Acronym

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

I have a secret plan—well, maybe it isn’t so secret now that I am sharing it with everyone who reads Acronym. But my secret is worth exposing because it helps illustrate something: social media can have a secondary purpose for your association—just as it has a secondary purpose for me.

In an earlier Acronym entry, I mentioned how I write, ad hoc, for the ASAE & the Center’s Associapedia wiki. Well, here’s my little secret: I am preparing to take the CAE exam and the entries I am writing for the wiki reflect the different domains I am studying. They are in essence, self-assigned homework that helps reinforce what I am reading.

Pretty sneaky of me, right? Well, maybe it is not so much sneaky as it is another tool for me to grow my career. I just wish I had time to write more entries.

So what does the association get out of this other than some nice wiki entries?

If you have members that volunteer, are proactive, and are trying to better their association, wouldn’t you see them as potential leaders? You can mine those names you see appearing again and again in your social media to not only create a list of volunteers (as I mentioned in my other entry) but also create a list of possible future leaders.

You can then use that information to reach out to those budding leaders—maybe match them up with current leadership in such a way that you create an informal mentoring program. Or if your list is long, reach out in more reserved ways—but still reach out. Big steps or little steps, you can use social media as an online incubation chamber to help foster and grow new leadership in your organization.

My guess is there is a lot of potential behind social media that goes beyond the obvious of creating content for your website, increasing your Google ranking, and providing products and services to your members. I would be interested to hear other, indirect consequences of using social media (both positive and negative). What insight do you have to share?