There are hundreds of professional associations, representing every imaginable industry and career path. There is even an association for associations (or at least for association executives): ASAE. The ASAE has been advertising itself on TV lately, something I have never seen before. It is doing it mostly on Sunday morning talk shows, and the campaign is called the Power of A.

Associations, like other donor or member-based organizations, have to work to maintain the number of donors or members. A drop is serious, as it means a cut in income. At the same time, these associations or organizations have to work extra hard to entice people to join.

In the last few weeks, several associations I could be a member of because of my profession, have been having membership drives. They are offering one or more of the following:

• Reduced membership costs
• Gifts with membership
• Waived application fees

Do these enticements work? I think the one that works the best is reduced membership costs, IF there is sufficient benefit to joining. And therein lies the problem. Often, these associations have events that are open to the public. Non-members pay more than members.  If you like what you see, and you want to go to more events, perhaps membership is worth it, in pure cash value. However, you can still go when you want even if you aren’t a member. But what else does membership offer? What exclusive, member-only benefits does the association offer? What can you get nowhere else?

In some cases, people want the “cachet” of being a member. Or they want the opportunity to network, or raise their leadership profile by serving on committees and boards. All these are valid reasons to join.  Being an association member shows that you are really  interested in/committed to the field.

Another issue is that there may be several associations representing your field. Which do you choose? In my case, I could be in the American Marketing Association, Public Relations Society of America, International Association of Business Communicators, the Association for Women in Communications, and so forth. For me, the problem is the cost of joining is not subsidized by an employer, since I work for myself.  I have to choose carefully. And yes, the money incentive works. Making it more affordable to join is an incentive.

Bottom line is memberships have to do with cost and value.  Providing sufficient value for members makes membership worthwhile.

What makes you join an association? Is it worth it?

OK, not quite as sexy as Sex, Lies and Videotape…

Lately, I have been reading/hearing a lot about comments on blogs. Most people seem to favor comments. One of the ways we know that people are responding or finding what we write interesting and worthwhile is when we get comments. It is also a way to know what our audience is thinking.  Others are not so keen on allowing comments because there might be some negative or disparaging statements, and opening up you/your organization to what the public thinks.

Clearly, some organizations are more likely to want to know how the audience thinks and some are not so inclined. I would counsel those who want to remain hermetic not to have a blog. A blog, almost by definition, is a forum (it can be internal, but nevertheless it is about exchange of ideas).

Those who are OK with audience interaction should probably have guidelines to govern the comments. In fact, you don’t HAVE to publish each and every comment if you don’t want. Right here on Caffeinated we’ve received some fairly self-serving comments along with some out of left field observations that we have decided to let live in the netherworld.

Courtland Milloy, a columnist at the Washington Post, has a piece in today’s paper about nasty/ignorant/vicious comments. He wants readers to tone down the invective. I agree with him–I have followed some comment streams on opinion pieces and people give wind to the most disagreeable thoughts.  And Milloy argues that even though these commenters are counted as visitors to the site, some advertisers may not want to be associated with them.  Is this true? I am not sure that advertisers/marketers look at comments other than as a numbers game. We all know that there are some kooky people out there who are bored/irritated/deranged and take it out on comments boards. What we endorse as marketers is the content on the site, not the comments.

As marcomm folks, what we need to worry about is our policy for comments.  I don’t think you should discourage comments, but you should make clear that not everything is fair play and that not every utterance will see the light of the blogosphere. You may want to set this out in a terms and conditions somewhere on your blog.

David Griner, in his blog, The Social Path, has had a series of articles on comments. It is worthwhile to read this one, about whether you are LEGALLY liable for comments made on your blog. As I point out above, this type of concern should be part of the policies that govern your site, and something you must consider if you do have a blog.

Your thoughts? Comment, but please no racist, slanderous, sexist remarks!

Copyright 2009 Deborah Brody All Rights Reserved

Keywords. They are the mantra of the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) people.  Some websites are written in a weird, keyword heavy format to make them seem like candy for the search engines.  Websites also have metatags and alt-text and other areas for keywords. Search engines read text, which is why content is king on the Internet. Search engines do not read images, unless they are labeled or tagged.

Some companies set up blogs just to increase their likelihood of being found. And SEO people think you should have keywords there too.

If you ever doubted that keywords are important, then do a little experiment on Twitter. Use a keyword like marketing, writing, or golf (if that is your thing) and see how many people start following you. Yesterday, I re-tweeted a story about the Christian Science Monitor getting rid of its religion reporter (fairly ironic, and that is why I shared it). Guess what, no less than three people of a heavy Christian persuasion started following me. Even though none of my posts and my bio say anything about Christianity. These people were simply keyword surfing and leeched on to the word Christian in Christian Science Monitor.

So, how do you create a list of keywords? Easy.  Start with your industry and work from there. Say you are a civil engineer. You would have the following: engineering, civil engineering, building, and so on. The important thing is to think of variations and related words. If you are in advertising, you would naturally choose marketing, and perhaps sales.  You may also want to include location (city, state, country) and specialties. You may want to use the names of your principals. Just ask yourself: what would people ask if they needed to find me or someone that does what I do?

Final thought: a popular word on this blog has been Twitter. In fact, I am sure if I tagged this article with the word Twitter, I will get plenty of search engine hits. 

UPDATE: A GenY blogger, Josh Groth made some great comments. (His blog is http://echodemic.blogspot.com/) Please read them in the comment section. But some stuff he pointed out is that GenY uses email for business communications and Facebook for personal use. They look stuff up on Wikipedia when they don’t understand something. And they subscribe to magazines. I would love more input from anybody else out there who is a GenY person.

Full disclosure: I am a member of Generation X.  I have been “fortunate” to meet many members of GenY and have come across some universal behavior that impact communications with this young group of people.

GenY loves to text. In fact, if you want a GenYer to respond to you, you should send a text first. Do not call and do not email.

GenY loves Facebook. Well, so do many other people, but GenY is the first generation to adopt Facebook, and it could be argued, it was designed for them.

GenY does not read printed materials as in a daily newspaper. Online baby! Yes, they read the Washington Post/NY Times/LA Times, but ONLINE only. I would venture to guess that the subscription level among this group for printed newspaper hovers near 0%.

Other things to bear in mind when communicating with a 20-something:

Frame of reference. They are not historically minded and will not get a reference to Ronald Reagan or LP records or anything that happened prior to 1990.

They tend to be conflict-averse. GenY has been brought up to get along well with others (thanks to Rodney King and other influencers). If they don’t like you (your product, your service) they won’t argue or discuss, they will IGNORE.  You probably won’t get much feedback unless you ask them nicely. Via text.

Their social mores are more fluid than previous generations. They aren’t easily shocked.

Any other tips for communicating with GenY? Please comment.

If you are a media buyer, and you are given the choice of only the online edition or the print edition of your local daily newspaper, which do you choose? Kind of a tricky question, right?

Last week, I attended a panel on business news and media, specifically tailored for public relations people. One of the panelists was the tech writer at the Washington Post. He told us how his column on personal tech runs in the paper on Sunday but is posted online on Friday.  When I heard this I thought that the Post is cannibalizing itself. After all, if you can get the exact same content plus  links and commentaries, online, why ever would you subscribe to the Post? (Note to self: think about whether I should cancel Post subscription).

But, apparently, the two editions (print and online) have different audiences. Most people who exclusively read online NEVER read the print edition, and those who read the print edition will only go to the online version when they want more information. This is what came out of a survey of the attendees to this panel (put on by the Washington Network Group Communications Roundtable).

What online offers that print does not is a multimedia experience, plus more (more info, links, comments, blogs).  Online is also more current, updated frequently and that is what people expect.

Another panelist, the editor for the Washington Business Journal, said that they do have different content online than on the print edition, and it is more updated. However, they just started a blog, get this, TWO WEEKS ago.  But WBJ may have an older base, who still wants the print edition and may not even visit the online edition.

Bottom line to answer the question is this:  is the online version better than the print version? And, what is your core target audience? If the online version is better, and has a better readership, certainly buy online only. If the online version is a skeleton version of the print, buy the print. And ultimately, look at the audience numbers. You want to buy where most of your audience is.

Your thoughts and experiences welcome!

Does your business have a tagline? If yes, does it accurately convey what you do?  If not, why not?

Every business should have a tagline, no doubt. A tagline is an additional bit of information that clarifies what you do to your potential customers. Now, a tagline is not a motto. Webster’s defines a motto as “a short expression of a guiding principle.”  A motto could be something generic, like “we always do our best,” which can be seen as something your employees rally around but that does not communicate anything about what your business does.

What is a slogan? Webster’s gives three definitions: 1) a war cry; 2) phrase used to express a characteristic position or goal; 3) attention-getting phrase used in promotion.  Clearly definition number 1 is not what we are after. And the difference between two and three is really the difference between a slogan and a tagline. A slogan should be unchanging, something that is more universal (your goals or your purpose) and your tagline can change for a particular ad campaign. And yes, a slogan and a tagline can be one and the same.

For instance, if you are a hospital or clinic, your slogan might be your commitment to a healthy future for all. If you are running an ad campaign, you might focus on a certain aspect of your practice like cardiology and your tagline might focus on helping patients achieve heart health. All the while your motto could be something about maintaining  the highest standard in hygienic practices.

So, how do you develop a tagline? First make sure you are not developing a motto.  Be more specific about what you are trying to communicate about your product or service.

Steps:

1) Understand your product or service and its USP. This seems fairly obvious but you would be surprised at how very few people can communicate succintly what they do. You might start with a short description of your product and service. Think about attributes, descriptors and differentiators

2) Brainstorm. Write out 10-20 short lines (5-10 words) about your product or service. Incorporate some descriptors and attributes from above.

3) Evaluate. Which is catchy? Which is comprehensive? Which is too generic? Eliminate anything that is cliche, generic, or just doesn’t say enough.

4) Narrow down your list to 3-5 choices and show them to your principal stakeholders.

5) Have a vote. Generally, one tagline will emerge as the best one.

One more thing. People often confuse  logo and slogan. A logo is a GRAPHIC representation of your slogan/motto.  A logo is never a written piece. And logos are best left to design professionals. I would strongly counsel you to not try doing this at home!

Nothing in the online universe is more annoying than spam. This past week, my email host was not working properly and a lot of spam got through. As I was busy deleting unwanted email, I got to thinking about what spammers do that works and what they do that doesn’t.

What works:

1) Spammers know exactly what they are selling (online drugs, weight loss promises and other items).

2) Identifying the keywords associated with their product and focus on those words.

3) Trying again and again.

4) Using official-looking return addresses to look legitimate

5) Personalizing emails (which is scary but effective)

What does not work

1) Typos and spelling/grammar mistakes  in the subject line

2) Using foul language

3) Not targeting

Most spam does a bit of both these lists, which is why, ultimately, many of us don’t open this junk. You may wonder why they keep trying. Simple: it costs next to nothing to send these emails out. And there are always people looking for a fix, so someone must click on these emails.

Do you open spam? Do you report spam? Have you ever seen a great spam subject line? If you have, let me know in the comments.

We judge people by their appearance

Have you heard about the lastest YouTube sensation? Apparently, on the show “Britain’s Got Talent,” a woman who is not a) young; b) thin or c) beautiful wowed the judges, because, get this, she can sing.  The show is about talent, and yet the woman was pre-judged on her appearance.

While I think that judging talent by appearance is not wise, it remains part of how the world operates. We do judge the book by its cover. What does this mean for your marketing?

Evaluate what people are seeing about you: website, brochure, business cards, etc.  Will people think you have less talent because your website is outdated or your cards have typos?

Are you projecting what you want people to think? I have written before about this, but if you have a dated look (a website designed in the 90s) are people going to think you are  “with it?”  If you are a graphic designer and you have no samples on your website, what does that say?

Appearance is easy to fix. Talent/quality is a lot harder.

Does change frighten you?

If so, you are not alone. Many people are so frightened of change that they cling to outmoded things.  For some people, it is that shoulder-padded 1980s look that keeps them grounded. In business, especially the marketing business, resistance to change may not look as jarring as a 1980s ensemble, but it still causes plenty of pain.

The only constant is change

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, change is constant. Technology is especially fond of change and this kind of change is not only hard to deal with but expensive. Upgrade to Vista anyone?  A few years ago, we would have never dreamed that we would be communicating with each other in warp speed via text messages or Twitter, but yet here we are.

I have noticed that many people in the marketing industry resist change. Some PR practitioners may stil insist on sending out press releases via fax or regular mail. Some may keep their website static, never updating. Many scoff at Twitter or blogs or Facebook, thinking that they are flavor of the moment and quickly gone.

Whether Twitter will be here a year from now is debatable, but what is not debatable is that it changes the way people communicate and connect. If anything has derived from the new social media world, is how close connections can be to anyone anywhere. One can be in contact with an Australian designer or a French writer. And the other reality is that there is more information out there than ever before. It IS hard to keep up. But ignoring it because you don’t like it will not make it go away. I have heard many people say they “don’t have time for blogs or for Twitter.” Do you also not have time for the news and for email? My point is that the way people are communicating and learning is changing, and by resisting that change, especially if you are a marketing person, you are staying behind the times.

This reminds me of a friend who refuses to be on Facebook. She and I were catching up and she relayed information about a mutual friend, whom I haven’t spoken to in a while. I told her I already knew. She wondered how I knew. I told her I saw it on Facebook.  The point is people communicate with each other via social media, and it is necessary for marketing people to understand where people find out things.

Let me know what things you are resisting, and why. I really want to know!

It’s on the minds of people everywhere: should I Tweet on Twitter? Some people think it is silly. Some people think it is stupid. Some people think it is a waste of time. I even saw a letter to the editor in the Washington Post where some guy was saying that he was above hearing all about how people enjoyed breakfast or whatever (he must be down to brass tacks guys, because God knows, in real life everybody talks about extremely important stuff all the time).  Well folks,  in order to answer this question, I have decided to let you see what other people out in the blogosphere think about it:

Janet Fouts from Social Media Enabler,   says it is worth it.(I found this post through Social Media Today, worth a look through if you are interested in this topic)

Neil Patel from QuickSprout sees pros and cons.

Copyblogger says you can grow your business with Twitter and that you can improve your writing with it.

Work it Mom is in favor of Twitter

And finally, Chris Winfield uses Twitter to find out if it is a time waster or not.

And me? I think you can’t beat the ROI. Twitter is free, and if I learn something it is totally worth it, and if I am wasting my time, it is also worth it.

Thoughts from the peanut gallery?