We know that one of the main reasons companies join chambers of commerce is to increase their business.  And the exposure your members gain via your website is the single largest way you can promote them and drive traffic to their business.

The value that members receive from exposure on - and traffic from - your chamber’s website often justifies their membership renewal each year.  And, that value can be used to acquire new members, plus generate non-dues revenue through website advertising.

With chamber websites clearly being a critical communications and member promotion vehicle, any chamber executive who is serious about promoting their members and their community must ask themselves two questions.

Is our website doing all it can to promote our members?

Chamber of commerce websites have certainly evolved over the past few years, but the time has come for a major leap forward.  

Consider this:  40% of all search engine queries are done with local intent, meaning some city name, place name or local term is included.  If your site is not search engine optimized, you’re missing a huge opportunity to capitalize on your chamber’s and your members’ local presence.  After all, your chamber and your members are already LOCAL, so if your website is not showing up for local searches, you’re missing out (and so are your members).

Perhaps the single largest asset your chamber has is your members and their collective marketing power via your website.  Chambers must leverage this information to maximize their exposure to search engines.  A search engine optimized website lets Google and other searches engines realize the relevance of your website (and your chamber) and helps you create additional exposure for your community.

Perform some simple test searches for your community.  Search for your popular business categories, such as hotels, restaurants, attorneys, golf, etc., but include your city or area name in the search.  (For example, “Indianapolis hotels”)   Does your chamber’s site come up on the first page?  Are you in the first 3 results?   If not, your website is not doing all it can to drive traffic to your members. 


Who is competing with our chamber and taking credit for promoting our members?

Online directory sites such as ShopLocal, Yelp, CitySearch, TripAdvisor, YellowPages.com and dozens more are all competing with your chamber for your members’ attention AND for their money. 

If these sites come up higher in searches for local businesses in your community, they will get the credit for driving traffic to your members, not your chamber.  Eventually, business owners may question what value they are receiving from your chamber if they aren’t receiving referrals or traffic from your site.  When they don’t see enough value from your chamber, they will drop their membership.   

Plus, all these sites sell advertising of some kind.  If your members find those sites more valuable for promoting their businesses, they may purchase ads on those sites as well, thereby taking money out of your local community.  That money should be going towards dues or advertising on YOUR website where you can use it to strengthen your community.

Your website is critical to your success

Chambers of commerce have long been concerned about how to gain new members, increase retention and generate non-dues revenue.  A well-designed, search optimized website helps you accomplish all three!

Decide today that your website is critical to your success and dedicate the resources needed to make that happen.  Do an evaluation of how well your site is indexed by Google.  What changes can you make to improve your ranking?  Do you need a new website?  Do you need help?   Determine what you need and go do it!  Your online relevance is eroding – but you CAN reverse it and take control of your community’s local online presence.

In the past year, I've seen dozens of chambers of commerce dramatically increase their use of social media, especially Twitter and Facebook.   I've noticed a few chambers of commerce that have truly created their own community of followers on Twitter, too. 

These chambers not only promote their own events and news, but they highlight their members (using their Twitter IDs) and they engage them with conversations.   And, their members even end up promoting each other in addition to recommending their chamber to others.

How cool is that?  An online community of chamber members using Twitter to promote their business, their friends' businesses, their chamber and their physical community!

I think this is fantastic, but it can be hard to keep your followers up to date on which of your members are on Twitter.

Today, I saw one way the Mountain Brook AL Chamber of Commerce makes it EASY for members to follow other members on Twitter - all at once.   On the lower right portion of their website (and probably in other communications), they link to a list of their members on Twitter.


The page you land on is created on TweepML, which lets you create lists for any group of Twitter users you want.   What's neat about this service (and makes it a bit different from the lists that Twitter lets you create) is that you can choose to follow one, multiple or ALL of the members on the list at once. 

You simply select the people you want to follow (or Select All) and scroll down the page to enter your Twitter name and password or connect using Twitter's Oath service.   Then you'll be following everyone you selected.  Quick and easy!

I know that some applications like Tweetdeck and Seesmic let you see Twitter lists that you follow, too. But most small business owners probably don't use those applications or fully understand how Twitter lists work.  By using a tool like TweepML, you can help them directly follow other chamber members.

I did a quick test of TweepML and it was very easy to set up my list.   Try it out for your chamber of commerce or business association.  And let me know other ways you connect your members on Twitter to each other, too.  Happy connecting!

Within the past two years, we’ve seen well-established newspapers fold as readership numbers plummet. The culprit? The internet, of course. As this CNN article points out, newspapers are “losing their relevance in the lives of a majority of Americans, particularly younger readers.”

And this trend isn’t isolated to just newspapers – it affects chambers of commerce and business associations. Today, the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce (a WebLink International client) announced they will cease publishing their magazine, NC Magazine. In this article Sherry Melton, vice president of communications for the Chamber, stated: “We’ve seen a 68 percent decrease [in advertising revenue] in 2009 from last year.”

Although there are many reasons for the declines in print advertising revenue, the impact from online advertising is undeniable. (See Mike’s post “Your website should make you money… not cost you money” for more.)

That’s why WebLink has created an exclusive website advertising program that helps associations and chambers create more opportunities for their members AND a sustainable source of non-dues revenue.

There are many reasons why the WebLink Ad Program works, but what makes our program different is what counts. One of those differences is that this program is integrated with our membership management software (WebLink Connect), allowing you to easily show the VALUE of online advertisements to your members.

Still not convinced about the shift? Talk to the young professionals you know and ask them if they have ever heard of the area’s local tourism publication. Chances are they haven’t. And that’s because more and more people are disregarding the traditional, paper-based methods of research for the faster, more convenient internet.  (And no paper cuts is a bonus too!)

No matter, the push for online advertising is strong, so make sure you are keeping up by making such offerings available for your membership.

Today I came across this article that gives a glimpse into the spending habits of consumers. It’s obvious that discounts motivate buyers, but did you know it takes less to motivate young professionals?

YP’s said discounts as low as 10% would make them willing to spend. Comparatively, it would take a discount of nearly 30% to get the affluent to “open their wallets”.

So, why should you care? Members join associations and chambers of commerce primarily to grow their business. And allowing your members to display coupons on your website is another way your organization can help them convert your site visitors into consumers. With membership management software like WebLink Connect from WebLink International, you have the ability to track the number of times a coupon is viewed, which is a great way to show VALUE to your member.

You can even go a step further and use Twitter as another way to promote your member’s discounts. The best part, Twitter links can be tracked too. (Check out if your chamber or association is “Twitter-worthy").

Everyone’s budgets are shrinking; coupon clipping is no longer just for soccer moms. So be sure to help turn your audience into motivated consumers for your membership by promoting not only their business, but also their discounts. 

A few months ago, I wrote about the Pitfalls of Social Media for chambers of commerce and associations. Since then I've had some great conversations with staff from chambers and association about how to avoid these pitfalls and use social media to strengthen their brands and engage their members.

Recently, I found this post by B.L. Ochman about Three Top Ways to Damage Your Brand With Social Media.   She makes some good points about ways you could negatively impact your organization with the MIS-USE of social media.


Start a Twitter account, then don't use it - Fortunately, I haven't see very many chambers of commerce with Twitter accounts such as the @TimeWarnerCares example in the post. 

However, I have seen plenty of chamber Twitter accounts with hundreds of followers, yet they are only following a handful of people.  A big part of using Twitter is listening and engaging in conversation with your followers.  What does it say about your organization if you're not following your members or other businesses in your community?  It seems like you're not interested in listening to them!  That doesn't do much for your brand, does it?

No, you don't have to follow everyone that follows you, but you should probably follow anyone who is located in your community or has an obvious link to your organization.  When someone follows you, look at their profile location, URL and bio to see to determine if you should follow them back. (In most cases, you should). 

Not tracking your brand using monitoring tools  -  With all the free tools available, there is really no excuse for not doing at least some monitoring.   See "Is your chamber 'listening' to the internet" for more info.  Set up searches for your organization's name, your city name or other terms specific to your organization so you can know when people are talking about you. (And decide if/when to respond).  Some tools to try include:

• Twitter Search - View results in your browser or set up an RSS feed of your search
• Google Alerts - View results, set up email alerts or get an RSS feed
• Google Blogsearch - View results, set up email alerts or get an RSS feed
• Twilert - does a Twitter search, but sends you email
• Monitter - a browser based Twitter search tool that lets you search by keyword and geographic location.

If you don't monitor the web for your brand mentions, you will probably be left out of the conversations taking place in your community.  You can't do much for your reputation and brand if you don't know about these discussions.
 
Start using social media, but don't tell the rest of the organization - Good news, here.  I don't know any chambers of commerce or business associations who have done this.  Occasionally, individuals will start using social media and because they work for a chamber of commerce or assocation, the followers will assume they are speaking on behalf of the organization.  It's probably worthwhile to have a conversation with all staff about the appropriate use of social media and refinforce that (whether they like it or not) they are respresenting your organization.  Remember, too, to keep your board (and members) advised of what you're doing with social media.  We've all had those phone calls from board members who are upset because they had to find out about something from someone else.


I have a couple of addtional ways beyond those listed in the post:

One way communications on Twitter - I've seen a few chambers of commerce that only post updates on Twitter with links to their own events, blog posts or website.  There are no replies to others, no retweets and no sharing of links or resources on other sites.   This practice is similar to not listening.   Even when someone replies to the organization, there are no subsequent replies. 

If someone answers your question or retweets your info, reply to them, thank them and engage them!   Some replies are certainly better sent as direct messages (and not viewable on your stream), but having some RTs and @replies in your Twitter stream shows you're engaging your audience, not just pushing out info. 

Repetitive Tweeting - Some organizations seem to post the same 5-10 things every day on Twitter. "Check out our website" or "Did you know XYZ" are great every once in a while, but when done systematically, day after day, with exactly the same text, they become the equivilent of spam.

Sure, you could argue that not all followers will see the message each time and you want to make sure you get the word out. I certainly understand that. But, you can vary your text and messaging so that you're not monotonous.  Your followers will quickly tire of seeing the same message over and over again and may choose to stop following you.


What do you think?  Are there other ways you could damage your organization by using (or mis-using) social media?

Since WebLink International works exclusively with chambers of commerce, business associations and membership organizations, I get to see and use chamber websites every day.  And, since I managed the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce website for eight years, I remember all the challenges of keeping a chamber website up to date and relevant.

Recently, I was asked what things most chambers of commerce could do to improve their sites. I thought this topic would make a great "top 10" list for the WebLink blog. Here are the first 5 ways I came up with.


10.  Leverage your analytics – Stop worrying about page views and visitor sessions without understanding how the design of your site influences your visitors’ behavior.  Rather, focus on the outcomes you want from your site. Do you want 10 new members to join online each month?  Would you like to get 500 new people to sign up for your e-newsletter?  Do you want visitors to order something or register for an event?  Once you set such goals and review your analytics, you can determine how you can change your site to help create your desired outcomes.

9.  Streamline navigation & overall design – Streamline your navigation into as few main items as possible.  Try to view your site through your typical visitors’ eyes.  What are the main reasons people visit your site?  What information are they viewing most often? Create main navigation buttons or links that reflect the major areas of your site and use sub-navigation for everything else.  Don’t design navigation or critical information so it looks like advertising.  Keep the site as open and easy to view as possible.  Look to some of your favorite web 2.0 or social media sites for inspiration.

8.  Make it shareable – Sharing information via social media is hot right now, so why not make it easy for site visitors to share your content?  Services such as AddThis and ShareThis (see example at the bottom of this post) give you code to embed on your website that make it easy to share your site’s content via multiple popular social media services such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs.  Including such tools on your site shows that your chamber is progressive and understands the current media trends.

7.  (Don’t ) click here – The words “click here” don’t add anything to the usability of your site and they certainly don’t help you with any search engine optimization (SEO).  Instead, use strong anchor text (the text that’s actually linked), such as “Download the Chamber’s annual report” or “Watch our latest State of the City video.”  Where you can, use both a graphic (such as the cover of your annual report) AND a text link to help guide readers to your content.

6.  Use internal links – Linking from within your text to other relevant areas of your site does two things.  First, it improves the usability for visitors since they can now easily move on to additional content on your site. Second, it helps improve your rankings in search engines and can get more of your content indexed.  Usually 3-5 internal links per page is good.  More than that can become distracting to your readers.


Part 2 of this list will be coming soon. What other items do you think should be on the list?

You've probably been using social media such as blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter for a while now.  Have you seen your efforts pay off with new members?  Some chambers of commerce have.

Read this article about how the Athens GA Area Chamber of Commerce appealed to a local businessman with their adoption of social media. From the article:

A few months ago, I got this note from Jessica Hibbard of the Frederick County MD Chamber of Commerce in response to a post about how social media may not be effective for associations:

The North Mason WA Chamber of Commerce has increased their membership from 210 to 400 in the past 19 months.  Frank Kenny, President & CEO of the Chamber, attributes much of that growth to the Chamber's adoption of social media, including Twitter, blogs and a dedicated social network.

These are just a few examples of chambers of commerce connecting with new members via Twitter and social media.  How about your chamber or business association?  

Can you attribute an increase in new member sales or an improvement in retention to your use of social media?  I'd love to hear your stories.

I keep hearing that when individuals search for businesses within a community, the first place they go is to the chamber of commerce website. But what if that individual doesn’t know what a chamber of commerce is?  While this may seem absurd to some, I’ll admit my ignorance – before working for WebLink, I did not know much about chambers of commerce, let alone that chambers are a trusted business search engine. And the sad reality is that most of my generation is missing out on the valuable resources of chambers simply because we don’t know about them.

A perfect example. I recently moved to Indianapolis from Dayton, Ohio. After settling in my new apartment, I decided I seriously needed a hair cut before starting my new job. So I turned to the internet. My search (hair salons near 46268) had over 300,000 results, all of which were individual websites requiring me to sift through more results than I cared to. Had I known that chambers of commerce are the ‘Google of their community’, I would have saved a lot of wasted time going through various websites – some that did not even relate to my search.

Chambers are not only valuable to their members, but also to people like me who just want to easily find relevant information on the internet in ONE PLACE. Membership directories are like a one-stop shop for people looking for local businesses. Chambers of commerce easily connect searchers with their member businesses – saving the searcher time, and giving the business a potential new customer.

How is your chamber making sure you reach consumers who might not know what a chamber is? There are probably residents in your community who don’t realize the tremendous resources and services your chamber of commerce offers.   Sure, you might say that “residents aren’t our target for membership.”  But, consider that all those residents have to work somewhere, right?  Are their businesses members of your chamber?  And, what happens when all the young professionals start their own businesses or move up the corporate ladder.  It would be beneficial to your organization if they already knew what the chamber was.  It would be even better if they already had a relationship with your organization.

How are you getting the attention of young professionals in your community?  I know many chambers of commerce have started separate young professionals groups.  How is that working? Are they eventually transitioning over to your chamber or are they losing interest?

Recently I sat in a conference call with the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. As WebLink’s Benji Craig was explaining the importance of SEO to their chamber, it hit me – this really is important.

Before I joined the WebLink team, I knew nothing about chambers of commerce, convention and visitors bureaus or business associations. It was almost embarrassing learning about these organizations and realizing what a great resource I had been missing out on. Whenever my friends or I would plan a trip outside of our community we – like most – started on the internet. Searching for generic terms such as “hotels” or “attractions” often lead us to multiple pages that gave us headaches on our quest to find what we wanted. If only we had known about chamber of commerce websites!

If someone does a generic search such as hotels and attractions in your area, would your chamber’s website come up?

But it’s about more than just SEO – your website needs to not only be appearing high on the results page, but needs to be easy to navigate, esthetically pleasing and informative.

My generation is your chamber’s next major audience to reach, and our reputation of having short attention spans needs to be accepted! Within the first couple of seconds on your website a tone will be set about the professionalism of your organization. In addition, if we cannot find what we want within those same seconds, we’ll turn somewhere else.  If possible, reach out to the younger professionals of your organization and have them or their friends audit the accessibility and overall appeal of your website.

If a person wanted to find a hotel or a local business in your area, would they be able to from the homepage – without clicking through many navigation tools? Do you have a search box on your home page?  What does your home page say about your organization?  Although we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover – we do, so make sure your homepage gives visitors the impression you want it to convey.

And, it’s not just about site visitors either. Your community is full of young professionals that may have pre-conceived notions of what a chamber of commerce is.  You can show young professionals that your organization is “up with the times” by creating a modern, easy to use website that contains updated and useful information for local businesses and visitors alike.

WebLink is proud to announce the winners of our big contest conducted at the American Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) Convention in Raleigh, NC.   Please read on to see if any of your peers were winners.

iPod touchGarmin Nuvi GPS system
Flip Digital Video CameraiPod Shuffle
$50 Amazon gift cardIt was great to meet so many of the chamber of commerce staff I've connected with on Twitter and other social media.  Thanks for stopping by the booth so we can now match a face with the avatar. :-)   That's one of the great things about social media - ultimately connecting face-to-face with someone you've been following for a while.  The online connection leads to an offline action.

WebLink received tremendous response and interest in our membership management software, website design and development, and non-dues revenue programs for chambers of commerce while at ACCE.  From all of the chambers we talked to it appears that now is the time most of you are seeking to make a change for the better.  Whether it's creating more functional websites, better utilizing your member database or jumping into using social media, chambers of commerce are eager to keep pushing forward.

Thanks again to those who stopped by the booth.  And congratulations to all of our winners!

Last week at the American Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) Convention in Raleigh, I sat in on Rahaf Harfoush's presentation on how the Obama campaign used social media, websites and email to connect to and engage voters during the 2008 Presedential Election.

She explained several ways that the campaign created online connections to facilitate offline actions by voters.  These included extensive use of technology and social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, a dedicated social network, an iPhone app and many others. 

When she got to email, she stressed the key to their success: Hyper-Segmentation

The campaign delivered different messages to voters based on:

1. State
2. Interests on certain issues (indicated when opting in to emails)
3. Donation history

By carefully crafting messages for people and keying on their location, interests and history, they could make each email extremely relevant.  This helped make the recipient feel that the campaign truly knew who they were and that the issues discussed were happening right in their backyard.

Are you segmenting your email communications to your members?   Can you deliver relevant messages to your members so they feel like your chamber of commerce understands them and is working to serve their needs?  Can you make your messages personal?

I've mentioned segmentation on this blog before, but the concept bears repeating since many chambers of commerce are just now realizing the power of segmentating communications to help increase member satistaction and retention and generate new member sales.

Ways you can segment your members include:

• Employee count
• Business category
• Interests (collected through your website or membership application)
• Dues amount
• Length of membership
• NAICS code
• Previous event attendance

So, when you send out emails to members about how certain issues affect their business, why not break that email into two or more versions?  Send one email to members with 1-50 employees, and include quotes from similarly-sized business stating how the issues affect them. Then rework the email for the members with 50+ employees with a different take on the issues.

You can do this for just about every email you send to members using any number of ways to segment.  Try to make your "blast" emails seem like you sat down and typed out a note to each of your members individually.  By carefully crafting your messages, you'll end up demonstrating more value to your members.

This issue was highlighted recently by Ben Wolf, IOM, vice president of member services at the Nashville Area (TN) Chamber of Commerce in his article in ACCE's Chamber Executive, "Are You Effectively Communicating Your Value? Make it Personal."   (Congratulations to the Nashville Chamber for being recognized by ACCE as the top Chamber in the country for their dues range.  The Nashville Chamber is a WebLink International client!) :-)

In the article, Wolf states, "Communicating value is not just about delivering a standard message. It’s about identifying what one perceives as valuable. It’s not just what is said, but how it is said that makes the difference. It is tailoring a specific, targeted message to a targeted audience member."  Excellent advice.

Know your members though data collection and management
Segment your members for greater member intelligence
Communicate your value by using segmentation and knowledge gained from your data

Obviously, the key here is membership management software or a customer relationship management system that allows you to collect your members' interests and other demographic information and easily export that for use with email and other communications.  Find ways to input AND extract this information in your database and use it to deliver targeted, relevant communications.

And...why stop at email?  You could create different versions of postcards, letters, mailings....even your printed newsletter, to deliver relevant messages to your members.

Happy segmenting!

You've probably heard about TweetUps before.  And maybe your chamber of commerce might have even hosted one for your members.  But...have you ever attended a TweetUp JUST for chamber of commerce "tweeters?"  Well, here is you chance!

Join me for a Chamber TweetUp on Thursday, July 30 during the American Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) Convention in Raleigh, NC. 

Since the last sessions end at 5:30 that day, we'll meet at The Bar in the Sheraton Hotel at 6:00 pm.  (The Bar is on the second floor....yes, that's the name, "The Bar.")  The Sheraton is one of the official convention hotels and it's just a short walk from the convention center.

Visit with your fellow Chamber Tweeps and share your stories of how you use social media at your chamber. I've enjoyed chatting with so many chamber of commerce staff on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and blogs...I can't wait to meet many of you!  If you're not already, you can follow me and WebLink on Twitter.

After the TweetUp, you can head out to the ACCE Convention Party at Marbles Kids Museum from 7:00 - 11:00 pm. 

I hope to see you there!    Don't forget....WebLink is giving away some great prizes during the ACCE Convention at our booth (#224).  Learn more here: www.weblinkinternational.com/win.

WebLink will be exhibiting at the American Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) Convention in Raleigh, NC July 30 and 31.  If you’re attending this conference, please stop by the booth (#224) to say hello.   We’ll have at least 8 staff members there:  me, Mike Bryan, DJ Muller, Misty Stennett, Pam Sefrino, Aaron Cox, Chris Painchaud and Nathan Marquardt.

We’d like to hear about the challenges your chamber of commerce is facing during these uncertain economic times and how you are working to strengthen your local business community. WebLink works with more than 400 chambers of commerce and business associations across the U.S. – a number of our clients are doing great work right now and even increasing membership.

While you’re at our booth, be sure to learn how WebLink can revolutionize the way your chamber operates and help you deliver powerful benefits to your members.  Our unique approach combines the industry’s leading membership managment software and award-winning website design and develoment with our proven marketing methodology to eliminate technology costs AND generate revenue for you year after year. 

If you're already a WebLink client, please stop by and let us know what we can do to help you continue to increase retention, gain new members, generate non-dues revenue and strengthen our partnership.  We value your business and want to grow with you.

I’ll be glad to discuss your social media ideas and goals, too, including blogging, Twitter, social networking sites, social bookmarking, and photo and video sharing.  There are a number of chambers of commerce doing great work with social media – I’d love to “talk shop" with you for awhile and learn from you, too.

And….(saved the best for last), we’ll be giving great prizes like Flip Video cameras and Amazon.com gift cards at the WebLink booth (#224).  It's easy to win....just stop by to enter!  We hope to see you in Raleigh!

Chambers of commerce have long held a physical presence in their communities.  Their offices have been a central meeting point for business leaders, small business owners and elected officials to network and discuss local business issues.  And, the chamber office is usually a resource to visitors in town looking for maps, guides or other local information.

But, does the chamber of commerce need a building or physical offices to provide benefits to their members and their community?

The Goleta Valley (CA) Chamber of Commerce will soon find out.  The chamber will be closing its doors - but not closing for business - and have the employees work from home through several web-based software solutions, allowing them to stay connected and share information without all being in the same location.  Note: One of these solutions is WebLink's web-based membership management software, WebLink Connect.  :-)   For more info about their descision to "go virtual," read "Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce Relocates ... Online"

Yes, the chamber will continue to have events and and other meetings - they will just all be at member locations rather than the chamber's offices.  “Chambers are community-based organizations,” says Michael Kramer, a Goleta Valley Chamber member. “Going virtual forces chamber staff to meet in the community they serve."

Sure, there are some examples of virtual chambers of commerce already, but none that I know of that serve a local community.  These virtual chambers were designed to exist solely on the internet and serve a certain demographic. The Goleta Valley Chamber's move marks the first time I know of that a chamber with a brick and mortar presence has made the move to a virtual presence. 

The trend towards going mobile is increasing, for sure.  Last year, the International Data Corporation (IDC), predicted that by year-end 2011, nearly 75% of the U.S. workforce will be mobile.   And, Forrester's Consumer Techographics survey showed that telecommuting will rise to include 43% of the U.S. workforce by 2016.   A few years ago, Manpower released results of a study showing that 80% of U.S. workers would prefer telecommuting to a physical commute to work.   

What is your organization doing to be more mobile?  Does your staff use notebook computers that they can take with them?  Would your staff be more efficient if they could work from home?   Do you have web-based membership management software so your staff can utilize your database from anywhere?  What other technology would need to be removed or replaced for your staff to be mobile?

Perhaps the larger question is....is this even a good idea?  What are your thoughts? Do chambers of commerce and business association NEED a physical location to be successful and to provide benefits to their members?  Please let me know in the comments below.

It will certainly be interesting to see how this move works out for the Goleta Valley Chamber.

WebLink International will host a webinar on July 22 titled "Top 5 Reasons to Use Member Segmentation to Drive Your Marketing Strategy."  Cathi Hight of Hight Performance Group and Mike Bryan, WebLink's vice president of marketing will demonstrate ways you can use technology to learn more about your members.

This webinar will show you ways to use your membership management software plus your website and survey data to analyze and define your ideal target market for members. You'll learn how segmentation strategies drive sales, increase retention, promote satisfaction, define program development, and deliver high lifetime value.  

Cathi and Mike teamed up last month to present a webinar on "Leveraging Technology to Measure Member Loyalty and Engagement." That session was very well received by chambers of commerce and business associations. 

Cathi has more than 18 years experience in sales & marketing and training & development. She has worked with organizations of all sizes and across industry sectors to plan for market changes and to develop customer loyalty strategies.   She is a national trainer for ACCE (American Chamber of Commerce Executives) for membership development and facilitates regional workshops on membership sales and retention. Cathi is also an instructor for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Organizational Management.


Mike Bryan has more than 14 years of experience in business strategy, marketing, and product development in the web-based software industry, including experience at First Advantage, TruStar Solutions, Major Video Concepts and consumer products at Walt Disney. TruStar Solutions was an Inc 500 Fast Growth Company in 2003 and 2004.  At WebLink he is responsible for client acquisition and retention, marketing strategy, advertising, and public relations initiatives, strategic business development and partner management.

Learn more about the webinar and register here.  Register on or before July 15 to receive the early bird rate of $49.  After that date, the registration will be $59.  We hope you can join us for this informative and inspiring webinar on using techonology to better understand and manage your membership.

Last week, I did a webinar for the Illinois Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (IACCE) on social media for chambers of commerce.  One of the questions at the end of the webinar was "What are the pitfalls of using social media."   I wanted to share my answer and expand on it here.

There are many benefits of using social media for sure, but there are also some dangers.  As long as you're aware of them, you can work to avoid these pitfalls and use them to your advantage.

Loss of Control
In the "good old days" you could send out your mass faxes, your printed newsletters and your blast emails and not have to really worry about any complaints.  If someone disagreed with what you were saying or doing, they couldn't really tell many people about it (without spending lots of money). 

Using social media means giving up some of that control.   If you use blogs, Twitter or social networks, it may seem like anyone and everyone can "gang up" on you.  I frequently am asked if chambers of commerce should allow comments on their blogs because the board is afraid of negative comments.  And this point alone keeps many organizations from jumping into social media.....but it shouldn't.

YES, allow comments on your blog! Social media is used to create and develop conversations and relationships. You can't have a ONE-WAY conversation - it has to be TWO way. 

What are you afraid of?  That a few people might add comments that they have a different opinion that yours?  Honestly, what could be better than having your whole community discussing the issue that you were supporting?  You get the opportunity to further your position, share additional resources and engage in healthy debate.   

Those people adding comments don't get to spam you, blatantly lie or use profanity - you can delete those comments.  But leave all other comments even if they disagree with you. Reply to them in a polite and professional manner and further the conversation.  You may even be surprised by some of your supporters who also join in the discussion.

No Communication is Disposable
Sometimes, due to the speed and sheer amount of communications, you may think that your tweets, comments, statuses or posts may go unnoticed.  No matter what nor when you post something, someone will see it.  And, in many cases even if you delete a post, is has already been indexed, saved or copied somewhere.

If you wouldn't say it in front of a group of 50 members, don't say it on your blog, Twitter or any other social media.  As an example of poor choices of posts, back in March the Batesville AR Chamber executive had to resign over some anti-Obama posts on Twitter.

Don't let these ideas scare you.  You do need to use social media to promote your organization's positions, benefits, member, events and more - but do know that there is a line you can cross and offend large groups of members.  Disagreement is fine. Debate is fine.  But offensive or inappropriate posts must be avoided if you hope to build relationships, improve member retention and gain new members.

Once you start, you can't stop
Your members are already using social media sites to network and share information for their business. Some of them are even hoping (expecting) you to be there, too.  They'll welcome you to the party and encourage you to share information and have discussions with them.  You'll probably have some good successes at first and be energized to continue.  Stay energized!

If you stop sharing and stop engaging your members, they will likely feel like you're neglecting them.  And, if they've continued using social media and grown their network, they may have plenty of other resources to find information.  So, keep your organization in the conversation and continue to listen, learn, adapt and share.  It does take some commitment, but you and your members will find it rewarding.


Please don't let these potential negatives keep you from using blogs, Twitter and more.   This blog (and many, many others) are full of great examples of companies and member-based organizations having great success with social media.  Here's an example: I got a note from Jessica Hibbard at the Frederick County Maryland Chamber just the other day.  She had just met a member at a Tweetup who said she joined the chamber after she found them on Twitter.

The benefits of using social media far outweigh the negatives.  Get started today!  If you have any questions, please let me know.  And, if you're already using social media,  stay connected to your members and your community online.  Keep them engaged!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about The Social Media Quartet, the four social media tools used most often by marketers - Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook.  Now that you've mastered the Quartet, are you ready for the encore? ;-)

In that post, I mentioned the Social Media Marketing Industry Report.  After the social media quartet, YouTube was the next most frequently used media. 

At YouTube, several chambers of commerce have created their own "channel" where they can add new videos, share them with their audience and allow people to subscribe and comments on videos.  You can add your logo, "feature" certain videos, and change the layout and look of your channel to create your own customized space. 

Recently, YouTube passed Yahoo! as the world's #2 search engine as more and more people are looking for and viewing videos on the web.  Video is here to stay (and growing) and your chamber of commerce or business association can use it too, to engage businesses in your community, improve member retention, increase new member sales and even generate non-dues revenue.

To create your channel, go to YouTube, click sign up and start adding videos. Your channel will be at http://www.youtube.com/user/YOURNAME, so choose your YouTube account name wisely. :-)

Here are some examples:

South Carolina Chamber of Commerce   The South Carolina Chamber has more than 50 videos on their channel and they add new videos fairly often.  In addtion, they've added a good keyword-rich description of their chamber and included contact information and a link to their website.  They also have a large featured video that gets your attention when you first visit their channel.

Asheville (NC) Area Chamber of Commerce    The Asheville Chamber also adds new videos frequently and has a large featured video.  They use a Flip video camera for many of their videos.

Hope-Hempstead County Chamber of Commerce Wow! 128 videos so far. Lots of ribbon cutting videos.

Maryland Chamber of Commerce  The Maryland Chamber has more than a dozen videos, including one from the new chairman explaining his goals in his new role.

With the availability of pocket video cameras like the Flip series, it is very easy to record a video and upload it to YouTube in just a few minutes.  Yes, you can upload professionally shot videos as well and I think it's good to add those if you have them.  Personally, I think more content is good, so I like more frequent, casual videos as a way of building a relationship with your members.  Even if the videos have some "hiccups," I think more videos and more frequent updates outweigh the
time and expense of creating professional videos. (Most of the time)

What could you record?  Plenty!

• A daily announcement and in essence create your own TV show
• Ribbon cuttings - Instead of a static photo, why not use video to capture the sights and sound?
• Member testimonials - When one members see the additional exposure another one is getting, they too will want to record a testimonial video.
• Member commercials - You could even charge members to add videos to their listings in your member directory where they could promote their products and services.
• Updates from the state legislature or city council meeting. 
• Events - Even if you don't record the whole event, you can post key points made by speakers or big announcements made at the event
• Daily life - Show your members what it's like working at your office.  Do a "man on the street" impromtu inteview with your staff, asking them what their working on and why the like working for your organization.
• Calls to action - Do you need your members to "get out the vote" or act in some other way. Use video to create an emotional appeal instead of text in an email or a letter.
• Explain a benefit like your Office Depot discounts or health insurance plans.  Remind your viewing of the exclusive benefits of joining your organization.
• Walk members through how to use your website or blog. (Remember, videos can also be screencasts, using tools like Camtasia or Jing)

Remember, too, that you can embed videos from YouTube in pages on your site or your blog, too.  By adding videos to your web sites, blogs, Facebook pages, LinkedIn profiles, etc., you'll have more opportunities to engage your audience.  Remember to create videos that focus on issues that are important to them - demonstrating your relevance and giving them reasons to renew their membership each year.

How is your chamber of commerce using videos?  How has the reaction from your members been?  What's working? What's not working?  Let me know in the comments below or send email to curt.moss[at]weblinkinternational.com.

Here are some other posts you might find useful regarding videos:
Get Social (Media) with a Testimonial Event
Is your chamber using video yet?

WebLink International will host a webinar on May 13 titled "Leveraging Technology to Measure Member Loyalty and Engagement."  Cathi Hight of Hight Performance Group and Mike Bryan, WebLink's vice president of marketing will demonstrate ways you can use technology to learn more about your members.

I first met Cathi about 3 years ago and immediately connected with her on the concept of using member intelligence to help organizations make better decisions and provide better benefits to their members.  She is a trainer for the American Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) and has delievered presentations and consulting services to numerous chambers of commerce and business associations.   In addition, she has twice presented at WebLink's annual user conference and technology summit and received rave reviews both times. 

Mike Bryan joined WebLink in May of 2008 and brings strong business intelligence and product management skills to WebLink's marketing efforts.  He's able to translate "for profit" business concepets into ways that chambers and business associations can use them to better manage their business operations.  Mike recently wrote an article for the ACCE's Spring issue of Chamber Executive titled, "Chambers Turn to Technology to Beat the Recession."

Learn more about the webinar and register here.
Register on or before May 6 to receive the early bird rate of $49.  After that date, the registration will be $59.  We hope you can join us for this informative and inspiring webinar on using techonology to better understand and manage your membership.

If you can use only 4 social media tools, use these:  Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn & Facebook.   These are by far the social media tools that marketers most frequently use, according to the Social Media Marketing Industry Report. (page 19)

Each one of these - Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn & Facebook - can be used in concert (see what I did there) with each other AND with what you’re already doing in your organization’s communications efforts.  But how can your chamber create a communications symphony with all these different media?  Read on...

Twitter
Use Twitter to cross-promote your chamber's blog posts, events and members.  There are a number of chambers using Twitter in other ways, too. However, don't forget to follow businesses in your area and have conversations with them, too.

And, of course, you can cross-promote your LinkedIn group, Facebook page and any other social media you use.  I will stress again, though....don't just push information.  Mix up your tweets with questions and replies to your followers.

Blogs
We know that blogs are great ways to position your chamber as an expert and create communications that engages your members.  If you've been blogging for a while and think you've run out of topics, check out
25 Things Your Chamber Can Blog About.  

See some good Chamber blogs below.  These Chambers do a nice job of creating communications that are relevant for their members. Yes, you can mix in posts about events and members with legislative and business issues as you'll see in some of these blogs.

LinkedIn
If you're not on LinkedIn yet, go there now and set up your profile and have your coworkers do the same.  Using the tools that LinkedIn provides, you'll be amazed out how quickly you can build a network.  You can (and should) create a profile for your chamber, too.  Connect with your members and other businesses in your community.  Keep you and your chamber in the middle of your area's local and online networking.  If you don't, someone else will take that role.

There are plenty of chambers of commerce who have LinkedIn groups, too.
I've been researching chamber LinkedIn groups and will post soon about using these groups effectively.  In the meantime, here are some quick tips:

• It may seem obvioius, but ask questions. Push content and concepts to your LinkedIn group members and get their input.  
• Answer questions asked by others, or at least refer them to another resource in your area.  Be the great connector in the online world just as you are in the offline world.
• Post national and local business news, make it relevant to your community and see how your group members respond.  Again, ask for their input, see how it is affecting them or show them what they can learn from it.

Facebook
There are two things (among many) that you can do on Facebook for your chamber:  Create a group and create a page for your chamber.   The biggest difference is that people can "join" your group, but they can become a "fan" of your page/chamber.

There are subtle differences in how you would manage a group versus a page. (Why not have both?  The two can live in harmony, after all.)  For example, through Facebook's interface you can invite anyone to join your group (either your Facebook friends or send email to anyone else).  Once they are a member of your group, you can send messages to them about new items in your group, invite them to events, etc.   

On your Facebook page, you can send an update to your fans (through Facebook's tools) and let them know when you've added new videos, events or other content. 

See a list of chambers with Facebook pages and chambers with Facebook groups.   Similar to LinkedIn groups, be sure to engage your Facebook fans or members by giving them frequent updates and new content.

The big finish
Use this quartet of social media tools to cross-promote each other.  Use Twitter to announce a new blog post or ask for replies to a question in your LinkedIn group.  Connect your blog's RSS feed to your Facebook page and your LinkedIn profile.   Create blog posts about successful connections between members in your LinkedIn group.  Share information about your chamber and about your members.

However, please don't simply repost everything you do to every other medium.  Occassionally that's OK, but if you do it all the time, it will seem like spamming to your biggest fans (the ones who connect with you on all networks) and you certainly don't want to alienate them. In fact, you want to reward them!  Why not create some social media exclusive items like contests on Twitter or Facebook trivia questions that you don't promote in other areas?   Your followers and fans on each network will appreciate your efforts to create unique content. 

And....have some fun!  Let your enthusiasm for your chamber, your members and your community come through in yours posts.

By using these tools, you and your chamber can be make sweet music using social media - no chamber orchestras required. (OK, enough with the music puns!) ;-)

Next week, I'll be doing a webinar for the ACCE titled, "Web 2.0 Marketing Metrics for Your Chamber."  It will be on Tuesday, April 28 at 1:00 PM Eastern time.

I've been doing research on how to monitor and measure your website traffic and your use of social media in the "web 2.0" world.  As you would expect, there is a huge amount of information out there.  This could easily be a 3-4 hour session. 

So, to keep it to one hour I'll be focusing on:

• New ways of looking at your website traffic
• Paid social media monitoring
• Free social media monitoring
• Mentions of the tools the can be used to measure and monitor

Click here to learn more and to register.

Due to time constraints, this session will mostly deal with metrics and monitoring tools rather than the social media tools you can use and how you could use them. For information on ways your chamber or business association can use social media, check out some of my previous posts. :)

• Use Twitter to welcome and promote your members
• More Ways Chambers Are Using Twitter
• Twitter Tools for Chambers of Commerce
• Worried you're not a social media expert? Don't be!
• Social Media Marketing for Chambers