What if associations started looking at what college admissions offices are doing to recruit students these days, using some of these techniques as models for recruiting young members?

Can I please take a moment to explain how psyched I am about Acronym’s “What if” concept they’ve got going on right now? Well, I am. The comments on the original post were great, and I love the compiled list so much I’m using it as inspiration for today’s post.

My youngest sister will be applying to college next year, and even though I applied years ago, I have a sneaking suspicion the process has changed immensely.

True, my own process was centered on the Internet – I never experienced the thrill of running to the mailbox after school, excited to find a fat envelope or dismayed to see a thin one. I found about my acceptance to UGA online, and it included animated fireworks and a big “Congratulations!” banner.

Facebook certainly wasn’t around when I applied to college, but the majority of the process did take place via the Internet. Hard copies of my transcript and recommendation letters were mailed, but everything else was digital.

Now, students are presented with links to universities’ Facebook and Twitter pages before they apply. High schoolers are even “friending” college admissions officers on Facebook! (I’m sure there are tons of ethical implications there, but associations likely wouldn’t have that problem.) Many admissions offices created Facebook pages in recent years because the economy made it difficult for prospective students and their families to visit schools.

According to the First Longitudinal Study of Social Media and College Admissions (conducted by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research), 41 percent of admissions offices at four-year colleges and universities have blogs, which is ahead of every other industry. Additionally, the study found that colleges and universities are using social media to recruit and research potential students.

College admissions offices deal with young people every day, and as young people are consistently plugged in (one billion text messages are sent per day in the U.S.), admissions officers have had to step up their game when it comes to recruitment.

As 2009 comes to a close, I strongly urge association professionals to take a look at this survey (available here as a PDF). In order to continue recruiting members in the future, associations must be able to relate to younger generations. Many young people think direct mail is a waste of paper and harmful to the environment, and will often respond better to a follow on Twitter. Future members are growing up with these new technologies. Associations would be wise to take a look at their recruiting processes and decide whether young people will respond or not.

(Photo by Glen Cooper/Getty Images)

Happy Friday and Happy (almost) Halloween! I’ll be back on Monday with a full recap of our own office Halloween celebration, including the top three costumes! (The photo to the left is from Halloween 2008.)

But until Monday, here’s some reading material for the weekend!

1. I don’t think this post is actually from this past week, but it is from October! It’s a great forward-thinking view from Jeffrey Cufaude asking what your annual meeting will look like in 2014. Remember to reinforce the core of the meeting, maximize systems and templates, enable more eyes and more initiative and use feedback to experiment and refine.

2. I loved Leslie White’s guest post on the SocialFish blog this week about policies in associations. Leslie gives some great tips and suggestions for crafting your association’s social media policy. My favorites? Avoid absolutes, make it enforceable, be friendly and be consistent.

3. Check out this great post on SmartBlog Insights by Mark Buzan about recruiting members in the Facebook age. There’s more information than ever before at our fingertips, but how to use it? It’s also easier to network these days with LinkedIn, Facebook and other social networks, and this post gives great suggestions for making sure associations remain valuable to members.

4. Brian Birch at ASAE and The Center’s Acronym blog admits his control freak tendencies and asks others if they share similar qualities. I can definitely relate to a few of them — in school, I was always the leader (and primary worker) in group projects. But it’s so crucial to remember that delegating isn’t a bad thing, and neither is change. And I’ve learned the best ideas usually come while brainstorming with more than just one or two people.

5. Steve Drake reminds us that Twitter is more than 140 characters and gives some great examples of how his association has used Facebook and Twitter. It’s important to note that he says he learned by “trial and error” and that he’s not a “Twitter expert” (who is?). But he keeps TweetDeck open all day to get real-time updates from his followers and other keywords for his organization. Kudos!

Don’t forget — there’s still time to enter our contest to win a free copy of Seth Godin’s “Tribes.” See this post for more information, but it ends at 6 p.m. ET today, Oct. 30.

We at MemberClicks hope everyone has a happy Halloween! And don’t forget to “fall back” on Sunday — set your clocks back one hour for Daylight Saving Time.

I did some digging on YouTube and found this video from ASAE & The Center. Although it was posted in November 2008, the video includes some great reminders as it discusses the book, “The Decision to Volunteer” by Monica Dingnam and Beth Gazley. In Dingnam and Gazley’s study, they talked directly to association volunteers to give staff members insight into retention and recruitment. In the video, Gazley, a professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, highlights key points associations should remember.