Why community is key for Associations to engage members

Arguably one of the most important functions of an association is bringing its industry together to connect, learn and build a strong ecosystem. This is especially important now with many industries facing some of their biggest challenges from skills shortages, material shortages, inflation, natural disaster disruption and more.

As the leading body representing your industry, creating a place for your members to seek assistance, speak openly and ask for support from their peers is a highly valuable tool you can provide them.

Below we share some important considerations when creating member communities to ensure you are providing a quality way for members to connect.

Bring members to you by creating the space

If you don’t provide a space for your members to congregate virtually they will most likely make their own – this is fine but seeing these conversations and participating in them can provide you with great insights.

This also highlights to your members the value you bring by creating multiple avenues for them to meet, learn from and connect with their peers which is one of the main reasons people join associations.

Use a platform that is “owned” by you  

There are so many tools you can use to create a discussion forum / community hub to connect your members. We recommend avoiding Facebook or LinkedIn groups even if you make these private because you don’t have ownership over the channel (Facebook and LinkedIn have the ownership and essentially, they are rented).

These channels can be a problem if Facebook or LinkedIn decide to close the group or your account resulting in you losing access to your members on this platform – there are many reasons this can happen and there is not much you can do to prevent or fix this. Also not everyone uses these channels, so your audience is limited to only members who use these social media platforms.

Using your own platform has many advantages that social tools cannot provide including the ability to customise the look and feel, as well as having it as part of your Association Management System (AMS) and Customer Management System (CMS) package.

Lead the conversation

Managing your own community hub allows you to ask questions of your members to find out what is happening in their organisation, challenges they are facing, what their plans are for the future and where you can offer additional support.

Members want to be heard and understood so taking the time to read through the discussions and using the findings to inform your organisation’s strategy will prove your overall value to members.

Creating a community for your members will keep them engaged with each other, the industry and also your association. This will deliver strong returns for you, especially during renewal time and also help attract new members as industry professionals will feel left out of important conversations if they aren’t a member of your association.