Remember a few months ago when we introduced you to some pretty crazy Facebook changes?

Basically, everyone’s profile is going to look like the one below.

Facebook is getting ready to roll Timeline out to everyone, whether you like it or not. Once you see the “Enable Timeline” button on your Facebook, you’ll have one week to get your profile in order before you have to switch over.

Here’s some more info about Facebook’s new changes:

In addition to Timeline, thanks to Facebook’s Open Graph, a slew of apps – such as Spotify, Foodspotting  and Nike+  – will be integrated into your news feed and timeline.

But what does these and other changes mean for your small staff association and its Facebook page?

For starters, Facebook has eliminated the need for people to “like” your page to interact with it. Now, anyone can like or comment on posts – without liking your page as a whole. This places the emphasis on engagements over likes. Now – hopefully – more people than ever before will be able to interact with your organization’s Facebook page!

Keep in mind, this will challenge your association to produce super interesting content, listen to the conversations happening on your page and not focus on the overall fan growth.

Facebook users will have more control over what appears in their Newsfeeds thanks to an easy-to-find “unsubscribe” button, so it’s time to start thinking about how you can really pump up your content and make it interesting, relevant and engaging to your fanbase.

What do you think of Facebook’s new changes?

Happy Friday from all of us at MemberClicks! What are you doing this weekend? (Personally, I’m all about the NFL playoffs!) Whatever your plans, I hope there’s adequate relaxation and recharging!

As usual, we’re sharing some of our fave association blog posts from the community today. What were your favorite blog posts this week?

1. Aaron Wolowiec asked fellow association professionals and/or consultants how they prepare their speakers and educators at meetings. If associations are supposed to be curators, they should take an active role in shaping speakers to be successful at their particular event or conference.

2. Is your small-staff association purpose-driven? Jeffrey Cufaude shares several reasons why now, more than ever, associations and their leaders need to be purpose-driven, not fear-driven.

3. Tony Rossell shares some great information about membership marketing benchmarks and setting up expectations. All “good” results are relative – he shares the example that 72 degrees is a good temperature if you want to go for a walk but not if you want to have a cook-out. Be sure to take context into consideration when determining whether a benchmark for your association is good or not.

4. Facebook has come a long way from a social network exclusively for college kids and is now a mainstream part of our culture. Jeff Hurt shares some great ways to increase engagement on your association’s Facebook page – and a lot of these things are easy to do! One big one: post daily. Posting once a day is a great way to keep your association out there but not create fatigue among its Facebook fans.

5. Is your association in tune with what is going on with its membership? Shelly Alcorn shares a few dismaying stories from her community to remind everyone to foster a zero-tolerance atmosphere in your association. This is quite a thoughtful topic that probably doesn’t get as much attention as it should.

Have a wonderful weekend!

You may have heard the news already, but Facebook page admins in Asia woke up this morning to the news that their business pages can now send private messages to fans.

Although this hasn’t been rolled out across the entire site, this is a big step for businesses and organizations who may want to take communication with a fan off of the public wall. I know in my experience, we’ve run into several issues such as this.

One drawback is that the business page cannot initiate communication; fans must do it themselves. For brands and organizations with a large Facebook fanbase, this could be problematic if dozens (or hundreds) of fans start messaging the page at once.

So, what does this mean for small staff associations? Facebook is (of course) trying to integrates itself into all aspects of a business – theoretically this private messaging could replace email. Do I think it will replace email? No. But. This could help customer service on Facebook. There are lots of private things that cannot be discussed on a public Facebook wall, and I think this a step in the right direction for Facebook.

What do you think?

If you’re involved in managing your organization’s online social presence using a tool such as Facebook or the MemberClicks Social Community, you’ve probably asked yourself questions like:

• When should we post? And how often?
• Are there certain words or content that will generate more responses?
• When are members engaging with our content?

That’s why we’ve researched the issue and compiled these tips to help your posting efforts.

1. Post Length: Short And Sweet
Research shows that there is a strong negative correlation between post length and engagement, indicating that the longer the post length, the less engaging readers find it. This supports the traditional best practice that concise copy increases readability and comprehension. Consider this – posts that are between one and eighty characters in length have, on average, a 27% higher engagement rate!

2. Don’t Use URL Shorteners
Though a necessity on a service like Twitter, URL shorteners actually lead to less engagement. Research reveals that engagement rates are three times higher for posts that use a full-length URL. Why is this? It’s because URLs often give people valuable insights into the nature of the link. For instance, the link http://www.memberclicks.com/ security will lead a reader to think that the destination site is owned by MemberClicks and it’s probably related to security, whereas http://tinyurl.com/aBcD tells them nothing. Readers find that context valuable.

3. Best Time To Post
Most posts are made during business hours – between 10 AM and 4 PM. But research indicates that if you post outside of business hours, either early in the morning or later in the afternoon and evening, you’ll have a 20% higher engagement rate. That’s because posts made during those hours appear near the top of readers’ news feeds and activity streams at times when they are more likely to be browsing. Don’t post during the day just because that’s when you’re at work – write posts beforehand and schedule a time to post them later for maximum impact.

4. Best Day To Post
Generally speaking, people are more likely to be reading your posts when they don’t want to be working. Studies indicate that posts made on Thursday and Friday lead to engagement rates that are 18% higher than other days of the week for this very reason. This varies a little by industry, but in general those two days lead to the highest level of engagement. The next best day to post is Sunday, likely due to readers picking up content first thing Monday morning. But be careful about posting on the weekend – Saturday posts lead to the lowest level of engagement. Stick to the very beginning and end of the work week, with perhaps one midweek post to keep readers engaged.

5. Tell Them What You Want
Finally, if you’re trying to increase engagement, be upfront about it. Ask people to “like” you on Facebook. Request feedback to your posts. Ask them to “post” or “comment” or “tell” you something. Research indicates that outright requests like this are the most effective means of soliciting participation. And if you are asking them to do something, be sure to ask the question at the end of the post instead of leading with it. Posts that end with a question have a 15% higher engagement rate than those that have one in the beginning or middle.

As social networks increasingly become key components for communication between organizations and their members, it’s vital that you understand what drives engagement. These tips should help you maximize your posts and increase member engagement.

Getting people to interact and add their own content to an online community might seem like a no-brainer in today’s constantly-changing world. But it requires time, dedication and effort to get it right – online communities often don’t just build themselves.

Here are some tips to help you build and foster your online community and increase member engagement.

1. Provide Tools For Involvement
If you’re building an online community, the first thing that you need to provide are tools for participation. These will vary depending on the purpose of your community but a few of the more popular community-building tools are:

a) User Profiles – Users need to be able to shape their own identity in the online community. Having a customizable profile that they control gives a user a real sense of investment in the community.

b) Community Forums – Online forums and message boards provide a place for users to discuss topics of interest to them. They have the advantage that all content is organized around topics already, making it easy to browse when looking for specific information.

c) Comments or Article Feedback – A great way to stir up participation is to post articlesand allow users to post their own comments in reaction to it. By posting the article, you are guiding the conversation around a topic you choose, as opposed to the forum approach, which is often more free-form.

d) Blogs / User-generated Content – In some cases, you might want to allow your members to write their own articles or blog content. By promoting user-created content or spotlighting the best posts, you directly reward your members for their participation and provide them with a larger forum for their ideas.

2. Make Participation Easy
You could have all the best technological tools, but they wouldn’t do you much good if no one could find them. You need to make it easy to participate. Be sure to include prominent links to your forums. Make it easy to create and update a user profile by featuring easy-to-spot links. If you allow comments on articles, put the comment form on the same page as the article itself, so that users don’t have to navigate away from the content to which they are replying.

If you have a private web community, create a special “Member’s Only” page that each user sees when they log in with their profile. Create links to your forums or to featured articles on this page and update the content regularly so that users will know that it’s regularly maintained. You want to provide plenty of ways for users to find the tools you have available for them.

3. Welcome Newcomers
If your organization often brings in new members, you want to make sure that those newcomers feel empowered to participate. Often, when faced with an existing online community, people are hesitant to jump right in and start commenting. There are several
ways you can help new users overcome this hesitancy. If you have guidelines or rules for posting on your message board, have them clearly labelled and easy-to-find so that newcomers will see them. Ask new users to introduce themselves to break the ice. Encourage established members of the community to welcome and reach out to new members. You want to foster an environment that welcomes members, both new and old.

4. Act On User Suggestions
One of the most overlooked but effective ways of building community involvement is tolisten to the community. Ask them what they’d like to see, what could be improved or what doesn’t work. Encourage feedback through the use of polls and surveys.
But don’t just collect this information – be sure to act on it! Tell your users when you make changes based on their feedback and give them further opportunities to comment on the process. That doesn’t mean you have to enact every suggestion that comes your way, but make an honest effort to evaluate what your membership wants. The more you do this, the more they will know that their voice matters.

5. Engage Users On Their Own Turf
There’s no sense in reinventing the wheel. These days, many people belong to Facebook or Twitter or other social media communities. So your organization should too! Create a Facebook page for your organization and reward members who participate by friending you or posting on your wall. Send out special updates through Twitter that link back to your articles and forums. Connect your online tools to the social media sites your members are already using by cross-linking content between the two. Meet users on their own turf and show them that you are interested in their feedback, no matter what form it takes.

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