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| November 2, 2009 |
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What's Happening
Live from Association New Media Summit 2009
One of the main reasons professionals and businesses join trade associations is to connect with other members -- this means that online social networking presents both a threat and a huge opportunity to associations, writes Doug Naegele, founder of mobile media firm TextAndShout.com and an avid SmartBrief on Social Media reader. Doug sent over some notes from last week's Association New Media Summit in Arlington, Va., which brought together trade groups, technology vendors and new-media thinkers for seminars and brainstorming. Here are some takeaways:
- Association members are uniquely positioned to be content contributors to their association's social-media efforts.
- Two major roadblocks that often stand in the way of unleashing this kind of user-generated content are technology and upper-management buy-in.
- Facebook, with its open-comment, open-membership structure, makes many association execs nervous. Traditionally, associations have been based on "Qualify for membership first, pay your dues, then get the content." Letting just anyone in on the privileged conversation via Facebook and Twitter is seen as diluting the brand.
Read more details in the complete post and tell us what you think.
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October's top headlines
We track most-clicked stories in all of our SmartBrief publications. Here is a sample from last month:
Leadership Focus
Don't let failure slow you down
Everyone fails sometimes, writes David Silverman, but the best business leaders don't allow themselves to be paralyzed by remorse or self-doubt. Silverman has talked to CEOs about their past failures, and he found that when things went wrong they sought to fix the problem fast and then move on to the next challenge. "Faced with failure, they stayed in motion," Silverman writes. Harvard Business Review online/Words at Work blog (10/21)
3 signs of a lousy "thought leader"
Hack leadership writers tend to have three characteristics in common, this article notes. Lousy leadership "gurus" are marked by a tendency to overstate the newness of their ideas, a fondness for naming "model" companies and a willingness to market various "tools" that purport to reduce leadership to a few easy steps. "If management could indeed be reduced to a few simple principles, then we would have no need for management thinkers," the author writes. The Economist (10/22)
Build a CSR strategy that works
When it comes to crafting a corporate social-responsibility strategy, companies need to balance the feel-good factor with hard facts, writes Jill Kolling. "It's no longer sufficient to make vague statements that hint at goals to reduce a company's environmental impact," Kolling writes. Investors and consumers need to be told a compelling story, and that means combining on-target messaging with appropriate quantitative data about the company's achievements. GreenBiz.com (10/22)
Other News
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Media 2.0
Create brand activists out of passive fans
You can use people's natural curiosity to get them involved with your brand, Wyatt Wood writes. Offer something in exchange for participation -- TGI Friday's gave out burgers to gain Facebook fans -- and stay on message even when conversations turn negative, he advises. You can also take advantage of new tools, such as Facebook's link-sharing functionality, to get users to spread your message. The Buzz Bin (10/28)
7 methods for converting social-media nonbelievers
To get your leadership or employees to "buy in" on social media, educate them with articles, books and videos on the subject, Renee Robbins writes. Also, propose ways to use social media to solve training needs, demonstrate how the competition uses social media and show them personally how to use it, she suggests. Learning Putty blog (10/22)
Other News
SmartNugget
10 traits your employees are sure to "love"
Everyone "loves" an indecisive leader, Francie Dalton writes in this satirical list that depicts 10 classic leadership mistakes. "Change your mind often. Particularly on major projects. This demonstrates flexibility," she writes. The Washington Post/On Leadership blog (10/16)
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