I just got a message on Twitter from a good friend who said (minus some choice words), “I’m having the fear/control debate with someone… Thinking “what would Maddie say?” 
”
After a bit of a giggle, I thought, actually, there’s plenty I would say. I would say, number one, that there seemed to be a lot less of this at ASAE09, which impressed me. We’ve come a long way, I think, since last year. The number one indicator of that is simply how more and more associations are really getting involved with social media, which means they have somehow figured out how to get over that fear – whether they are trying small experiments, or going at it head on with a full consciousness of having a strategic direction to focus their activities.
In the meantime, for those like my friend who are still having this debate, here’s an oldie but goodie resource to repost by way of answer as to what I would say. It’s a link to the webinar I did on the topic, and I would highly recommend listening to the full version with audio (third one down, though the other two are really good too!) as we try to speak to a lot of those lingering fears people have about social media.
But I want to know this: are you still having this debate with the powers that be at your association? Do you think the conversation has shifted at all since we did this webinar back in January? Are you hearing different “fears”, or do you think the basic fear of loss of control is still the one big hurdle to be overcome? Let us know, and we’ll dig in further in future blog posts.
2 responses to "Still having the fear/control debate?"
{ 2 comments }
RT @tweetmeme Still having the fear/control debate? — SocialFish http://bit.ly/7brKx
via uberVU
You must be psychic because I’ve been getting blasted with this a LOT lately. Our page on Facebook has started to really take off as a place where both members and non-members are going to ask questions about anything from techniques for X procedure to can anyone recommend a course about X to job stuff to you name it. I think it’s great because people are coming to think of our outpost as the place to go to get questions answered; other staff, though, aren’t as thrilled. In fact, some are quite irrate that we are encouraging “nonsense” like Facebook and think we should be telling people “don’t come here to ask questions; go to our website.”
But I digress…the good news is that while I’m getting a lot of fear feedback–including outright anger that we are going forward with social media stuff–the powers that be seem to be getting on board. I personally attribute it to the fact that ASAE has been focusing on it so much over the past few years; they’ve finally gotten over their fear (for the most part). The problem I’m starting to encounter is other staff levels–staff who aren’t active in ASAE or similar professional groups who haven’t had the benefit of knowing about stuff like your webinar and/or other resources that deal with the risks associated with social media vs. the potential for gains, etc. To those people the whole thing is ridiculous and they are NOT excited about the changes.
I think along with the loss of control fear is some element of “will the association become obsolete if we are no longer considered the go-to place for answers?” Certainly a valid fear, especially in this economy, and for all I know possibly a valid threat to some degree.
Comments on this entry are closed.