Archive for May, 2010

Association Social Media Wiki

May 31, 2010

In case you didn’t know about it, the association community has its own wiki for tracking which associations are using social media. It was started by association social media pioneer Jeff De Cagna, but Lindy Dreyer of SocialFish has taken it over lately. Of course it’s a wiki, so the pages themselves are actually created by the users. ANYONE can go on that site and create or edit a page.

I just added a page for NARI Metro DC, one of the associations I manage. I just put in our Facebook Page and our twitter account. Some of the other associations on there have more detailed listings including stories of why they started social media.

So if you’re just dipping your toes into social media, check it out and see what others are doing. And if you’re actually doing social media, then create an account and make a page! (Hint: if you’re nervous about the coding, just find a page you like and copy the source code.)

Posted in Marketing and Commmunications | Leave a Comment »

Creating an SOP Helps Streamline Your Process

May 28, 2010

Recently I was considering how taking two weeks off from work was going to effect my co-workers. I decided to type up a numbered list describing a few of my procedures for different newsletters. To my surprise, as I was typing I came to a couple of vague areas in my process that needed to be honed in. I realized having a specific protocol can reduce problems and errors on my part, in addition to aiding the people who will be filling in for me while I am away. By writing down simple rules that I normally follow but occasionally skip when I am in rush, for instance, “All text should have a style attached to it”, I am more likely to follow my own rules, especially on those days when everything is in a rush.

Yes, it is a bit time consuming to type up these procedures with enough detail for them to be truly useful, but in the long run you will be glad you took the time. Not only will your company benefit from this resource but your own work will be done with a greater efficiency.

Posted in Creative, Strategy | Leave a Comment »

60-second Super-cool FOLDS

May 20, 2010

To make a bigger impact, without increasing the cost of direct mail, we have been using unique folds. The trick is to keep the size within the post office standards and keep the quantity fairly low. Unique folds can be expensive for higher quantities since they generally need to be done by hand. We all know that a lot of direct mail we receive goes directly into the trash without as much as a glance, but if a piece of mail has a unique fold, suddenly the piece has a third dimension, it’s interactive! It is almost guaranteed to have impact.

Foldfactory.com has a great FOLD resource titled 60-second Super-cool FOLD of the WEEK. Have fun folding!

Posted in Creative | Leave a Comment »

You Can Start Slow…But Start

May 4, 2010

Maggie McGary is the Social Media Manager for the American Speech Language Hearing Association, and she recently posted on her Mizz Information blog about the results of the ASHA fan page that she set up in Facebook.

According to Maggie’s post, they started the Fan page about  eight months ago with no goals and no plan, and today it has 20,000 fans. Now, ASHA is a big association and it has a large student base, so I doubt all associations will get this kind of growth, but it points out a key lesson when it comes to social media: get out there before you are clear on what you are going to do in social media. I don’t mean jump into all the tools because they are the newest thing. You still need to develop a strategy. It’s not “if you build it they will come.”

But you are not going to have your strategy all developed first and THEN you launch your initiative. You’re going to be developing it (in part) on the fly because part of the essence of social media is that the users actually get a say in how it develops. But the longer you wait to start and get out there, the longer it will take for you to get the results.

Posted in Marketing and Commmunications, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

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