So that’s a pretty meaty title for what is really a simple idea we’ve used in some of our presentations. The slideshow is below – only four slides so you can follow along as you read this. I’m interested to see if this makes sense to you.
In the first slide, we have three example areas where an association focuses its efforts – membership, education, advocacy. There could be any number of others, of course, but let’s just use these three.
Now in your normal daily activities, we think the most interesting stuff happens when some of these overlap. When your educational activities or advocacy campaigns are so cool that they energize your members and help you recruit new members, for example. In the second slide, we show this simple overlap.
Now put that aside for a minute. The blue diagram on the right is how we picture the social focus. On the outside, you have all the multilayered and unharnessed conversation happening in social spaces. Some of that conversation starts to engender collaboration, as people start conversing together for specific purposes. And in the middle is where that collaboration becomes collective action.
Each of those rings has its own value – you’re not always looking to create collective action, in fact sometimes you’re specifically looking to the serendipity of the stream, so to speak. But clearly getting from conversation to collaboration to collective action is harder and harder as you move towards the inside of the diagram. So, of course, it’s no surprise that this looks like a bullseye. Lindy likes to tell the story of how she sucks at darts, and is happy if she hits the board at all. When we’re talking about social media, too, it’s totally OK not to hit the center of the board at first. It may take a very long time and a lot of practice to get there.
So then look at slide 3. Look at what happens when you put these two diagrams together. You can use your individual association focal areas to engender conversation and collaboration, relatively easily, as long as you have content worth discussing and work worth doing. And the sweet spot in the middle, well that’s where when the association overlaps and the social overlaps really come together to fuel your collective action. Think about if the association objectives were not about membership, advocacy and education but instead events, certification and publications. Or whatever. The social projects you’re really looking for in order to achieve success will be those where all these things overlap.
I figured I’d keep the final slide here too, though that could have been a separate blog post – but basically this shows how every social media project (and overall) strategy works. You define your objectives, you launch, you feed and nurture, you measure and evaluate, and you repeat. And at every single step, you listen. You pay attention. You monitor feedback continuously.
Thoughts?
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6 responses to "On aligning social media strategy with your association focus"
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Wow, Maddie! That’s a great post! My association is going though this exact same exercise, though we use different terms to describe it. In fact, each person who’s involved in this exercise has a somewhat different view of what we’re trying to accomplish. But the basic direction is this: we have a lot of information and knowledge floating around our meetings, hallway conversations, emails, on the website, in our advocacy efforts, and…wherever. Now, what do we do to harness the power of all that knowledge so it’s easily accessible to people and they can use it when they need and want it? I suppose that is the challenge of any “organization” whether you are 1 person or 100,000 people. The question is, “where did I put that piece of information (interaction, conversation, slide show, joke, metaphor, etc.) and how can I use that piece of information to solve this other problem, challenge, opportunity I have right now?” In this particular moment, I guess I’m describing a knowledge management strategy.
But we’re also talking about a community development strategy. Recently at my association, we moved away from a traditional committee structure to organize our most important meetings and conferences. We moved instead toward an ad hoc structure of planning groups that work specifically on a conference and then dissolve once the conference is over. Some of the committee folk now feel a sense of disenfranchisement over the loss of their former meeting planning roles. But it’s more than that. They are feeling the loss of the sense of community that came from being crowned the chair or vice chair of the committee and having a built in set of friends with whom to kvetch and network.
And all of this works together. The meetings feed the values of community and knowledge management. The committees also feed both of those larger values. We have learned over time that the ad hoc planning groups tend to be more effective at delivering the powerful meeting. But the ad hoc groups might not be the most effective vehicle to deliver on the value of community. So, we’re on our raft here in the middle of the sea – looking for oars and sails and compasses and all the other things we need to keep moving forward. Some people are getting more wet than others. And some people are getting stepped on more than others. We hope to get the raft (or rafts) to their various destinations and hope the people aboard enjoy the ride and the conditions (wet/not wet, stepped on/not stepped on) that accompany the ride.
– Pat Jones
When I first heard and saw your slide show over at CFA Institute workshop I was wowed — so love seeing it here so I can play more with it.
Two messages that I think we really need to hear (and Pat your comment certainly hones in on these) is that community is different from collaboration but the association needs doses of each. The reality it that the collaboration happens less of the time (hence the sweet spot in the middle) but it can't happen if there's no community. So I agree we need to ditch the traditional committees but we have to still have community so member can move from sweet spot to sweet spot so to say.
Interesting view Maddie. I offer a different spin on this.
In the first slide, you have all three circles the same size as if the three main association areas are equal. I submit that those three circles vary in size based upon the association's goals and reasons for existence. That would make their intersections different. I argue that community should be a circle as should research/content.
I see many associations becoming more community and content focused. I don’t think these two areas lie in the traditional silos of membership and education. They often cross silos. In my opinion, information, knowledge sharing and content are very different from true education. Education involves awareness to action, which is the premise of many associations such as environmental, health and social organizations. Their main goal is to change individual attitudes and ultimately behavior, thus awareness to action.
Associations often disseminate information of facts or opinions in print or electronic material and call it education. It’s actually information sharing. Information does not enhance critical-thinking, problem solving or decision-making skills.
Education teaches people to analyze information and make their own informed decisions. It empowers one with greater values and encompasses teaching and learning specific skills. Oh, I digress into the importance of education. That’s the educator in me.
Your model assumes that in the social space, people are having conversations about facts and collaborating on the right issues. That simply cannot happen without accurate content, information, education and research. If an association is trying to change behavior, they start with facts and move people from awareness to action.
Your social focus diagram assumes that collaboration automatically evolves into collective action. I suggest that it doesn’t happen without a plan of action, measurement and positive reinforcement. That’s where the association can use community to help focus the outcomes of awareness to action.
Thanks for the great comments!
Jeff, let me respond to yours specifically. First, yes, the size of the three association focuses can vary. But are you saying community should be a circle like these? For me community overlaps the whole – in fact community is the whole diagram as per slide 3.
I agree with what you say about education involving awareness to action, as opposed to just information sharing. However I disagree that our model assumes people are conversing and collaborating on the "right issues" – I don't see where it shows that. People are just conversing and collaborating, and it's back to the myth of control to think the association can do anything more than try and push the "right stuff" to the forefront. Even if the association starts with facts, people will just add more/other facts to suit themselves.
You also say that the "social focus diagram assumes that collaboration automatically evolves into collective action" – actually totally the opposite, as I said in the post, and the reason it's a bullseye, is that it's really really hard to push conversation towards collective action. There's definitely nothing "automatic" about it
Maddie:
Ok, so, we see it differently.
I do not see education as part of the larger circle of community. In advocacy or environmental associations, an association may be seeking to educate nonmembers, the public or even members' customers about specific issues that concern the membership community. So it could easily be outside of that community. Or it could be a different community. That’s why I don’t see community as a whole circle encompassing the others.
In my opinion, moving from awareness to action does not control the conversation, rather supports the conversation with facts and allows people to agree or disagree. It involves people in a discussion around facts and opinions; it gets them involved with the process. Education of awareness to action lets people make their own educated and informed decisions.
Hmm. I think our definition of community is what is different – for us, an association's community extends far beyond its member database…
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