Oct. 23, 2009 - Developing Online Communities: Step Six

Staff participation in your online association activities is essential to success. Members can reach out directly to the staff person that can get the job done, or who has the specialized information they need. Communication is direct and simple, personal and informal.

First, develop a social media policy for your staff (see my blog suggestion)—one that encourages them to use these tools and participate appropriately in the association online communities.  

Secondly, review those policies regularly with your staff. Role play some situations even. Discuss what are the strength of staff participation and what are the potential pitfalls. Understand too that you can’t keep your staff from Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn…so have discussions often about propriety and responsibility to your organization.

And finally, make sure that you and your staff keep in mind that quick response to the online community is the norm, not the exception. Pay attention to alerts and emails from your community and respond promptly. By the same token, don’t overwhelm the community with useless conversation or too many empty communications. Make sure your social media efforts really contribute to your communications programs: empty, unused Facebook pages, for instance, detract from your organization's dynamic profile.

All this takes some practice, of course, and there’ll be a few mistakes (like the member who sent her love letter to her boyfriend to the entire MLS list). But these things happen. And when they do, go back and review all the reasons you listed in Step One as to why associations should develop online communities in the first place.