Social media and its peripherals are now well over a decade old (if you count email as social media, it’s older than that). The processes may still be malleable but the technology is there and very intuitive. Offering your members a private online community isn’t cutting edge anymore, it’s just smart business. Choosing an option that includes membership management software means you are doing something for them and something for you. If you wait any longer for the technology to ripen, you might just find that your competition has had the pick of the harvest.

My dear snowbird did finally make it out into the teeming activity of the morning commute. He just needed someone to take the time and make some room. If you want someone who can help you establish a private online community and membership management software, we’d be glad to let you in.

New Feature: More Efficient eCommerce

YourMembership.com knows you need more than simple management software and we are continually enhancing our product so that it is the most feature-rich in its price point. Our dues, donations and store commerce systems have been enhanced to improve invoice and accounting flow. We’ve just introduced:

• Dues, donations and store all have printable invoices available via auto-email notification and their respective “thank you” pages. If the transaction has been paid via credit card and real-time processing is active on your site then the invoice will show a zero balance due – “PAID.” If “bill me” has been selected, then the invoice will show the total amount as remaining due. 
• Invoice headers and footers can be customized within the page summary system to include payment remittance information and other pertinent billing information.
• Unique invoice numbers on transactions. This invoice number has been seeded for all previous transactions. In addition, a new field has been provided for Check/Reference number and payment terms. These three fields have been added to transaction exports and the API.
• Default payment terms have been added for each of the three commerce systems.
• Thank you emails sent from the notification system when someone submits membership dues or donations have been updated with links to the invoice.
• Transaction search within each of the three commerce systems has been enhanced to include: status, pre-set date range, custom date range, invoice #, check/reference #, payment option, and failed credit card transaction.
• The ability to resend an invoice (via email) for a specific transaction or to a group of transactions based on the search performed. In addition you can ”remove” specific people from the results set before sending the email for your selected transactions (one-off invoice emails are sent immediately, while mass sending will auto-queue a bulk email).
• Recording (on the transaction details page) of the administrator who closes out a transaction.

We invest considerably in the continual upgrade of our product because we believe in offering our customers the most current technology for the best price.

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Member Management Software + Social Media = The Complete Online Member Community

New Features: API Version 1.5 now Available

We’ve rolled out a great new API and a new report that helps our clients manage duplicate records. More information below:

API Version 1.5 (application programming interface) Available
The YourMembership.com API is available to all current customers free-of-charge. The XML-based API (v1.5) enables our customers to programmatically automate the management and synchronization of data between YourMembership.com and third-party applications and databases.

The new version 1.5 provides enhanced membership data management methods AND delivers financial transaction data.

 

Financial Transaction Data

The API exports donations, dues transactions and store orders for integration into third-party applications or offline databases. Export of store orders includes product information and financial data for order fulfillment and reporting. The API also exports career openings from within their online member communities, if applicable.

 

Enhanced Member Data Management

The secure API allows them to query, create and update online member profiles and member data as well as conduct real-time import/export of core member data. 

 

The API also facilitates access to multiple areas of a member’s profile including media galleries, message centers and wall features. Version 1.5 of the API provides functionality for image uploading to a member’s media gallery, browsing of albums and photos, retrieval of a member’s media gallery album list, retrieval of a member’s media gallery item list, and retrieval of a single media gallery item.

 

For managing member messages, the API returns a list of messages from a member’s inbox and/or sent folder and allows members to read messages and send member-to-member messages. The API also returns a member’s connection category list and a member’s complete connection list, and it enables connection request approval or denial.

 

For member wall management, the API returns a member’s entire wall and enables posts to a member’s wall.

 

Version 1.5 also enables external systems to query your YourMembership.com database for new members and member information that has been modified since a specific date. For directory searches, the API member directory search enables keyword searching across the YourMembership.com community directory. Other features include methods for retrieving recent community activity and snapshots of member profile data that help create an enhanced user interface experience in external, integrated applications.

 

NOW! Micro-blog Feed

The YourMembership.com API also enables feed retrieval of the RSS 2.0 community NOW! feeds.

 

New Report
A new report had been added called “Duplicate Constituent IDs.” This report will identify people that have duplicated offline IDs in the “Constituent ID” field.

Come See us at the Council for Resource Development’s Conference

YourMembership.com will be there. Come see us, November 11-13, 2009, at The Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

Let’s talk about how you can vivify your community and perform administrative tasks more efficiently.

Sign up/learn more about the conference here.

YourMembership.com Launches New Plug-in for Blackbaud’s The Raiser’s Edge

YourMembership.com Inc., a leading global provider of online member communities and membership management software, recently announced the launch and immediate availability of its new plug-in for Blackbaud®’s The Raiser’s Edge®. The plug-in is an optional add-on product to YourMembership.com that enables the automated, on-command synchronization of core member data between YourMembership.com and The Raiser’s Edge.

“This new plug-in allows us to help our customers who use RE streamline their business processes via our real-time, single-click member data synchronization system,” said William Stover, Jr., CEO and president of YourMembership.com. “We solved an important business need for our customers by bridging the data gap between YourMembership.com and The Raiser’s Edge. Now, our customers who use The Raiser’s Edge have a simple, affordable solution to synchronizing their valuable member data between YourMembership.com and RE.”

The plug-in includes an intuitive configuration wizard and synchronization features, and once installed the YourMembership.com plug-in is accessible via the Plug-in Menu within the user’s local version of The Raiser’s Edge software.

Using the configuration wizard, users can set the plug-in to synchronize by constituent code and address types; map YourMembership.com member types to The Raiser’s Edge constituent codes; configure the plug-in to manage and map certain fields, and more. Once the client runs the configuration wizard, the settings are saved and administrators subsequently can synchronize member data via a single click within The Raiser’s Edge.

The plug-in’s synchronization features update core member data including fields containing biographical information such as first name, last name, etc.; address types for multiple addresses such as preferred, business, etc.; spouse information; membership data; and more. Membership data fields include member status, dates, membership type, verification data, etc.

Reporting and conflict resolution features also are available via the YourMembership.com plug-in for The Raiser’s Edge. The plug-in automatically generates synchronization reports and logs that are easy to understand and stores these reports and logs for quick reference. As an added level of protection and accountability, the plug-in logs when – and which – administrators make modifications to the plug-in configuration settings.

For conflict resolution, the plug-in captures and illustrates which data fields have changed since last synchronization and allows users to decide whether to sync from The Raiser’s Edge to YourMembership.com or from YourMembership.com to The Raiser’s Edge. Within the YourMembership.com plug-in, users may address data conflict resolution down to a field-by-field basis, and they may choose to review all records during synchronization.

The Raiser’s Edge® is a registered trademark of Blackbaud Inc. and/or its affiliates.

Try Something New With Social Media

Do Things Differently

I am not addicted to coffee and I’m not writing that because I’m in denial. But every day, on my commute to work, coffee rides co-pilot. Today it stayed home. I wasn’t trying to prove anything. I simply forgot my usual routine. I didn’t miss the coffee (remember I’m not addicted), I missed the action of tipping my travel mug at every light. I felt like I was supposed to be doing something. My hand felt antsy.

What do you do every day (from an organizational standpoint); something you do without thinking that when it can’t be done or when it has to be done a different way, you are at a loss? It just doesn’t feel right.

There’s an old phrase, “habits are something we do without thinking. That’s why some of us have so many of them.” Habits are our way of going on mental autopilot. We don’t need to give our processes any thought because we’re continuing to do them the same way we always have. But doing things the way they have always been done makes us lazy. It removes creativity and turns our decision-making process into rote procedure. It takes away evolution, which is necessary when dealing with today’s challenges. 

Here are 5 ways to step outside of doing things the way you’ve always done them with social media.

1. Shake up your member base — once a day, at least 3 times a week, contact a random member of your organization or contact list. Send an email, text, personal note, write on their wall, whatever — just reach out to them in some way. Ask how you can be of service, what their latest interest is, what suggestions they have for you. Get in touch with your online community.

2. Learn something new — enter keywords on a blog site, Twitter, Wikipedia, you get the idea. Then read and read.

3. Make contact — you’ve just learned something. How did it make you feel? Agree or disagree? Let the author know your feelings by reaching out (in a professional way).

4. Share — how does your newly acquired knowledge fit into your life or that of your members? Pass it along. Write a blog about it. Email a few of your contacts. Share its meaning with those who cross your path that day. Whether it’s your barista at Starbucks or your child’s kindergarten teacher, if you found the information helpful chances are someone else will as well. Maybe they’ll even have additional information or insight to add to the conversation.

5. Make introductions – Twitter has Follow Friday. Member sites have featured members. But why not take this to another level? You’ve made contact with someone from your community. You’ve gained insight/knowledge. You’ve shared this knowledge. Now help others meet (or become reintroduced to) people who will have a beneficial effect on their hobby, career or life. Whether you do it on email, through personal introduction or linking to their blogs; facilitating introductions builds an infrastructure of engaged individuals.

It’s easy to continue to run your organization the way it’s always been done. It’s safe. It requires little thought. The paths are already hewn. But if you’re willing, you can challenge yourself to make small changes that yield a big difference. Try what I suggest and let me know how it goes. Maybe I’ll even follow my own advice and leave my coffee co-pilot at home and use those momentary traffic stops to think about interesting ideas. This blog was born because I “forgot” my coffee. What amazing thing are you achieving today because you “forgot” to do things as usual?

The International Academy of the Visual Arts Recognizes YourMembership.com with a 2009 W3 Award

The International Academy of the Visual Arts (IAVA) recently announced the winners of its 2009 W3 Awards competition. Receiving nearly 3,000 entries, the W3 Awards honors creative excellence on the web, and recognizes the creative and marketing professionals behind award-winning sites, marketing programs, and video work created for the web.

In the 2009 competition YourMembership.com won a silver 2009 W3 Award for the category Online Community.

“We were incredibly impressed by the quality and creativity of this year’s entries. W3 winners continue to set the bar in web development and design, push the limits of web advertising creativity and advance the use of web video. We are thrilled to have reviewed such a diverse and respected pool of work,” said Linda Day, the executive director of the IAVA. “On behalf of the entire Academy, we congratulate this year’s W3 Award winners as they continue to advance Internet creativity and greatly contribute to the robust and ever-changing online community.”

With clients across all seven continents, YourMembership.com is a leading global provider of online member communities and membership management software. The W3 Awards is sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from acclaimed media, advertising and marketing firms.

Becoming an (Accidental) Superhero with Social Media

Greatest American Hero — remember that show? One of the quintessential 80s offerings that entertained adults and kids alike. The kind of shows we watched where we would “pretend” to be the characters after it was over. We had to.

Oh the things you can do with the right powers.

There weren’t any video games then that allowed us to live (virtually) the life of the guy in the cape.

The show revolved around an ordinary school teacher who found a hero suit (I think left behind by aliens but trivia buffs can, and will, correct me on that one). He could do amazing things with it (thus the title) but the rub was that he had lost the instruction booklet and was making it up as he went along. Still he managed to save the day and his mishaps only made him more loveable.

Kinda like social media. We have extraordinary tools at our disposal. We can leap buildings in single bounds and traverse vast geographical areas to connect with one another. Our powers are almost limitless.

So we explore and connect and generally try to do good but it takes some learning. Flying isn’t all that easy (at first). But if you watch people who know what they’re doing, that’ll help. Asking questions doesn’t hurt either. Our lovable hero was always bouncing things off (sometimes literally) of his trusted companions. Just know that you can get the tools to work for you but it takes time. And if you crash into a few obstacles along the way, remember that’s all they are — obstacles. Part of the power of social media is becoming more transparent. If you make a mistake in usage and wish you hadn’t placed intimate details of your life on a very public wall, that’s okay. Maybe your fans will find it an endearing faux-pas but, if not, it’s okay to apologize. When the Greatest American Hero crash landed in the middle of a wedding, he didn’t stop flying. He dusted himself off, apologized and got right back to his mission.

Although some people have been using the suit (of social media tools) longer, and so they’re more versed in how best to use the powers, a good majority of people are really just learning as they go; evolving their practices and hopefully using their powers for the good. Whatever happens don’t be afraid to use the suit and learn how to harness the great power behind it. Then you too can be the Greatest American (insert other country if applicable) Hero to your organization. 

What super power has social media brought you?