Rewriting the Rules of Member EngagemenT

5 Ways Associations Can Leverage Social CRM to Drive Interaction & Relevance

2

Imagine a typical member within your organization or association — let’s

call him John Jones. Where is Mr. Jones spending time these days?

Whether it is a workday or a weekend, on a desktop computer or a

smartphone, at home or on the go, you’ll likely find him somewhere in

the vast, frontier-like universe of social media. He may be commenting

on a news story, watching a video, sharing a photo, posting a status

update or participating in a host of other activities, but these days,

according to Nielsen Research, social media accounts for at least a

quarter of Mr. Jones’ time spent online or using a mobile device.

With Facebook on track to hit 1 billion members this summer, 100 million

currently tweeting on Twitter, and LinkedIn connecting 150 million

professionals, Mr. Jones’ social media activities should come as no

surprise to association professionals. It’s clear that a strong majority of

people of all ages and backgrounds now interact with their personal

connections and professional network through a variety of web-based

and mobile social networks, as well as blogs, gaming platforms and

community forums. In addition, people can choose their interactions

based on what is relevant to them — where they live, who they know,

what their interests are and what their priorities are in the moment.

So what does that mean for

associations and other member-

based organizations, which want

to stay engaged on many levels

with Mr. Jones — both in terms of

interactions as well as relevance?

Social media certainly provides

powerful opportunities to send

member engagement soaring, thanks to the natural connections arising

out of posting, sharing, linking and “liking.” But in order to best take

advantage of these new ways to develop a two-way dialogue with

your members and boost their loyalty to the organization, you’ll need

to develop a strong, clear strategy. That strategy needs to help you

navigate this new social universe as well as integrate it into your current

customer relationship management efforts.

That’s because the rules guiding the “relationship” part of CRM, or

customer relationship management, have fundamentally changed — for

good. And members such as Mr. Jones are the ones writing the new rules

of this ever-evolving game.

3

Associations are changing — thanks, most of all, to the changing attitudes,

needs and desires of its members. Today’s active member wants to engage

with their association on their own terms, based on their needs at the

moment, as opposed to the passive participants of the past, who simply

opened their mailboxs or email inboxes to receive the latest message.

The rise of social media has put members in the driver’s seat when it

comes to engagement — they can speak up when they want, share

thoughts with others, or opt-out of any connection. Traditional “push”

and “pull” marketing and communications tactics are no longer

enough to connect with members, and simply measuring and analyzing

member engagement through their transactions will miss many valuable

opportunities to gauge connections, encourage participation and build

long-term, two-way relationships.

Instead, if you want more from your members, you must connect with them

where they are and how they want — in a personalized, relevant way.

Furthermore, members also want to be able to interact with others who have

similar interests within the communities and organizations they participate in.

They assume you will be aware of the conversations happening about your

organization in the social sphere and that you will respond promptly to what is

being said — again, in a personalized, relevant way.

Sounds like a whole lot of

effort, right? However, if

you invest the time, energy

and expense to develop

authentic, real-time

interaction and engagement

with members through

social media, you will get a

significant return. First of all,

your members will be more

likely to engage in various

ways that count — including

renewing memberships,

attending events, spreading

the word about important issues and contributing to your group’s overall

mission. In addition, you’ll have the chance to build the kind of long-term

loyalty that leads to organizational growth and boosts bottom-line results

when it comes to education, networking, fundraising and the exclusive

membership community value that all associations strive for. That can

make your efforts a worthwhile win-win.

Developing Authentic Engagement

4

All of the above leads to what has become an inarguable fact: Getting on

the social media bandwagon is no longer a “maybe-we-should” option for

associations and other member-based organizations. Instead, it is a “must-

do.” Simply put, those that don’t will be left behind by the progressive ones

working to meet their members’ current wants and needs.

However, taking advantage of the potential of this new, “social”

member isn’t just about slapping a page up on Facebook or Twitter

or posting daily on LinkedIn or Pinterest. Over the past few years,

associations and organizations have experimented in different social

media environments, but now, it’s clear that social media tools need

to be used more thoughtfully and strategically, through the gathering,

measurement and analysis of social data, in order to provide a clear

member view that is useful and actionable. That has led to the rise of

“Social” CRM.

In the same way that traditional CRM has been used to manage an

association’s interactions and relevant relationships with members

through data gathering and analysis, campaign automation and

customer service support, a comprehensive Social CRM strategy is

essential in order to integrate and evaluate social data (ranging from

social media profile information and logging social inquiry responses

to keyword tracking and social conversation monitoring). It offers

valuable feedback that can help inform future decisions about brand-

building, recruitment and marketing messaging. By using the right

tools and tactics, combined with an organization-wide, member-

centric philosophy, an association can use Social CRM to provide a

clear understanding of what members need, which in turn can inform

decisions that drive long-term loyalty and increased engagement.

The Rise Of Social CRM

Getting on the social media bandwagon is no longer a “maybe-we-should” option for associations and other member-based organizations. Instead, it is a “must-do.”

5

An Era Of Collaborative Conversation

Social CRM is already becoming an essential piece in the entire

customer relationship management puzzle: MarketingSherpa, a research

firm and online resource, reports that integrating social data into CRM

systems is an emerging practice that is becoming instrumental to

companies and organizations of all sizes and across industries. According

to analyst firm Gartner, the worldwide social customer relationship

management (CRM) market is forecast to reach over $1 billion in

revenue by the end of 2012, up from approximately $625 million in 2010.

But Social CRM is not just about technology. At its heart, it is a philosophy

that is, in turn, supported by the right technology tools and tactics.

According to William Band, an analyst at Forrester Research who writes

regularly about these topics, the most important issue facing today’s

companies and organizations is “determining whom you’re trying to

reach, what you’re trying to accomplish, and how you plan to change

your relationships with your customers.”

The good news is, member-based associations already have real

relationships with their customers and any social efforts to increase

interaction and relevance are really just an extension of that core

mission. Social CRM takes a broad, holistic view of the member-

association relationship and is designed to encourage a collaborative

conversation that is mutually beneficial and evolves over time. The

more you can learn about your members and how they want to be

communicated with through the many layers of social data, the more

you can anticipate their needs and work to meet them. This can drive

member engagement through social platforms, providing additional

social data, fostering more data analysis, and on and on through a

layered, evolving, long-term relationship.

Social CRM takes a broad, holistic view of the member-association relationship and is designed to encourage a collaborative conversation that is mutually beneficial and evolves over time.

6

So how can your organization leverage Social CRM toward increasing

member engagement? These are five ways to turn your current customer

relationship management efforts into social success:

1. Manage the member lifecycle. Traditionally, the typical member lifecycle was linear and predictable.

Let’s go back to the imaginary member John Jones: In the standard

model, Mr. Jones would be recruited into the organization and efforts

would be made to retain his membership, market to him and interact

with him regularly. The success of that effort would be based on and

measured through transactions: Have we asked for a contribution to

an annual fund drive? Is Mr. Jones up-to-date on paying his dues?

Has he registered for the autumn auction or the holiday party? From

a traditional customer relationship management standpoint, as long

as you supported, managed and fostered that transactional-based

lifecycle, you enjoyed membership success.

Today, however, the member lifecycle is no longer linear or

predictable — it is messy, multi-pronged and may seem difficult to

measure. Mr. Jones may not respond to emails, but is connected

to your Facebook Fan page. How do you distinguish that kind of

communication? He has spoken up on Twitter, shared photos of

your last event on Flickr and he is “friends” with other members, but

how will you know that if you only measure member engagement

by his traditional transactions? Also, how can you make sure your

interactions with Mr. Jones are relevant based on his interests and

where he spends his time? You may recognize social media as a way

to increase relevance, but without the right social data you can’t

take advantage of the opportunity.

Through gathering and analyzing social data and layering it onto

traditional data streams, organizations now have the chance to

engage with members on their terms in an ongoing, meaningful,

relevant way. Problems that

might have gone unnoticed

through traditional channels can

now be highlighted and dealt

with immediately through social

media — and analyzed for future

reference and action. None of this

would be possible if you weren’t

willing to meet your members

where they are in the social space,

and use the social data to build a

meaningful dialogue throughout

the member’s evolving lifecycle.

7

2. Increase participation via a dedicated community. Member-based organizations are unique in that there is a strong

common bond that ties the membership together — a thread that

tends to bind participants together closer than, say, fans of big

brands such as The GAP or Trader Joe’s. How can you harness that

powerful connection between members, as well as between those

members and the organization?

A private, dedicated online community offers a singular opportunity

to increase participation in ways an outside network cannot. You

control the look and feel, the messaging and the access. You

can observe, analyze and sometimes steer the conversation to

resolve issues. You can add value in terms of what is relevant to

your members instead of letting outside social networks control the

conversation, the commerce and the data.

For members, a private, “gated” community offers them the opportunity

to participate in a smaller, password-protected environment, while you

can improve their member experience by easily being responsive and

transparent. It doesn’t have to be an overwhelming prospect to build a

dedicated community from the ground up. The right technology tools

can help you easily set up and maintain a private space that drives

social data right to a single dashboard.

Associations are facing a relevance crisis. Including yours.

Do something about it.

MemberFuse™ , an online community and professional networking solution,

unlocks your network’s true potential and is your organization’s own social

networking website where you control the look, messaging, community and

group access based on member data stored in your database.

Engagement: Give your members a way to engage with each other and the

association from anywhere 24/7.

It’s YOUR Community: Not Facebook or LinkedIn. You get the benefit of being

the community owner, including the rights to potential advertising dollars.

Internal vs. External: The social web can be a risky place. With a MemberFuse

community, you remove some of the risk. Give yourself a home field

advantage. You set the agenda. You control the topics.

Relevance: Your members zero-in on what’s most important to them and follow

those topics.

Individualized: Your members configure their own personalized community

dashboard and email alerts.

On-demand Knowledge: Your association’s answer to Google, Twitter and

LinkedIn. Official association content and member-generated content exist

side-by-side, giving members 24/7 access to association vetted information and

peer-to-peer knowledge. And it’s all easily findable with site-wide search.

Collaboration: Give committees, task forces, special interest groups and

communities of practice their own online group collaboration spaces to

organize their work, develop documents, organize events, share resources, take

polls and hold discussions.

8

3. Provide new networking models. A dedicated, member-only community can be considered a

significant benefit by a member — a value-added experience all its

own. Here, the relationship is not just between you and your members,

but between the members themselves; creating not just a dialogue

between the membership and the organization, but a layered, multi-

directional communication where you interact with your members,

they interact with you, and they interact with each other. And in all

those directions, the communications become personalized and

relevant to your member’s specific needs and wants.

Thanks to new social tools, this is a new model of networking that

highlights your members and the relationships between them as your

most valuable asset. You don’t need to give that value away to an

outsider — instead, you can offer a safe space for your members

to connect and collaborate by sharing documents, discussing

opinions, and networking. At the same time, the social community

becomes integrated with the organization’s CRM database, allowing

the opportunity for ongoing analysis, measurement and reporting

— which helps you stay relevant to members, offer targeted and

pertinent information, and anticipate their future needs.

The social community becomes integrated with the organization’s CRM database, allowing the opportunity for ongoing analysis, measurement and reporting.

9

4. Monitor the conversations taking place on social channels.Haven’t you ever wanted to

be a fly on the wall during

an important conversation?

Well, more and more of

your members’ interactions

are taking place on social

media platforms. Don’t let

them happen without you —

because today’s members

are savvy and they want you

to be aware of what is going on. Serving your membership is central

to your future. By monitoring social comments and interactions, you

can be more personalized in your response, and your members will

be better served over the long haul.

Whether those social conversations happen peer-to-peer or member-

to-association doesn’t really matter — you still need to know about

them in order to respond in the most relevant way. Just think about

folks who post complaints on Twitter or Facebook: They may not go

straight to the company to complain. Instead, they might sound off

to their friends and connections. You want to be aware of that peer-

to-peer communication, so you can respond promptly and efficiently.

The same is true if they do reach out to your organization through

social media outlets; you want to be there to meet their needs and

then keep track of and analyze those interactions going forward.

Capture compelling data with one dynamic tool.

The Avectra Social Console, a Social Media Management System (SMMS),

combines tools for listening, engaging, publishing and scheduling with powerful

analytics in one robust tool.

Using a SMMS that integrates with your CRM unlocks a powerful new level of

understanding about the preferences, attitudes and engagement of your

members, prospects and other stakeholders. Benefits include:

• Track down lapsed members who have moved on to a new company but failed to notify your association

• Discover prospective members, donors, advertisers, sponsors, authors and speakers

• Monitor your annual convention’s social media buzz, allowing you to make adjustments on the fly if necessary

• Attach social content to member records and discover which stakeholders are advocates or detractors

• Create your own scoring system, enabling you to determine who are the most influential in your association’s social media environment

• Record social media interactions between members and staff like you would record a customer service call

• Decide how to engage with a new and growing LinkedIn group that is critical of your association

10

5. Automate & measure member engagement. The sheer amount of social data, as well as the vast amount of social

sources, can seem overwhelming when it comes to measurement

and analysis. But what if you could consolidate all of that member

information into one single dashboard, and produce a single score

based on qualitative and quantitative analysis, which is easily visible

and simple to decipher? What if resulting responses and campaigns

could be automated and triggered to handle various member

questions, problems or communications? Your staff executives and

board of directors will likely sit back in their chairs with wide smiles

— happy with the increased focus on the bottom line, boosted

efficiency and cost-savings, and freed-up resources for other projects.

That is the power behind today’s Social CRM technology — the

ability to consolidate and measure social data, combine it with

traditional CRM data, and turn it into personalized, relevant

information that can be measured and shared easily and quickly

with the organization and with members, both to use now and for

future decision-making purposes.

Avectra’s proprietary A-Score™ measures the engagement level

of individuals and organizations on an ongoing basis, providing

qualitative insight for calculating and measuring the health of your

membership, your services and your overall business. By distilling the

ever-increasing amounts of data available about your members into

the A-Score, It is the ultimate tool to enhance, optimize and automate

new and existing programs and services to encourage engagement

and fuel the success of your business.

“Imagine the ability to determine if and how member

engagement correlates with the success of your organization

and the individual success of your members? The A-Score

confirms that associations help members succeed and that

their programs are working — just the validation associations

are seeking with their members and to fuel future organization

growth. That is the power of A-Score.”

—Patrick Dorsey, Avectra, Vice President of marketing

11

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that the world of social media can be overwhelming,

with new sites popping up all the time and confusing tools requiring time

and effort to decipher. It can be scary to make decisions surrounding

unproven platforms when it feels like you’re just figuring out last month’s

big trend.

Still, you have to start somewhere, and you can start slow, with trusted tools

and tactics that move you in the right direction. With the right Social CRM

strategies, you can accomplish some very concrete objectives to meet

your goals of increasing member engagement: You can recognize and

reward members who influence others in the social sphere, for example.

You can reach out to members at-risk of leaving the organization. You

can recruit potential members by building budding relationships in social

spaces. You can be aware of trends and topics members are currently

discussing. And, you can better target and automate marketing messages

that reach the right members at the right times.

Social CRM is not just about content, it’s about developing conversations

that grow and evolve and transform into long-term relationships. Then,

it’s about using feedback from social data to make decisions about how

to improve member service. It’s a layered and ultimately circular effort

that is based on a simple, straightforward philosophy.

Certainly, associations and organizations have had to evolve as their

members have changed and the overall universe of engagement has

changed thanks to social media. But the basic foundation and principles

of what you want to accomplish remains the same: You want to improve

and increase member engagement. You want to build and boost long-

term loyalty.

While you need to tread carefully when it comes to new social trails, you

want to take your organization toward a successful, growth-oriented

future. Social CRM can help you stay true to your association’s values

and overall mission, while still moving with the times, without fear, into

the new and exciting social frontier. Mr. Jones, and your other active

members, will thank you with trust, communication, long-term loyalty and

ongoing engagement.

But the basic foundation and principles of what you want to accomplish remains the same: You want to improve and increase member engagement. You want to build boost long-term loyalty.

12

Follow Patrick on Twitter

@PatrickFDorsey

For almost 20 years, Avectra has translated the business needs of associations, not-for-profits

and member-based organizations into market-leading software and award-winning services.

We automate your business, so you can focus on serving your members. And with Avectra

Social CRM and an array of social business solutions, our mission is simple:

Enable organizations to engage both internal and external audiences in more sophisticated,

relevant and transparent relationships to promote advocacy, community and action while

driving business value.

About Avectra

Headquarters7901 Jones Branch DriveSuite 500McLean, VA 22102

Phone (703) 506-7000Fax (703) 506-7001

Patrick Dorsey is Avectra’s vice-president of Marketing and is responsible for the

company’s worldwide marketing, including demand generation, product marketing

and corporate communications. Asked to describe his role in 140 characters, he replied:

Build great products, relentlessly focus on customer success & create an army of Avectra

evangelists. Unapologetically Purple.

Patrick has published articles with Marketing Profs, Destination CRM, Direct Marketing

News and numerous association-industry publications. A member of the American

Society of Association Executives, he writes and speaks about customer relationship

management (CRM) , membership and the role of data management, analytics and

social technology in the association community and society.