Hi. My name is KiKi L'Italien (I'm the one on the left) and I am an association addict. I have worked for associations or been in the association industry for 12 years and for several of those years I've been focused on social media strategy. Now, what does that mean? That means that instead of my brain looking like this...

...it looks like this...

That's right. I now only have a giant QR code in my head. Every time a synapse fires off, a new URL floats across my eyes. It's obscene.

After years of exploring the delights and mysteries of social media, moving all the way from Prodigy and aol chat rooms, MySpace, and Hi5 to Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat; creating profiles over and over and over again...here is how I most often feel about social media.

Because there is only so much we can take, right?

Fact: We know social media is a popular form of communication now

...

Fact: Because social media is a popular form of very public communication, it makes sense we need to pay attention to it - in fact Association Trends found that MOST associations are involved in some kind of social media across all sectors of industry

...

Fact: Even though most associations are using social media, most associations do not have a strategy behind their social media efforts

Fact: Because social media is a popular form of very public communication, it makes sense we need to pay attention to it - in fact Association Trends found that MOST associations are involved in some kind of social media across all sectors of industry

Fact: Even though most associations are using social media, most associations do not have a strategy behind their social media efforts

This is madness, my friends. In the short amount of time we have together, I want to take you from chaos to calm. Think of this as less a Social Media Bootcamp and more of a Social Media Meditation.

Moving from meditation to prayer, let us consider the basics...

Everything that your organization does with social media needs to fall back on these three pillars: Monitoring, Policy, and Having a Plan.

You fail in any of these areas, and things can go terribly, terribly wrong.

For instance, you fail to consider monitoring and you risk missing out on crucial information about your organization or your industry.

In other words, over 90% of people are talking ABOUT your organization and not TO your organization.

You have to look BEYOND direct mentions and track all variations of your brand name. Use a tool that can track that is probably more robust and reliable than everyone's favorite Google Alerts.

I love Mention, but you may have other favorites for tracking.

Monitoring is the very basic, first responsibility in social that you need to have. If someone tries to reach out to your association online and you aren't listening, it's as if someone is calling you and you are failing to pick up the telephone.

Pay attention to your social media mentions. Be a part of the industry conversation. Be there when your members call.

Failing to have a policy doesn't keep your association's employees from using social media. Instead of thinking about a social media policy in a restrictive way, think of it as enabling your staff to use social media responsibly.

Develop a company-wide policy that clearly defines acceptable (and unacceptable) behavior in social media, and dictates how employees can communicate your brand culture, voice, and message.

Your Executive Director just took a shot at the company barbecue? Does your staff know what *not* to do with the photo evidence?

Training your employees on social media policy is an important way to mitigate your risk...

and if all of this sounds depressing and you have no idea where to start,

PolicyTool is a great free website that will help you create a social media policy in a matter of minutes by walking you through a questionnaire online and producing a great starting point for your association's social media policy.

Remember what I mentioned earlier about a majority of associations using social media, but not having a plan to support it? What good are the tools when you don't know what you are building?

Having a social media plan, even a simple one, is so important for making social media work for your association - and its as easy as using Forrester's POST Methodology to walk you through designing your social media plan.

It's almost funny how the more technical we get, the more involved with our gadgets and technology, the more we forget about the importance of sitting down with a piece of paper - yeah, I'm going analog - and figuring out the steps we need to take to organize that technology.

So here are the quick and easy steps - the things you need to know - about the POST Methodology.

The first step in the POST Methodology is considering your audience, or People.

Who are you trying to reach? Who are your audiences?

Look at your demographics and psychographics to better understand them. The more you know about them, the clearer you can answer questions like what kind of devices do they use for email and social? How do they prefer to communicate? What hours are they most likely working or at home? When will your messages have a better chance of reaching them? Which social media outposts are they most likely to use?

Once you've thought about the people involved then you want to think about why you are reaching out to them in the first place.

What are your Objectives? What are you trying to accomplish by reaching out to your members? To the public? To your legislators? Don't just think you know them, or your social media person knows them, WRITE THEM DOWN. Take the time to think about them one by one.

What is it that you are really trying to achieve.

The clearer you can be, the more effective your social media efforts will be.

How will you accomplish your objectives?

What Social Media STRATEGIES do you plan to implement? Will you have a Twitter profile, a LinkedIn profile, a Facebook Fan Page, start a blog, join a Facebook Group? Which ones have priority over others?

T is for technology, or the tools you will use. Out of your entire time spent working on your social media plan, only about 10% really needs to be spent on the tools. This is completely backwards from the way most organizations look at social media when they start out the process by saying, "we need to be on Twitter."

Following the POST Methodology will help to simplify the planning process for how you will make your social media work for you in the most effective way possible.

And in a way that won't suck...which leads me to my final point in this social media bootcamp.

Be creative! We are living in a time when any of us can be creators of great content. We have these amazing tools at our disposal to help get the message out about our associations.

For God's sake, use every color in your crayon box.

Whether it's LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Bebo, Vine...dear God, pick your tool and don't just use it to recreate another version of your press release...create something fresh and unique!

This is what makes me want to pull my hair out when looking at the state of social media today. It's time to get creative!

More video is being consumed than ever. More buying decisions are being made by executives based on video. We know that YouTube is one of the top search engines in the world. How creative are you with your video content?

Finally, bring passion to whatever you do.

Maybe you are passionate about your industry...maybe you are passionate about your members...maybe not. But find what drives you and make it count. Care about what you are spending time on. If you are doing social media, don't just DO social media, but BECOME a social media enabled Association! That is what will take you from good to great. That is what will set you apart from your competitors. That is what will make a difference in the world.

Thank you.