Here’s the regular monthly guest post from Leslie White, our Team SocialFish risk manager.

I was talking with my friend and life coach, Grace, (http://www.coachwithgrace.com/) about Twitter. Grace is a relatively new Twitter user and still figuring it out. She commented that Twitter seems to have three types of people: those who are engaging with others, those who are selling and those that are mad at the sellers. Her comment got me to think about all of the association networking events I have attended as a consultant. Very few association executives attend networking events, so they are heavily loaded with vendors. The executives seem to go to annual meetings, conferences and seminars but still strive to avoid vendors. My theory is many association folks seek to avoid vendors due to the behavior of a few. Similar to Grace’s Twitter comment, some vendors seek to engage while others just sell and the ones engaging are mad at those that are only selling. For example, often when a sales person realizes I am not an association executive he or she ends the conversation abruptly and goes trolling for an association executive.

So why should I be surprised that many vendors behave the same way in social media as in real life? These are the people still making cold calls, spamming us and talking without listening. Are your social media activities behaving the same way – sales or promotions without value? Some people think a sales approach works and it does occasionally (otherwise would we have so much spam?). Consequently they don’t know any other way to behave. Are you and your staff social media nuisances by annoying your members, donors, sponsors and others instead of engaging with them?

Since I’m a risk manager I guess it’s time to broach the subject of risk and social media. Obviously unleashing your staff onto the social web has risks. They may say something inappropriate, share information the association isn’t ready to disclose or post bad pictures or videos. Your social media guidelines address these risks. (If you still need a social media policy, see our white paper Social Media, Risks, and Policies for Associations).

Perhaps the bigger risk is your staff being too pushy, too phony and otherwise alienating people. We all complain when our association sends too many emails, reminder letters, and perhaps too many tweets or postings. You have your social media strategy (want to engage your members, recruit new members, educate people about your industry or profession or raise money) now you need your tactics for achieving it. You know your members (or you think you do) so you need to decide how many, how often and what topics to tweet, blog, post and otherwise interact with your members. Coordinate your efforts with other departments – meetings, membership, foundation, publications and any other unit that is pertinent to your members and audiences. I’ll leave the actual tactical details to the experts (like SocialFish), I just want to mention that your risk management efforts include establishing your social media tactics too. Risk management guides you through your tactical decisions as well – what to do, what not to do, how to do it safely and effectively and what to do if your plan doesn’t work. You always want to have a Plan B whether you are successful or not.

you can dress it up, but it's still spam

(photo credit)