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11/20/2018

Lessons Journalism Teaches Us About Membership and Engagement

There is much to learn

Remember when I wrote about how journalism was scrambling to find a sustainable path forward as brands continue to shift their ad spend to digital giants Facebook and Google? And how that path forward is the same one that associations have always relied on: membership?

Well, it’s been about 18 months and the Membership Puzzle Project is well underway, and a lot of the takeaways so far are also really relevant to associations–especially when it comes to community and engagement. This recent update summarizes what the project team learned from their latest member research; this post goes into why they did it and this helpful guide details how they did it. Gotta love these people for their thoroughness and transparency!

In terms of the why, I love this quote:“There’s a great untapped resource in journalism, and it’s available to journalists right now. It’s the experience and expertise of your readers.”Just substitute “members” for “readers” and the same holds true for associations…but I wonder how many have lost sight of the truth of this statement. The experience and expertise of readers–or in the case of associations, members–is rightfully seen as extremely important to journalists, but how many associations feel the same way? I’m not talking about just BOD members and other volunteer leaders; I’m talking about MEMBERS as in all members. How many associations that you or I belong to take this attitude and value all members? And not just lip-service but genuinely value?

Please select this link to read the complete blog post from MizzInformation.

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