Most of you are probably familiar with Twitter and its 140-character tweets. An added photo makes the tweet much more appealing. As you grow ever-dependent on social media to expand your member base, opportunities are being constantly developed. Now, your audience on Twitter can simply sign up for your email list without having to leave Twitter, or even download your association's app right from Twitter. You can plan out an article and a photo to go alongside each and every tweet.

There are many ways you can put your advertising budget to good use, and LinkedIn is one of them. Advertising on LinkedIn is undoubtedly an excellent choice for many associations. However, it's often overlooked by media planners and marketers. This is mainly because they lack an understanding of the value LinkedIn has to offer as a marketing platform. 

I'm happy to see that our association market is starting to pick up the thread on using personas to grow and focus. Personas are a great tool for getting into the right mindset (#1 issue in associations that are holding them back from growing in my professional opinion) of modern marketing. They are also great at aligning departments to get over internal egos that are causing your communications to come off as greedy.

I live in DC and despite being a very powerful world capital with no end to diversity, I still have to fight the Political Correctness Good Girl Voices that tell me we can look something straight in the face and pretend we don't see it. In light of this week's NAACP Spokane story whereby the leader chose to be black, I have to ask: when are we comfortable enough to get real about diversity, race and being able to acknowledge reality? I think the interpretation and handling of diversity is of particular importance to associations as they need to quickly define (redefine?) the critical question:

What is Reality?

Is your organization being real about the state of your target growth populations? Are you looking at the impact of culture on future member's tastes and preferences? Are you understanding the level of diversity and how much impact the fusion of cultures has had on mainstream America? 

Last week I was at ASAE's MMCC 2015, which is starting to gather numbers large enough to put it squarely on the list of Important Annual Conferences Not to Miss. With over 1,000 attendees, this was the biggest MMCC ever, but as Dave Martin's event wrap-up blog notes, the conference has lots of areas for improvement (don't we all?).