Acronym

In this day and age, small companies (and associations) can no longer whine that we don't have the budgets of our Goliath counterparts. The Web has, in a sense, created somewhat of an equal footing from the smallest to the largest of associations. Here are 11 FREE online tools that your association should be using now.

1. Blogger.com - Blogger.com is not perfect, but it is free. My first two Mississippi Hospital Association blogs - Operation Healthy Vote and Cover Mississippi - are on Blogger platforms. Once I saw that it worked and it was doable and it did in fact make my job easier, I switched to Typepad because it has categories and gave me more opportunities to customize the look of the blog. For $149 a year, I can create an unlimited number of blogs (under the same basic http address). And blogs aren't just for reaching out to your members or yelling from the electronic bully pulpit. Most associations could easily turn their weekly e-newsletter into a blog format. (People hear the word blog and think "ranting lunatics," but it is a publishing platform - no more, no less.) If you're worried about the change - whether it will work for your or not - do both. Send your e-newsletter out as usual and use the blog as an archive of the newsletter. (The material would then be searchable.)

2. Del.icio.us - Because of the tagging capabilities and the community aspect, it beats that long list of links on most Web sites (which even we still have). Here's mine.

3. Flickr - A free account allows you to upload 15 or so pictures. Pay a little more ($40, I think) and you can upload much more. You can tag photos, divide them into groups, search your photos only or all of them. Members who set up accounts also can count you as a "friend" and you can see all of their pictures too as they are added.

4. Topix.net - Search for information about your industry or your association that was reported in the last 24 hours. (You could become your own electronic clipping service, in other words.)

5. Rollyo.com - Search up to 25 sites of your choosing at the same time. For example, if you look on MHA's Rollyo page, I have a Hospital News search that searches all the major outlets for hospital news at one time. I also have a Health Policy search that searches through policy-oriented health sites. It can also be used for a quick, easy and free search engine for your own site.

6. Technorati.com - Start tagging all of the information you put online, whether in blog format or not, and it will be much easier for your members (and search engines) to find. You can also use it for research - as they track what 50 million blogs are saying. Topix.net for media, Technorati for blogs.

7. Txtvoter.org - Allow your members to register to vote via cell phone free of charge - and even personalize how they receive the e-mails (still free of charge).

8. FeedBlitz - Let members receive your information how they want it, when they want it, free of charge to you. Members can opt to receive your updates daily via e-mail. But only the ones who want it. So the ones who don't want it aren't deleting your information daily without reading it at all.

9. Skype - I admittedly have not used this yet, but I've heard that they have a free conference call feature. You can conference unlimited numbers - each of you just pays for the price of the phone call.

10. Wikipedia - At a minimum, associations should be making sure that entries pertinent to your industry and association have correct information. You can also supply new entries for topics pertinent to your field.

11. YouTube.com - Add video clips to your site without eating up your own bandwidth...or paying for it.