Marketing Sherpa just released their Social Media Marketing and PR Benchmarking Guide.  The full report is $397, but you can get the Executive Summary for free.   There are some key points for chambers of commerce and business associations to consider:
  1. 76% of marketing and PR professionals agree that social media is changing the way their company communicates.  So, if your members feel that social media is changing how they communicate, they also feel that YOU should change the way you communicate with them.  Are you using social media yet?  See this post on how chambers can use social networking sites.  Once you’re on these sites, you’ll also need to engage your members/followers with new content and questions.  Setting up a LinkedIn Group isn’t enough; provide additional value by having conversations with them and listen to what they have to say.  Remember that social media is more than networking sites – it’s blogs, video, photos and more.  Check out five reasons your chamber should blog and five ways your chamber can use Twitter.
  2. Social media and email were the only two marketing budget areas listed where more companies are planning to increase spending than decrease it.  Again, your members plan to use social media more in 2009 and they’ll be expecting you to do the same.
  3. Lack of knowledgeable staff was the largest barrier for companies in their efforts to adopt social media.  After talking with several chamber staff at the W.A.C.E. conference in Las Vegas last week, this is clearly a barrier for chambers as well.  How can you overcome this?  You can start by asking the young professionals on your staff to help. Find out what sites and social media they use to stay connected to friends and share content. Ask them to use similar tools to help your chamber communicate. It may not seem as “fun” to them as sharing personal photos and stories with friends, but challenge them to be creative in applying your chamber’s mission and goals to create useful content and employ social media to engage your members. Yes, you can still maintain your image as a professional business organization and engage your audience in creative ways.
  4. Inability to measure ROI was listed as another barrier.  This is one of the hottest debates in social media today:  can you measure its ROI?   My answer is “sometimes.”   This is illustrated in Marketing Sherpa’s report - marketers view many types of social media as very effective even though it can’t be accurately measured.   And perhaps a bigger point is that you shouldn’t let a perceived lack of measurable ROI prevent you from trying something.  From the report, “Marketers obsessed with only tracking social media results quantitatively are missing the point and may find themselves employing much less effective social media tactics for the sake of measurability.”  Social media is largely about having conversations.  Can you measure the value of each conversation you have?   Of course not, but over time those conversations can add up to increased member satisfaction, higher retention rates and brand loyalty that you can measure.
I’ve also noticed that many chambers around the country are hosting seminars to help their members learn about social media, but very few chambers are effectively using social media themselves.   Remember that in your efforts to help your members, it can be extremely powerful if you’re also using the tools you’re recommending to them.  There are some chambers who are using social media effectively and I’ve mentioned them before: Clovis, CA; Loveland, CO; North Mason, WA; Salem, OR; Frederick County, MD and the Maryland State Chamber.  And the staff from many other chambers of commerce are using Twitter and blogs to engage their members and others as well.  If you’re using social media, too, please let us know in the comments below.

And, just as I was typing this post, I came across this article that calls chambers “old school networking.” The author states they mean no harm to chambers, but the perception is already be there.  You've probably heard similar comments from businesses in your community.  Beth Bridges from the Clovis CA Chamber says, "Chambers MUST become "new school", or we'll be as good as gone."

What can you do to help your chamber become “new school networking?”   Get Social!  Start using social media today. Learn from your peers who are already using social media.  And, please let me know if I can help you in any way.