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.

The Maryland Chamber of Commerce is kicking off their 2010 Membership Drive with a special incentive for current members.   Recruit three new members and the Chamber's Chairman will wash your car.   Read more about the offer on the Maryland Chamber Blog.

I like this particular offer because unlike prizes or other incentives, it personalizes the organization.   And, unlike special offers where the new member gets a reward, in this case the exisiting member gets the prize.

However, this does require the member to recruit new members.  How about doing something special for the existing members, too, just thanking them for their business?

I saw on Twitter today that the Greater Owensboro Chamber has members personally visiting other members, thanking them for their business.     And I know that the Medford/Jackson OR and Las Vegas Chambers have staff members personally call each member just to say "Hi" and see how they are doing.  

In the fast-moving world of social media, sometimes the personal touch can go a long way.

What special things does your staff or board personally do for your members?   Please share them in the comments below.  Thanks!

Earlier this week I posted Part 1 of 10 Things Chambers of Commerce Can Do To Improve Their Websites.   Today, I continue with Part 2.

5. Cross promote your social media activities – You’ve probably got a Twitter account, a blog, a Facebook page and a LinkedIn profile.  You might even have a Flickr account or a YouTube channel.  How will your site visitors know about these unless you tell them? Include social media icons on your home page (every page would be better) and link them to your respective social media accounts.  Use widgets to include your chamber’s Twitter feed on your blog or website and link your blog’s RSS feed to your Twitter account and your Facebook stream.  You never know when someone’s going to be paying attention for the first time, so be sure to cross promote your efforts in the appropriate media outlets.

4. Post more photos  – Services such as Flickr or Picasa and many others make it very easy to upload photos and link to them or embed them on your site.  Take lots of photos of your community or at events, ribbon cuttings and press conferences…anytime…and share them with your site visitors. Use photos in your site’s design, create photo galleries and embed slide shows on appropriate pages.  Your members love to see photos from events. With a digital camera and a notebook computer, you can even upload directly from an event! If you use Facebook for photo albums, make sure you link to them from your website, too.  (See #5 above)

3.  Add more videos - With the availability of easy-to-use pocket video cameras like the Flip series and cell phones that can capture video, there is no excuse for not using videos.  Videos add a dynamic aspect to your site and site visitors love to watch them.  Use videos to post member testimonials, “live” updates from city council meetings or events.  Include videos in your blog posts to show the human side of your chamber and communicate your position on issues.  Generally, keep most videos 1-3 minutes long with occasional more in-depth videos.  You DO have a channel on YouTube, don’t you?  (If not, go create one now.)  See this post with examples of chambers of commerce using YouTube.

2. Include search – Include a site search box on your home page.  On every page would be even better.  Usually, search boxes are located somewhere near the top right of the page, but wherever you place it, keep it consistent on all pages.  Despite all the great changes you’ve just made to your navigation (in point #9), some people simply want to search instead and they expect that you’ll have that option. If you don’t, they might not stick around.

1. Create great content – Yes, you could call photos and video content, but I’m talking about good old fashioned text.  Relevant, timely and frequent.  A blog is one way to add content and helps position your chamber as an expert and news generator.  But, you should also add content to other areas of your site.  Keyword-rich text about visiting, living in and working in your community plus local business news helps your site rank higher for local searches – something your chamber needs to own! 

Use your readers’ vocabulary to deliver relevant content.  When possible, include real-life examples from members of how certain issues affect their business.  Keep text short and simple, use correct grammar and spelling and make it unique and interesting.  You might not think you can create that much content....yes you can! You can write about the history of your community, famous residents, long-time members and their impact on business in the area.  You can write about current business issues and member benefits and all the things your chamber does on a daily basis to benefit business in your community.  Great content is what will attract visitors to your site and updated content is what will bring them back. 


Notice a trend with these items?  Yes, they all involve work that you must do.   You must take an active roll in producing great content, setting goals for your website and making change that help produce the results you want.   Do these things well and you'll ultimately create more value for your members, which helps improve retention and generate new member sales.

And, you've probably noticed that many of these items aren't exclusively about your website - they involve other tools as well.  Your website should be the hub of ALL of your communications efforts and it should overlap with each of them.  Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, your blog, your printed newsletter, your events - they all should tie back into your website.  This is probably a shift in thinking for some chambers of commerce.   Think of your organization as a media company and find ways to use your various communications tools together to tell your story. 

There's an added benefit to making all these improvements, too, besides better usability and increased traffic - non-dues revenue.  I'll highlight ways you can leverage all the hard work you've done on your website and improve your chamber's bottom line in an upcoming post.


What improvements have you made to your website?  How have you measured the results?  What other ways do you think chambers can improve their websites? Let me know in the comments below.  Thanks!

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.

Retention. It's a key indicator for most chambers of commerce and business associations.  The factors that drive retention also drive just about everything else about the financial health and growth of your member-based organization.  Revenue. Sponsorships.  Event attendance. New member sales. 

Higher retention means more satisfied members, more connected members and more word of mouth advertising for your organization.  

And more fans.

Fans.  Not just Facebook fans, but someone who actually loves your organization and your staff and will tell other people about you.  In his book, Purple Cow, Seth Godin calls your biggest fans "sneezers" because they are so enamored with your company that  tell others about your products and services and help spread your ideas.

How do you get more fans faster?  Social media!

Think about how hard it would be to increase the number of true (raving) fans your chamber of commerce or business association has by hosting great events or sending out great newsletters.  Yes, you can use member segmentation and mass customization to deliver targeted, relevant information, but events and newsetters are relatively infrequent compared to how you can use social media. 

Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr and others all help you tell your story more frequently, more immediately and in more places.  And these social media allow your members to help you tell your story WAY more than your events or newsletters do.  (Word of mouth advertising).  Having more fans helps you build more momentum and improve retention even more since they can now all help you in your efforts.

Social media allows you to share more information than ever before without spamming your members.  They've voluntarily choosen to follow you, read your content or join your group.  They can reply, ask questions or share your content with others.   This blog and many others are full of great examples of non-profit organizations, chambers of commerce and business assocations using social media to actively engage their members and prospects and create an entirely new fan base.   I've seen great examples of members in a community reposting information about their chamber of commerce, writing blog posts about chamber events and even creating videos on YouTube about their chamber.

You can't do it with social media alone, though.  You must provide real benefits and demonstrate your value to your members using all of your communications tools.  You must ask for their input and respond.  Listening, learing, adapting and communicating helps you improve retention and all the other things listed above.  And, great membership management software can help you record and track information about your members to help you communicate your value more effectively.

But, social media lets you do this all faster and on a much larger scale.  So, go improve retention!  (And get more fans.)

Over the past few weeks, I've spent quite a bit of time talking face to face with chamber of commerce executives, both at the American Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) Convention and the Western Association of Chamber Executives (W.A.C.E.) Academy.  We've talked about improving retention, increasing new members sales, generating non-dues revenue and more. But by far the hottest topic has been social media.

I find it puzzling that so many chambers of commerce are still "holding off" on using social media because they want to "get our strategy figured out." 

Sarah Hubbard from the Detroit Chamber of Commerce says to not "overthink" your use of social media. Jump in and start learning! See her post where she explains that you need to be familiar with the tools before you can determine a strategy for using them.

Let's think about social media relative to your other communications tools for a moment.

What is your strategy for your newsletter? 
For your events?
For your emails?
For your website? 

I'll guess that your strategies for these items involves providing relevant and useful information to your members regarding local business issues, government affairs efforts, chamber programs, benefits and policies, your events and community topics.  Do the same thing with social media!

Social media allows you to do all the things you're already doing, but with more immediacy and frequency!  And, your members get to participate!

Aha....that last bit scares many chambers.  How do you handle the "wild card" of your members?

As a rule of thumb, don't say anything on social media sites that you wouldn't say in front of a group of 50, 200 or 500 members.  Sure, you'll get some people who disagree you.  Take that opportunity to engage in a healthy discussion....be social!   See The Pitfalls of Social Media for additional thoughts on this.

Yes, I know I'm simplifying the process here, but my point is that it doesn't need to be hard!  You're already using a variety of other communications tools - simply add social media to the mix.  

But, who will "control" the social media for your chamber of commerce?  My suggestion is to let the same staff who manage your website, email, newsletters and other communications.  They're already used to crafting your chamber's message - let them start using additional social media tools to tell your stories.

Jump in! Don't worry about being a social media expert. Use common sense. Learn from others. Adjust to fit your other communications strategies.

And, have some fun, too.  The Asheville Chamber of Commerce does a great job of using their blog and Twitter accounts to provide information to their community and promote their members.  Recently, they also share a security camera video of a bear that had rummaged through trash cans in their parking lot.  It had no direct correlation to business in Asheville, but it was unusual and kind of fun.  I've seen other chambers share funny stories of things that happen in the office, too.  

These "real life" stories help build relationships with your members and followers.   While they want and need the information that can help them run their business more effectively or generate new sales, they'll also appreciate the fact that there's a real person (or people) behind all those great updates from your chamber.  

And regardless of your social media goals, building relationships will certainly be part of the strategy.

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!

Recently, I posted about chambers of commerce being "Twitter-worthy." Since then, I've had some good discussions with chambers of commerce on how they are working to be remarkable for their members. 

In some cases, chambers are leading the way in their community by being on Twitter and other social media and showing their members how to use it.  In others, the chamber is just learning how to use social media to connect to and engage their members to improve member satisfaction, increase retention and even gain new member sales. 

Some chambers are using social media AND getting back to more face-to-face and phone conversations to truly show their members that they care about their business. I know of a few chambers who are calling every member 2-4 times per year just to say "Hi," ask how their business is doing and see if there's anything the chamber can do to help them.  With all the media available today, sometimes a simple phone call and genuine concern can go a long way towards being remarkable for your members and improving member satisfaction.

Today, I found this post on Twitter where a chamber of commerce is clearly remarkable for at least one member.  WOW!  What a great unsolicited remark!

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, assocations and member-based organizations use a variety of tools to determine their members' satisifaction with their organization's services and benefits. Member surveys, Net Promoter Score, retention rate, event attendance, referrals, new member sales and many other tools are often used.

How about a new measure of your members' engagement with your organization?...

Is your organization "Twitter-worthy"?

Whole Foods recently launched a billboard campaign promoting how their products and prices are so great that they are "worth twittering about."


Can this be a new measure for your chamber of commerce or business association?  Are your members voluntarily talking about you in social media such as blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter?  Is your organization worth twittering about?

In his book, Purple Cow, Seth Godin writes about making your organization, products and/or services so remarkable that people voluntarily tell others about it.   Or, in other words....they make a "REMARK" about it.  

Here are some examples of local businesses making voluntary remarks about their chamber of commerce on Twitter:

I've even seen members of local chambers of commerce HELP the chamber promote their events by retweeting, voluntarily posting about events, recruit new members and spead chamber news.  Do your members use social media to help your chamber?  

Are you using social media to help them?

How can you make your association or chamber more remarkable?  For starters, start using social media to listen to, learn from and respond to your members!   And, make sure your staff is listening at events and meetings for ways to engage and connect your members as well. 

Being remarkable isn't just about having a great social media presence.  It's about having a genuine interest in your members and working to provide them the resources and opportunities they want and need to meet their goals.  Social media is just one way your chamber of commerce or association can help your members and be more "remarkable."

Here are some links you might fight useful:

• Five ways your chamber can use Twitter
• Use Twitter to welcome and promote your members
• More ways Chambers are using Twitter
• Is your Chamber "listening" to the internet?
• Social media marketing for Chambers
• Retain more members by competing with yourself

If you're wondering how you can start using social media more, here's an easy one - add a comment to a blog post!

I spend about an hour a day reading various blog posts from chambers of commerce, business associations, marketing organizations and social media experts.  I'm amazed at the time, energy and passion that writers put into their posts.  And their insight and ideas help me be a better communicator.  But, I don't tell them often enough.

And, of course, I try to compile and create useful information on social media, technology and marketing for member-based organizations to use in posts for this blog.   But, there are very few comments on this blog.

Adding comments to blogs shows the author that you read the post, absorbed the info and had a reaction to it.  And....it starts a conversation.  As social organizations, chambers of commerce, business associations (and their staff) usually welcome new conversations with businesses and members in their community.

Commenting on blogs can also be a great way of networking with the businesses in your area.   You may notice that after you comment on someone's blog, they may start follow you on Twitter and they may comment on your blog, too. You might even connect with them on social networking sites like Facebook or LinkedIn.  You can take that opportunity to build a great relationship with them.  And that's what social media is about - sharing and building relationships!   And, as you know, the stronger those relationships are, the better chances you have for improving member retention and creating new member sales.

So, starting today, make it a practice to add at least one comment to a blog post each time you catch up on your reading.  Once a day would be great!  Yes, it does take a little time.  But remember how you feel when someone takes the time to thank you, compliment you for something you did or give you constructive feedback?  Pretty darn good, right?   Most bloggers WANT feedback on their posts - positive, negative, constructive...anything that lets them know that you've read their post.

What would you write? If nothing else, just let the author know that you appreciate them taking the time to compose their thoughts and share them with you.   But, it would be even better if you added a thoughtful comment, highlighting a certain point that you agreed (or disagreed) with and add your own thoughts to the issue. 

I know I would appreciate feedback as would just about every other blogger that I know.  So go out and add comments.  Be social!

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!

Last night, I participated in a Small Business Buzz Twitter Chat (Hashtag #sbbuzz) with staff from chambers of commerce and small businesses around the country.  The discussions centered on how chambers of commerce and small business can use social media to benefit their community and each other and how members can gain benefits from being members of their local chambers.

The question of “What businesses will receive the most value by joining their local Chamber?” sparked some very good discussions. 

A few people replied with things like "The members who receive the most value are often those who add the most value - participate on committees, volunteer, etc."   Yes, it may be true that members who put a lot into their membership will likely get more measurable return in terms of sales, leads, etc.  And, every chamber has at least a few of those power members, however, those members are generally the minority of members. 

My concern lies in making “you get more if you participate” part of the message of the chamber.  Each member has their own perception about how the chamber can/will benefit them. In order to meet/exceed those expectations, the chamber must know at least some of those expectations and strive to meet them on an individual level….and communicate that value as well.  Knowing why a member joined and what's important to them helps you improve your membership retention and increase new member sales through referrals from those satisfied and value-receiving members.

If the answer to “What businesses will receive the most value by joining their local Chamber?” is “the type where the employees work to gain more value” that’s fine, but I don’t think it would be wise for a chamber to say that to their members. ;-)   Otherwise, I'm not sure there is any one type of business that would necessarily benefit more than others.  I suppose a business who sells to local businesses and consumers would gain more benefit than someone who sells to businesses NOT in their community, but even then there are exceptions.

My response to the question was, "The ones that receive the most value are the ones that PERCEIVE the most value. Depends on how the chamber tells the story."

While every chamber has power members that will naturally gain value from their activities, I think the larger effort by the chamber should be placed on knowing which members are most valuable to them from a business perspective and finding ways to demonstrate to each member the value they received based on each members’ definition.  How do you do this?  Through a robust membership management system with CRM features and detailed reporting of course! 

What do you think about the question of “What businesses will receive the most value by joining their local Chamber?”   Do you think it's a good idea to tell member that they get more out by putting more in?   How do you go about communicating value to EVERY member and trying to meet/exceed their personal expectations.  And, lastly, how to you use technology to accomplish this?   Please add your comments below.  Thanks!

Here are some posts on similar topics:

• Communicating Value To Your Members
• Chambers using technology to create and communicate value
• Know your members (and show them that you know them)

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?

There are certainly many examples of the economy affecting chamber membership numbers and sponsorship revenue. However, with each obstacle there are opportunities. :-)

I thought this was an interesting nugget from the blog post:

How are you implementing these and/or other strategies? How are you using technology to help you?    Are you creating segmented communications to deliver relevant information? Are you communicating value to every member using benefit tracking, referral reports or other tools? How are you attracting new members?  Are you showing your members that you "know" them?

I also found this line a bit contradictory: “Surprisingly, they identified online media (blogs, Facebook, twitter, etc.) as the least effective tool at their disposal.” The article goes on to say that most organizations will be increasing their spending on social media or keeping it the same. I suspect the response is due to the difficulty in determining direct ROI when using social media.  I know that plenty of chambers are having good success with social media and are doing the great job with it.

So, do you view social media as a valuable tool to help you survive and THRIVE in the recession? And if so, can you share your reasons why you think it's valuable in the comments below? I would love to know what you think about the article and report AND what you are doing to focus more on your members as mentioned above.

Edit:  I got a reply from one of our clients and it was so good, I just had to add it to this post.  Jessica Hibbard from the Frederick County MD Chamber had this to say.

I've found a bunch of good Twitter posts recently and wanted to tie them into one post. 

First, "How to Twitter like a Pro."   There are some great tips here on how to get your feet wet in Twitter.

• Use a Twitter client - This is a piece of software that you download and install on your computer.  When you set it up with your Twitter account, it will connect to Twitter's API, instead of you needing to go to Twitter's website to see/post tweets.  Some popular apps are Tweetdeck (allows you to set up groups of friends), Twhirl and DestroyTwitter.  These apps have a rich interface and make Twitter immensely more enjoyable and efficient.  If you have questions about using these apps, please let me know. I'll be glad to help.
• Complete your profile - Make sure you put your name (or your org's name), a link to your website or blog and include a brief bio of you or your org.  You may also want to create a custom Twitter background of your logo or a picture to help tell people more about you.  Your Twitter profile is what most people use when determining if they should follow you.  Give them some insight into you or your organization.
• Jump in and Tweet - Be sure you're adding to the conversation or starting new ones.  Retweet items that you find interested or useful and praise your followers for their business achievements, blog posts, successful events, etc. 

Two chamber of commerce staff who use Twitter very well are Beth Bridges of the Clovis CA Chamber and Brian Willms of the Loveland CO Chamber.  And the Maryland Chamber and Asheville NC Chamber have organization accounts. Follow them to see how they use Twitter to engage their members and promote their local communities.  

This brings up a good point.  You can (and probably should) have Twitter accounts for yourself and your chamber.  And, you should also have multiple staff using Twitter so you can connect to more/different businesses and have multiple conversations.  (Many of the apps mentioned above allow you to manage multiple accounts) 

The Loveland CO Chamber has a chamber account (in addition to Brian's above) and several of their staff use it, too.  What if your entire staff was using Twitter?  How many additional conversations could you have?  How many new relationships could you build?

Now, after you've been using Twitter for a while, you will naturally find other people who you'd like to follow and you'll be followed by Twitter users you've never met.  How do decide who to follow back?  Do you follow everyone just to "be nice."    Check out these post on creating following guidelines: The Twitter Followhollic: An Epidemic and If you were stuck on a desert island, and could only follow 150 people on Twitter, who would you follow and why?

Don't feel like you have to follow everyone that follows you.  Remember, though, that you are using Twitter to have converstations with your chamber of commerce members and to find potential new members as well.  Follow the people that you want to have active conversations with and stay focused on your Twitter goals.

Here are a few more Twitter resources:

• How to: Build a community on Twitter
• How to: Live inside Twitter and still stay productive
• Follow Fail: The top 10 reasons I will not follow you in return on Twitter
  
• Five ways your Chamber can use Twitter

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal published a story about how chambers of commerce are helping small businesses stay abreast of the latest technologies.  The article demonstrates how some chambers of commerce are using technology to engage their members and strengthen their business community.

We're very pleased that two of our clients, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and the Salem (OR) Chamber of Commerce were highlighted in the article.   A few months ago, we had our PR firm contact the Wall Street Journal in an effort to help our clients get media coverage demonstrating how they are benefiting their communities.  A few of our clients' stories - and even a mention of WebLink - failed to make the final edits, however.  (Darn editors!) ;)

Now consider this blog post by Tony Rossell - Associations Get Mixed Grades for Helping Members in a Recession    (I know that chambers of commerce are sometimes different from associations, but I think there are some common themes here.)  Tony mentions a report, "Beliefs, Behaviors and Attitudes in Response to the Economy," that shows how members feel about their organization's efforts to help them during these economic times.   

In his post, Tony highlights several key points from the survey.  How do you feel about the survey? Are the results similar to what you're seeing with your members?

Tony also says in his post:


I touched on some ways chambers can do that in this recent post.   Many of our clients use referral reports and custom fields to track and report on all the ways their chamber provides benefits to their members - on an individual basis.  They then use this information in communications (phone calls, emails, mail) throughout the year to help communicate value.
The Wall Street Journal article shows some clear cases of chambers of commerce are evolving and using technology to create and communicate value for their members.   Back in December, I wrote this post about creating value with technology and have since heard from several of our clients.  We've heard that some of them are indeed able to increase member retention and generate new member sales (even during a recession) by using technology.

Grafton deButts of the Loudon County Chamber of Commerce, had this to say:

How is your chamber of commerce or business association using technology to create and communicate value? Let me know in the comments below.   I'd love to hear your success stories!

If your chamber is like most, you go through a certain process to sell memberships to local businesses.  At some point in this process, the business will decide to join or not to join.   If the business joins, you can be well on your way towards gaining member intelligence for your chamber.     But what if they don’t join?  What can you learn from these businesses?  Plenty!

Let’s start with this, “Why not?”  Ask them why they didn’t join.  AND, record that information in your database!  You’ll soon be able to determine the top 5-10 reasons why businesses don’t join your chamber.  You probably hear things like:

• I don’t have time
• The corporate office says we don’t join chambers
• Dues cost too much
• You don’t have “X” benefit
• I’d like to, but the boss says no
• I was a member once and didn’t get any new business from it
• We’re already a member of an industry trade group

Create a way to track these objections in your member management software and assign them to these prospects that don’t join.   (If you can, be sure to record their type of business, how many employees they have and how long they’ve been in business, too…more on using that information later.)

Over time, you’ll notice trends for why businesses don’t join. Then you can adjust your messaging going forward.  For example, if you continue to hear “I don’t have time,” you may want to alter your advertising, website text and selling process to focus on how businesses get benefits from your chamber even when they don’t participate. 

You can also revisit some of these businesses in 6 months to a year and demonstrate to them the ways you chamber has benefited businesses just like theirs in the past year, using their own objections “against them.”   First, find businesses that are similar in industry and/or size, by mining data from your membership database.  Then check the objections from this business when you first tried to sell them a membership.   Run referral and benefit reports from your member management software and get testimonials from these similar businesses to use in your conversation.  You can create mini “objection kits” for most objections to help you go back to those businesses that told you “no,” and demonstrate why they now should say “yes.”

For example, you might say “When we talked last time, you said that you didn’t have time.  I want to show you how some other businesses like yours are seeing value from our chamber even though they don’t attend events or participate on committees.”    

The effects of such a conversation can be very powerful.  Foremost, it shows that you listened.  And, it shows that your chamber cares about the businesses in your community and you are interested in forming relationships with your members, not just collecting dues.  And listening and strengthening relationships go a long way toward improving member retention and generating additional new member sales.