No one knows the value of your association like chapter and component members do. Give them a platform (or two) to share your organization’s story on social media.
American Society of Landscape Architect
Last spring, when the American Society of Landscape Architects invited each of its 49 chapters to take over ASLA’s Instagram account for a day, they weren’t entirely sure what would happen. But the results exceeded their expectations, generating a bounty of fresh content.
The experiment grew ASLA’s Instagram followers by about 10 percent and connected the association with its target market—younger and emerging professionals and college students. Just as important, it gave ASLA the opportunity to engage chapters that hadn’t been very involved with the national organization.
With this campaign, ASLA was, in part, embracing influencer marketing. Association components can be powerful influencers for the organization. Whether organized by geography or by issue, interest, or discipline, components have fans, followers, and the ear of members.
American Nurses Association
The American Nurses Association’s #FitNurseFriday5k campaign also illustrated the power of using members as influencers. When ANA expanded a pilot social media campaign promoting a healthy lifestyle for nurses to engage their local components, their success grew. Adding the state associations to the campaign nearly tripled participation.
Another believer in members as influencers is the Institute of Management Accountants. IMA reached and educated millennials on the benefits of earning the Certified Management Accountant credential by leveraging members from councils, chapters, and accounting academies through a social media-based video contest called “You’ve Got to Earn It!” The campaign added 500,000 people to IMA’s Facebook community.
