Acronym

I completely agree. I think this also ties directly to the idea of measuring the engagement level of members in the most appropriate way for each organization, and then rewarding/recognizing such behavior. Many groups we work with have programs to do just that. In addition, social media can help quite a bit if you ask members to help you by doing things like sharing your content with their networks, tweeting when they are planning to attend your events and so on. Making this easy for them is part of what is important but identifying members as a resource as Carolyn suggests is the first step.

Excellent points - but the challenge is HOW.

There is the informal: We provide excellent programs and value and thus have faith that our members will tell others.

And the formal: We could provide members with a top ten list of member benefits.

But your post notes the structural hurdle in all this - the most compelling recruitment is from informal exchanges that aren't part of a program, aren't pre-structured. They are from the heart and authentic.

So, what processes have worked for people in encouraging such authentic discussions?

Folks interested in Carolyn's post may also want to check out Joseph Sapp's thoughts on the same subject, here. Thank you for your responses to Carolyn's ideas so far!

So happy you're blogging for Acronym, Carolyn!

I think a lot of member-get-a-member campaigns miss the point. We think that if we offer a prize, or hand out talking points, our members will be more motivated to tell their colleagues to join. If you've read Drive by Dan Pink, or Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz, or pretty much any Seth Godin book, you probably have a good idea of why those campaigns represent only a fraction of the actual word-of-mouth going on.

To Susan's question on process, I really like Andy's 5 Ts as a way to build a WOM plan. Identify TALKERS, have some TOPICS (or just do something awesome), pick the right TOOLS, TAKE PART, and TRACK. I've used this process in my marketing work, and it gave me the framework to ignite word-of-mouth interactions.

I did an interview with Andy for Associations Now last year. Here's the link to that, in case anyone is interested. http://www.asaecenter.org/PublicationsResources/ANowDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=38259

Hi Carolyn,

Interesting imagery! This issue came up quite a bit in our super swap discussion at ASAE yesterday: how do you make the mantra "membership is everyone's job" something that people accept as staff. One of our participants commented that most of his staff over the years have viewed their central role as producer & distributor of content, rather than facilitator of relationships or of community. Associations should promote community-building as being of equal or greater importance to most staff's other functions, and demonstrate strong support and model behavior from the E.D. and/or a senior staff champion. Otherwise the assertion can sound like a power grab.

Lindy is right on that MGAM programs generally miss the point, as do any other tactics build around providing tangible incentives and tight guidelines to help stoke the intrinsic desire that a subset of your members have to want to help you. Surveys say that WOM accounts for the first exposure of at least 60% of an average association's membership: more organic, flexible and open approaches will work far better than treating membership as a transaction and membership promotion as a series of discrete 'drives' or campaigns with point systems and a theme.