Tweets, Blogs, Podcasts,and More: Associations Need Web 2.0

More than ever before, people get news and information through an explosion of interactive social networking channels. Yet a Reingold survey found many associations are missing enormous opportunities to use Web 2.0 to reach target audiences nationwide.

Most associations serve as one of the most valuable voices for their profession or cause, educating, advocating, and working to get their message on the national stage. Is your voice being heard? By the audiences that matter most? How do you know?

It's not enough to simply put the message out. Associations compete with a growing universe of online information sources—some with carefully masked agendas—that engage audiences in a responsive two-way dialogue. No one can "control" this continuous conversation, but savvy organizations use Web 2.0 to help shape it and connect with the people they need to engage.

Reingold surveyed associations large and small to find out whether and how they've responded to this sea change in the communications landscape and embraced powerful Web 2.0 tools. Here's what we learned:

Interest is high, but implementation is limited. More than 90 percent of respondents say they're participating in some form of social marketing and networking, but most of them have only begun to understand how to effectively use these strategies. For example, the role of their websites in leveraging Web 2.0 tools lends interesting insights:

• Just 29 percent of respondents describe their website as "an interactive communications tool." If an association's website doesn't engage members and stakeholders, where do those key audiences go for news and information—and what messages do they hear when they get there?
• Only 12 percent of respondents say they have "aggressive" search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to boost their website's rankings on popular search engines, while 25 percent don't even track these rankings or perform any SEO to improve them. Sadly for them, "if you build it, they will come" is only true in the movies.

Many listen, but few engage. Most respondents are monitoring the social network dialogue on their areas of interest rather than driving—or even contributing to—the conversation. And only about one-third of them use online discussion forums as a communications tactic to directly connect with their audiences on a deeper level. They're overlooking the tremendous impact of social networking. For example, a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that in the healthcare arena, online communities empower patients by "transforming everyday individual experiences into usable knowledge."

Most focus on members. Almost 80 percent of respondents said they use Web 2.0 primarily for member education and outreach, while fewer than half of respondents use Web 2.0 tactics to connect association members with their customers or the general public. Associations squander a formidable asset—their membership—if they don't arm these potential champions with information and messages and give them access to social networks that have the power to expand exponentially.

Is your association making the most of Web 2.0? Reingold can help you find out—and harness the capabilities of interactive tools, social networking channels, and search engine optimization and marketing. Click here to see what we've done for associations like yours.