Its’ been an extremely exciting month here at MemberClicks. We kicked off the inaugural Small Staff Appreciation Month by announcing an entire month of giveaways — and what a month it has been! We’ve given away books, T-shirts, care packages valued at $100, and today, the grand prize winners will be announced. One small staff association professional will win a free logo redesign, and another will win a 15″ MacBook pro!

Before we get to the good stuff, let’s take a look back at the past winners and featured small staff content on the Splash blog from the month.

Small Staffs Rule T-shirt winners:
- Holly Christopher of Keep Norfolk Beautiful
- Jessica Smith from AIA Tampa Bay
- Patricia Eschmann of Wisconsin Library Association
- Kathy Kern of MMA Alumni Association
- Barbara Johnson of the Austin Area Research Organization
- Nina Arce from the Housing and Community Development Network
- Phil Rahrig of the American Galvanizers Association
- Danielle Wills of the North Cobb Senior Center
- Aaron Milligan of the Washington State Medical Association
- Charles Cannon of the Tucson Guitar Society
- Deborah Reeder of the American Association of Equine Veterinary Technicians and Assistants
- Mary Champlin of the Santa Cruz County Medical Society
- Sharon Scarlata of the The New York State Alliance For Arts Education
- Leslie McGill from the California Police Chiefs Association
- Roberta Rollings of the Executive Women’s Council.
- Rick Akin of the New York Association for Volunteer Administration

“Made to Stick” recipients
- Jessica Finney of the American Board of Vocational Experts
- Dixie Heinrich of Kansas Speech-Language-Hearing Association
- Alexis Hahalis of the Responsible Hospitality Institute
- Fallon Gechter of South Florida Chapter of Meeting Planners International
- Joseph Sapp of Talley Management Group
- Barbara Hulz of the California Association of Long Term Care Medicine
- Suzanne Cross from COAG
- Kit Rogers from NSN
- Hollee Alexander from National Potato Council
- Lynne Wester from ADRP

Small Staff Care Package ($25 each to Visa, Starbucks, Office Depot and Amazon) Winners
- Jim Thompson of Association Executives of North Carolina
- Katy Fisher  of the Refrigerated Foods Association
- Julie Vincent of the Water Environment Association of Ontario
- Heather Blevins of the National Organization for Human Services

Phew! What a month!

We’ve also had guest posts from people in the association community, as well as several profiles and interviews with small staff association professionals. Here’s a look back:

- At her own blog, Peggy Hoffman discussed the importance of technology for small staff associations
- For the first Friday Top Five of the month, I looked back at my favorite small staff-centric posts in the community
- Maddie Grant of SocialFish wrote about small staff associations being ahead of the social media curve
- Debra Helwig at IGAF Worldwide discussed how her entire small staff works remotely
- We learned about Colorado State Foster Parent Association and spoke with Sherry Owens
- We interviewed Carol Bousquet of ALMA: The International Loudspeaker Association
- ASAE’s Meredith Bower Holt wrote about small staff professionals giving back to the community
- I questioned whether or not small staff associations are more open to change
- We learned more about Florida Society of Association Executives and Teri Carden
- We interviewed Jim Thompson of Association Executives of North Carolina
- Deirdre Reid wrote a guest post about blogging for small staff associations

Awhile ago, MemberClicks president Thomas Howard discussed why we do what we do at MemberClicks. That post, Small Staff Associations: A Portrait of America, is definitely worth reading if you haven’t already.

And now, without further adieu, the grand prize winners of Small Staff Appreciation Month:

The winner of the logo redesign is … Jerry Packer of the Droz Group!

The winner of the 15″ MacBook Pro is … Max Ma of the Hollywood Post Alliance!

Congratulations to all winners, and thank you to all who participated for making the inaugural Small Staff Appreciation Month a huge success!

Today’s post is a guest post by Deirdre Reid, CAE, a writer, speaker and consultant for associations at Reid All About It.

Admit it, you like reading this blog, don’t you? You subscribe by email or RSS feed and valuable and interesting content shows up on your computer every few days. How convenient! You get tips and advice, read about hot issues and learn about resources to help you do your job or get ahead in your profession. Wouldn’t your members like that?

Blogs provide news, information and thought-provoking ideas – a professional development trifecta. They are the ultimate content marketing tool – engaging your readers with valuable information that holds their attention and strengthens their loyalty. A blog also educates policy-makers, journalists and other influencers about your legislative and regulatory issues. A good blog establishes your association as a thought-leader in your industry.

Google loves blogs and their keyword-rich pages. Because of their dynamic fresh content, blogs rank high in Google indexing. Blog posts are sharable. They’re sent to colleagues via email, or shared on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Your association’s reach and influence expand via Google and social media platforms.

Blogs are social. Your members participate in the conversation you start by commenting back to you and each other. Blogs have more personality than websites. You can play it straight by providing serious information, but also be entertaining with lighter posts and videos.

Can you manage a blog?

Even a small staff association can manage a blog by publishing repurposed and curated content in addition to original content.

You can get content in several ways:

• Create original content. Don’t worry, you have access to more easy content ideas than you’d expect. Trust me, the more you write, the easier it gets.
• Repurpose existing magazine, newsletter, educational session, blast email and political alert content.
• Ask members to contribute a monthly post. Look for bright members who want visibility. If they don’t write well, edit their work or outsource the editing. If their writing is hopeless, film them.
• Find industry bloggers who will contribute monthly guest posts.
• Outsource content creation to freelance writers.
• Do a mix of all of the above.

Content can also be collected from other sources, reviewed and curated (filtered) to find the most valuable and interesting posts for your members.

• Subscribe to industry blogs using a RSS feed. Review the feed daily to find the best of your industry’s blogosphere.
• Follow industry thought-leaders and others on Twitter. Review the posts that they’re sharing.
• Publish posts that share the week’s best reads.

How do you begin?

Start by reading industry blogs regularly to get a feel for the community and issues. Read social media blogs to learn more about managing and marketing a blog.

Form a staff team, or a team of members and/or industry thought-leaders overseen by staff, to develop an editorial strategy. Review your communication, marketing, professional development, membership, advocacy and public relations goals. How can your blog help achieve those goals? Don’t operate your blog in a silo. It must be an integral part of all those association programs.

Discuss how you will handle negative or critical comments. Censoring is only an option for extreme cases – spam, libel or vulgarity.

Create an editorial calendar so your posts enhance other association efforts. Always have a full pipeline of posts so you can at least publish weekly.

Blogs need daily attention. Even if you don’t post daily, someone must review (moderate) comments and reply back, share your posts (and posts from other sources) on social media platforms and, ideally, comment on other industry blogs. Like content creation, this can be done by staff or outsourced.

If staff sets the blog’s strategy and calendar, content can be created and collected using a combination of talents. The effort required to oversee this educational, community-building and marketing tool will be well worth it.

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As I’ve discussed before, from time to time I come across awesome resources online and like to share them with readers. Today, I’ve got two videos courtesy of ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership‘s YouTube channel. Video is a powerful mechanism for conveying information to members and stakeholders, and can often be more engaging than written content.

Does your organization use video as a way to engage with your members?

By the way, for more information about video for associations, check out my Beyond the Big Three posts on YouTube and UStream.

As part of Small Staff Appreciation Month, I’m profiling different small staff associations all month long. Today’s interview is with Jim Thompson, CAE, Executive Director of the Association Executives of North Carolina.

How many staffers (whether full-time, part-time or volunteer) does your organization have and how many members?
We have 3 full-time staff members and about 8 contract workers. We have just over 600 members.

How long have you worked for AENC / small staff associations?
I have worked for AENC for about 5 years and have worked in associations for 12 years. I worked for the NC Association of REALTORS and Junior Achievement of Central NC before that.

Have you ever worked for a larger association, and if so, what are the biggest differences?
I would say the biggest difference is not being so compartmentalized in working with a small association, because you do a bit of everything. There are the obvious luxuries that go along with being in a larger staff. Plus, it’s easier to hide in a larger staff. It may not be as easy to hide in a smaller organization because you are taxed with so much.

Describe your role at AENC and perhaps a typical day-in-the-life-of.
I’ll describe for you the day I have coming up on Thursday. I have to come in on Thursday after being out of the office on Tuesday and Wednesday and try and catch-up on paper work that came in the last two days. (Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, I have access to by email on Droid and I bring my laptop home to work after the kids and wife have gone to bed.)

So, I am going to try and get in a bit early on Thursday, because in addition to catch-up, our CPA is in-house this week doing the field work for our audit. I hope to get in at 8:30 so I can get organized and pull some reports in preparation for a 10 a.m. meeting with our AMS reseller. Having some issues recently with that. Geez, I love technology, but I hate it, too.

After meeting, I’ll try and catch up and before lunch meeting with a member to discuss his affinity program — should be a great conversation. Their group generates big money with their program. Following lunch, got to hightail it back to the AENC office to get ready for AENC webinar at the office. We partner with our allied societies across the U.S. called ASA (Association Societies Alliance) and we produce a monthly webinar series. We promote the webinar, which is $55. So a member can pay and watch at their office, or they can come for free to AENC to watch with fellow members and have a chance to network before and after. The webinar will be over in about an hour and then it will be about 3:30 once everyone leaves and we get cleaned-up. OK, now I have about one hour to try and wrap up a few to-do items on the list then it’s off to Natty Greene’s. Have a good response to this event. Can’t wait.

What’s your favorite thing about working for a small staff association?
One word: variety.

It’s no secret that social media is changing the game when it comes to how people communicate, but what about the future of publishing?

As tablets such as the Kindle, iPad and Nook continue to gain popularity, publishers across the board — whether for newspapers, magazines or journals — will have to adapt to produce electronic versions of their work. It’s crucial to remember that, as a publisher, you’re in the magazine or newspaper business. You’re in the business of publishing content, and the medium shouldn’t matter.

When it comes to your digital strategy, here are a few things to keep in mind:

- Plan for content across multiple channels
- Be flexible. Your strategy will likely have to evolve
- Align with your members’ and advertisers’ resources
- Be realistic
- Remember that you’re competing for attention among readers and advertisers
- Don’t overload members — offer options but don’t overwhelm them. Test, test, test.

“Integrated media” isn’t going away. Whether your members have smartphones, e-readers, an iPad or prefer a hard copy of a magazine, your association should be prepared.

If your audience continues to be devoted to print, I still think it’s important for electronic platforms to be on your radar. Build on the print readership by integrating social media and other electronic forms of media. Create added-value content (video, slideshows, podcasts) on your website. This can be done with a small budget; many tools online are free or low-cost.

The biggest thing to remember? Always be flexible. The media business is rapidly evolving, and your association should remember that one size doesn’t fit all. Be willing to revise, remix and relaunch is necessary.

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