After 4 months of writing a personal blog, took big step few days ago in starting a blog for the association I manage. Wanted to be sure I knew what I was doing before having one aimed for the general membership (5,000) ... along with whoever else may find it.Decisions made so far:
1. Starting with specific program focus - our Habitat home build in Mobile, AL this week - readers can watch progress
2. Asked attendees (20) to send me pictures and postings - and I edit/post - told them they could even phone in reports or fax from hotel, but so far everyone has emailed (helps to have a tech-savvy membership who travel with laptops/blackberries - and hotel with free wireless in rooms) - I'm not there
3. I'm moderating comments
4. Watching analytics
5. Added blog link to Association site, direct link in e-newsletter, gave RSS/email subscription options
What finding:
1. Many attendees sent link to their sponsors, friends, families, colleagues to watch the trip (when my daughter went to a summer camp "Seeds of Peace" I read updates daily to find out what she was learning/doing each day - so understand the daily interest part)
2. 175 viewed first reports - and build actually starts today
3. Helpful way to show media reports - can link to video news clips and newspaper articles
4. Some may turn into bloggers when they return as they acclimate to it
5. Introduces blogs to some who don't generally (or ever) read them
What next: Who knows .... not sure where to take after this.
For those of you who also do blogs for your own associations, what has worked and not worked for you?
1 comment:
Cindy, congrats on the new MAR blog. It would be great if you would add it to the Association Social Media Wiki that I set up to track social media use in the association community.
The wiki can be found at http://www.associationsocialmedia.com. Thanks and congratulations again!
Post a Comment