One of the main goals for any association is keeping membership levels high.  Recruiting new members and retaining current members requires multiple strategies.  If you're feeling pressure to boost member engagement and increase membership, here is a helpful article from our partner Aptify.  The article, written by Jennifer Barrell, gives six proven strategies to increase member engagement.  The strategies range from the use of metrics, social media, and member forums to utilizing segmentation, responsive web design, and education.  The article explains each strategy and why they work.

Social media is a rapidly evolving world.  As marketers, we continue to be challenged by new social channels and changing consumer preferences.  Below are six social media trends to be aware of in 2016.  

LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network on the internet.  With more than 259 million members, LinkedIn connects the world's professionals, including executives from every Fortune 500 company.  If you missed our LinkedIn Toolkit or would like to review it again, it is always available on HighRoad U.  Learn best practices to grow your business by using LinkedIn.

With trends ever increasing in online education it’s important to ask if your organization is using eLearning Best Practices.  While eLearning is continuously evolving, some of the foundations of teaching and learning remain constant, yet it’s important to make sure you are also keeping up with new trends in the market of digital learning. Making sure your organization is following the Best Practices in online education will increase learner retention and customer satisfaction.  Here are Five Best Practices to help learner success: 

Marketing automation tools can free up your staff from time-consuming, manual processes, so they can spend that time nurturing quality leads instead.  If you are curious about who has what to offer in marketing automation,CIO has a good article that may help.

Based on the reviews of users from the IT Central Station Community, a comparison is drawn between Act-On, HubSpot, and Marketo.  In no particular order, beginning with Act-On, the valuable features users listed were analytics & reporting, social integration, CRM integration, and the ability to segment visitors based on behavior and lead score.  

Next was HubSpot, which users cited email automation, workflow automation, a social tracking module, and lead nurturing workflows as valuable features.  Last but not least was Marketo, who users listed email drip campaigns, and automated customer outreach from sign-up to upgrade as valuable.  If you're thinking about marketing automation solutions, this comparison will help you start to understand what the marketing automation landscape looks like, who are the software industry leaders and what features you need.

If you are trying to understand what is a good fit for your organization, consider talking to one of our digital marketing experts to provide some starting points and guidance:

Social media is an integral part of any good digital marketing strategy and there are many social platforms to choose from.  The Infographic below lists the top nine social networks for business and how to best utilize them.