With 4 to 6 billion video views a day, Snapchat is shoring up to be the fastest growing social media network in the world.  A hot topic and popular session at ASAE's Marketing, Membership and Communication Conference, lead by Nicholas Mattar, Director of Marketing at the Detroit Regional Chamber discussed this very fact. Mattar walked attendees through a fun and interactive learning lab session on Snapchat, offering a tutorial for new users, and discussing best practices. By integrating Snapchat into your organizations larger social media strategy, Mattar articulates that you will be able to increase brand awareness while also showing tangible revenue on investment to stakeholders.

In a digital world it is integral to always be in the know. But how does one find the time to scour the web for the latest and greatest while holding down a 9-5? I have two words for you, Google Alerts. Google Alerts will send you e-mail notifications about anything and everything. Want to know every time your company is talked about on the web? Simply program an alert and get informed the moment it happens! Here are three powerful ways to use Google Alerts as a tool:

The most common model of marketing in associations has inherently been multi-channel marketing. Nearly every organization and association practices multi-channel marketing, interacting with users on different digital channels and devices. Multi-channel marketing has a distributional approach of sending out information to users in a multitude of ways. Multi-channel marketing, although a traditional method of marketing, does not allow organizations to understand how the user connected, how to measure each interaction, or if the user had multiple touchpoints. Because of these shortcomings there has been a fundamental shift in mindset to focus on the user, also known as the U.

As mentioned in my previous blog, Why We Love Metrics (And You Should, Too!), I am back to talk more about metrics! In case you missed it, metrics can provide associations with a valuable measuring tool to gain member insight for future action and implementation. Metrics can measure progress, quality, efficiency, performances, and more. In order to group metrics and turn them into insights, a framework gives a baseline on how to do so. The framework goes as follows; awareness, participation, engagement, advocacy. This gives organizations the ability to track and nurture users and better understand how they are interacting, and therefore, how to respond in an appropriate manner.