How Do You Connect?
Marketing to Build Relationships
RSS Feed
Fear Itself
Posted by Imagination Blogger on July 22, 2008
What are associations so afraid of? Can somebody tell me?
Blogging is a way to be opinionated, give the association’s or the blogger’s point of view and start a conversation with members that complements all the other programming. But associations, in yet another example of their aversion to risk, first, won’t have an opinion and, second, don’t want to allow members to comment.
Associations have gotten used to never stepping on anyone’s toes—not just used to it, comfortable with it, preferring it. Someone might quit. Someone might pull an ad out of the publication. Someone might, heaven forbid, disagree. As if they don’t already.
Members quit all the time; advertisers drop out, people disagree. Look at it this way: You can choose to just let that happen or you can try to find out why. Blogging can help you do that.
This is a more substantial conversation than an irritated call to member services. The comments and feedback to a good blog should tell you what people really have on their minds. This is not just a complaint—“I don’t want my membership fee to go up and I’m angry about it”. This is a two-way conversation that helps you anticipate what’s going to happen before it actually does.
But to have that conversation you have to get over the fear of stepping on someone’s toes. If you don’t say anything worth saying in the blog, you won’t get anyone to comment. In the immortal words of the late Governor of Texas Ann Richards, “There’s nothing in the middle of the road but road kill.” If the blog is so middle-of-the-road that it doesn’t take a stand on something, what good does it do?
Then there is the fear of comments. What if they say something bad? What if they want to actually talk about it? What if they expect a response?
There are, obviously, resource allocation issues attached to this but, I presume, that you wouldn’t be blogging if you couldn’t support the effort. You wouldn’t put up an 800 number if you couldn’t answer the phones, right?
What you want is an engaged membership. That’s what everyone wants. That is really the only way to retain members. If you don’t want them to talk to you, why are you in business?
I usually hate rhetorical questions—my editors know that they are the first things I’ll delete in a manuscript—and there are lots of them in this post. But I’m genuinely confused. If all associations are afraid of is stuff that’s already happening, well, how do they think they’re going to survive? People are going to find a place to talk about the things they care about. Associations are either part of the conversation or they’re not.
So I ask again, what are they so afraid of?
Tagged with: association, blog, conversation, fear
Possibly related posts:
- The New Marketing Imperative: Conversations >
- I think Flickr-ing sounds kind of off, too. >
- The Heretic Retires >
Comment
How Imagination Connects
Imagination is the leader in content-driven relationship marketing. We’ll engage your clients, members, employees or prospects with the right content delivered the right way: print or digital, audio or video, podcasts, webcasts, blogs or email, magazines or digimags. Here we explore how to do all of these things better.
Monthly Archive
Imagination Blogs
How Do You Connect?
Marketing to Build Relationships
Blog Archive
Browse the Cloud
abm ad advertisement advertising apple asae association association publishing associations awards b2b batman battlefield bebo blog blogging blogs bluetooth bmw brand branding brand management c-level cell phones change chick-fil-a circulation civil war commercial commercials community competition content context conversation copy copycat bud caddell custom customer service customer touchpoints custom publishing dancing data digital digital media discount disney excel excellence executives facebook fear firewalls folio forward gettysburg goodwill marketing graphics hulu ibm iida imagination journalism leadership mad men magazines magnum opus mailbox members marketing martial arts media member experience message movies msci newspapers nfl nielson orkut perspective pharmaceutical photos pmi pmp passport professional membership organizations projections publishers publishing re-branding redesign relevance representation sales search site small business social media social networking steve jobs streamgraph superhero technology teens teen research online offline television text tivo tweets twitter value visual vlogging web web 2.0 web 3.0 webaward webcast web marketing association website websites wells fargo wonderlic xanga youtube zappos
