Acronym

The following is a guest post from Caron Mason, web communications specialist with the American Industrial Hygiene Association:

Social media is a great way to get new volunteers to bubble up in your association. I know from personal experience. After all, it’s how ASAE & The Center drew me in. Reflecting on my experience as a volunteer, I have some tips that I think you will find useful. But first, a little background to demonstrate how I came to these tips:

When the call came for ASAE & The Center volunteers, I was interested, but I wanted to get my toes wet before doing a double back flip into the deep waters of volunteerism. So I signed up as an “ad hoc” volunteer and a few months later I accepted a request to write a pre-launch entry for the Associapedia wiki.

Writing for the wiki is a great experience for me. I am a web communications specialist at my association and working online is something that I am very comfortable doing. As an added bonus, contributing from my home at night or on the weekend is fulfilling, since finding time to volunteer while juggling career, a young family, and a personal life can be a challenge.

Amy Hissrich, the contact for the wiki, is phenomenal. Anytime I need help, she is there. That degree of customer service inspires me to keep going and write more entries.

And I would be leaving something out if I didn’t say the recognition from peers wasn’t inspiring as well. I am not saying I wouldn’t write if my name didn’t appear at the bottom of the page, but it is an added bonus.

As I write this blog entry, I realize that ASAE & The Center has now drawn me in deeper—pretty clever of them. My contributions to the wiki were small, but it was enough that ASAE & The Center now has the name of a member who actively participates and who they know is a good resource for other volunteer projects.

So here is my list of lessons learned/tips from a volunteer’s perspective.

- Surface new volunteers by offering a new way for members to participate in the association through social media.
- Support your social media volunteers in order to keep the project moving smoothly.
- Give recognition to volunteers for their efforts: It is important to keeping them motivated.
- Use your social media for data mining. It’s a great way to get a meaningful list of names of potential/future volunteers to foster.

Do you have any additional tips or ideas to share?