Yesterday, my mother caught me. I’m a “grown” adult (as opposed to an un-grown one, I guess) but she still has a way of making me feel like the guilty kid with a hand in the cookie jar. I posted information about my life on my online social networking profile and my cousin read it and told her something new about her own child. It wasn’t anything shocking, just that I was having a bit of success with a hobby of mine but it was information she didn’t know. She wasn’t happy.
That got me thinking about how valuable social media is. I can post something and someone can read it all while I’m still waiting for my mom to pick up her phone. It’s instantaneous information spreading. Are you doing that in your organization? Are you using membership software and social/professional networking to get your message out as fast as you can? Let’s take it another direction. What if you had a press release you wanted distributed to media outlets ASAP, you hand it to your Guy or Girl Friday and are told, I’ll get to it tomorrow. That wouldn’t be acceptable. You would tell your assistant to make it happen immediately. Your assistant would nod and might even table it until after lunch. Would you be furious? You wanted it out the moment you handed it over. So why aren’t you using technology to your advantage?
Social media allows lightening fast posts, multi-media sharing capabilities, real-time collaboration and so much more. Why make your membership wait on a paper newsletter to find out important information? Give it to them now. Give it to them often. The more information and value you provide, the quicker you will become part of their daily Internet routine. And you never want your members to feel left in the dark. Make them feel like they are the first to learn of news effecting them or goings-on within the industry. That empowers them to become go-to people as they have the latest industry news at their finger tips with a quick visit to your site. Because, unlike my mother, they won’t tell you when they feel like they are the last to know. They’ll just go get their information elsewhere.
