Push notifications tied to mobile apps deliver instant updates + target association members
Editor’s note: This is the final installment in a four-part series looking at member engagement at associations and the importance of implementing a social networking platform equipped with the right tools to ensure early adoption and consistent engagement.
During this past year, we redesigned and enhanced our member communities. Doing so, we discovered that our community features were underutilized by the 20-million members using our solutions. We were puzzled, as the member community is always included with our association management software (AMS) solution, complete with powerful components for members and individual groups.
So, why the lack of engagement with these features? That’s what we tasked ourselves to figure out.
Push powerful social community tools
Today’s professionals expect instant engagement and ease of use when approaching any online social community. An intuitive and painless user experience aside, everyone has their own preferences about how they intend to interact with others or consume content. When you think about the applications that appeal most to an individual’s interests and needs, all while creating an experience that becomes a daily habit, a few immediately come to mind: Facebook, LinkedIn and, of course, Twitter.
Apart from their ability to serve up rich content, deliver relevant opportunities and inspire thought-provoking discussions, what do these applications have in common? They master the capacity to capitalize on social behavior using powerful community tools to offer an experience that’s all about the user.
Focus on user preferences + behavior
Many private association communities heavily rely on email notifications or loyally logging in to provide updates for their members. While email is an important tool in staying up-to-date on the most influential discussions, push notifications tied to a native mobile app allow for instant updates and make it easier for members to have direct access to information without constantly sifting through an inbox.
YourMembership’s SocialLink, where social networking meets membership management, is a solution that not only solves the accessibility problem, but also caters to individual user preferences and behavior. With it comes a private social community integrated with YourMembership’s AMS. The combination ensures the data produced by your members and you—both within your social community and AMS—is immediately accessible and actionable. The integration makes certain that the settings and permissions you’ve defined for your members within the AMS—particularly those related to access and privacy—are respected.
In addition, SocialLink presents these benefits:
- The community features and subsequent content/discussions are accessible from anywhere by introducing a feed that aggregates all activity relevant to each member based on their preferences, subscriptions and affiliations.
- Native iOS and Android apps provide associations with a solution to keep their members connected and in-the-know at all times through the power of push notifications and easy access without the need to log in.
Let’s take a look at an example
How many of your members respond to your forum topics or blog entries, even when your staff is dedicated to organizing and moderating these discussions? The majority of the time, you probably see activity from the same members.
With SocialLink’s aggregated feed, you get the option to view the latest forum or blog posts from community and group interactions, then reply or comment directly from the feed. No longer do users navigate their way to the content source or need to understand how to use a forum. The information is instantaneously available in a familiar feed pattern and tied to user-preferred push notifications for native mobile app users.
Giving your members solutions that allow them to reach their social community and interact with other members at their point of need is already critical. But, it becomes increasingly crucial as technology evolves. Your organization’s ability to adapt to these changes in a cost-effective and scalable way is possible by partnering with YourMembership.
Where else can you get an ecosystem of connected products and solutions socially elevated to take your member engagement to unimaginable levels? Nowhere, but here, where your members and their community can effectively get social with a simple request.
