Young Association Professionals (YAP) yapstar.org

Hi, everyone! It's great to be a part of this group.

I work for the Maryland Association of CPAs. We have about 10,000 members and 35 staff. I co-write and edit our blog (http://www.CPASuccess.com), and I produce and edit our podcast, CPA Spotlight. I also manage our Twitter and Facebook accounts and hope to expand our social reach into some niche networks in the near future.

Oh, and I might add with a bit of pride, I'm a newly minted CAE!

Looking forward to sharing resources and advice with y'all. And thanks, Maddie, for launching this group!

Hi everyone!

Well, I'm on day 7 at the National Brain Tumor Society as their Online Media Manager. We have about 40-50 staff split between a Boston and a San Francisco office (I'm in Boston, which means I get to enjoy winter...).  I'm still diving into a lot of different aspects of my job, but managing social media is going to be one of them (and yes, it's in the job description :))!  We have a small Facebook presence that hasn't been promoted much as of yet, and thus has a lot of potential.  We don't have a Twitter presence yet, but part of my job will be to look at what other platforms we should be using, so I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up there soon!  So, it's probably not surprising that at the top of my To-Do list is "STRATEGY."

Prior to NBTS I was the Web and E-Learning Manager at Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research where I managed all of the e-learning efforts (webinars, conference proceedings), as well as the website and social networking/blogs.

I'm really looking forward to contributing to, and learning from, this group!

Anne

Hello folks!

I'm the Communications Specialist for the National Association of Dental Plans. We're a small staff (Only seven!) but we represent 82% of the dental insurance policy holders in the U.S. I'm in charge of all of our Twitter, blog, Facebook, e-Community, newsletters and various Web sites as well as our online education platform. I also do the proofreading and layouts so everything can look it's finest when it goes out.

For those of you that don't know, every Tuesday at 2PM Eastern we have an association tweetchat that all are welcome to join. Just do a twitter search for #assnchat to see what we're talking about.

I'll also take a minute to promote Kiki L'Italien's Social Media Sweet Spot for Associations - It's a live Ustream that happens every Friday at noon (right now!)

Greetings YAP Stars!

I'm Director of Marketing and Communications for Drake & Company, an association management firm based in St. Louis, Mo. We have 23 staff working with nine association clients, most focused in agriculture, medicine and consumer products.

Social media is a central to our client and company marketing strategies. I'm responsible for the @DrakeCo twitter, two of our blogs (one is blog.drakeco.com) and managing the DrakeCo Facebook and LinkedIn pages.

But social media responsibilities are also shared across our staff. We're actively researching the best methods of using social media platforms to reach our client and company audiences, promote our organizations and educate the public.

While many of you will be enjoying the ASAE Tech Conference, I'll be on a social media panel with Jamie Notter, Steve Drake and Jim Quick at the AMC Institute annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas, Feb. 10.

YAP is awesome, btw. What a great resource. Look forward to hearing more from you folks!

Hi all,

Not sure I "qualify" anymore... Was the executive director of the International Game Developers Association for nearly 9 years (yes, the folks that create everything from Call of Duty to Farmville).

Given our tech savvy membership, we were using social media tools and approaches before it was all known as social media. From web forums and online profiles, and mailing lists to blogs, complete web based AMS integrated fully with the website itself, etc. Heck, I personally installed Mediawiki on our server when one of our SIGs needed a collaborative sandbox to play in.

So, it's all kinda second nature to me and the IGDA members. So much so that a member started a Facebook group for the org and amassed 3000+ members before myself or staff were even aware of it (aka invited to join)!!

Anyway, I stepped down in March 09 and have been a freelance consultant since. I'm mostly working in the game space. Was thinking I could drum up some interesting projects in the association world, but I think execs see me as way too radical... (not just on the social media stuff, but also exploding the traditional membership model, different ways to govern, etc).

Actually, I had a feature article in Associations Now last July that covered the unconventional stuff we did at IGDA:

http://www.asaecenter.org/PublicationsResources/ANowDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=43358

Fun stuff :)

Jason

Hi everyone! I'm the online community & social media manager for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) in Rockville, MD. I'm in charge of leading the association's social media efforts--listening to what's being said about us/our members; triaging stuff that staff needs to be aware of and/or requires a response; managing our Linkedin group, Twitter accounts, Facebook page, forums on our website, etc.; evangelizing/providing training related to social media both internally and to state associations, etc. Also now getting involved in some intranet stuff, which is cool--and in the process of feeling out whether launching a blog is something everyone is up for.

I'll be presenting with Lynn Morton at Great Ideas--even if you're not attending you'll be able to participate in our session virtually!

My favorite resources for social media information specific to associations (aside from Socialfish, of course!) are 1) the Association Social Media All-Stars Google group--Ben Martin set it up and I can't say enough about it as a resource. Doing social media for associations is a challenge and the people in the group are really smart and are great at giving advice or even just listening to you vent, if needed. Contact Ben Martin if you're interested in joining--it's free but he has to approve you. And 2) The Community Roundtable, which does cost money--frankly, more than most association memberships--but I find it totally worth it (and I had to pay for it myself so that's saying a lot!).  I am the only association person in there and would love some company!!

Nice to see everyone here!

Hello all

I am the Director of Communications for the California Park & Recreation Society. We have a membership of 4,000. Full-time staff of eight and three part-time. CPRS has members in nearly 85% of all park and recreation agencies in California.

We are just starting into the social media world (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Linkedin). We also launched back in July 2009 an internal social networking platform from GoLightly.

While social media is not "officially" part of my job description (it didn't exist when I was hired 10 years ago), it is quickly becoming a major focus of my job.

I am always on the look out for any best practices from other associations. Dont' be surprised if you see my popping up on your groups to see what you are doing.

Hey everyone!

I am the New Media Writer for the American College of Radiology and the American Roentgen Ray society (ACR recently merged -- ahem, "strategically integrated" -- with ARRS). We have about 34,000 memebers in ACR and 20,000 in ARRS (some overlap), and our staff is 200+. We also have state chapters.

We officially dove into social media in June 2009 and have set up shop on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. I took over for ARRS (which had a light FB, T presence) in August and am trying to get them to see the same success ACR has. They have a scientific meeting coming up in May (something ACR does not have) so I am currently working on our strategy for incorporating social media into the meeting.

Yes, social media is part of my job description, although the first year or so I was employed here was more educating people about what social media was. Implementation came after many many presentations, writing of guidelines, and of course convincing!

I am open to any suggestions from those who have used social media during their annual meetings (especially a scientific one)! I won't physically be at the meeting, which will be a challenge, so I'm trying to plan as much ahead of time as I possible can!

Stephanie
@saltzberg on Twitter

Hi Everyone! I am the Social Media Manager and Program Specialist for AARP in Maryland. Right now we have over 850,000 members and over 40 State Chapters.

Social media is a tool recently implemented to our members (Facebook and Twitter). Those of you who are familiar with AARP know that is a 50+ plus organization so social media has been a great way to reach out to the Baby Boomer segments. One of my projects that has been challenging and a great learning experience is to train Chapter members ( majority 65+) on how to use Facebook and Twitter.

I am always looking for trainings, best practices and social media meetings.

Sarah

@Shep1815 on Twitter

Greetings.

I'm editor of Online Content for the Canadian Medical Association (70,000+ voluntary members). Through default I also have become our internal champion for social media and was heavily involved in developing and now maintaining Asklepios, our social networking site for Canadian physicians.

After 18 month I now have finally also been able to get a staff person and resources to support the site. I also do a fair bit of work in the EMR/EHR world supporting doctors in moving to an electronic environment.

(Will get myself organized to upload a photo here soon)

Pat Rich

pat.rich@cma.ca

Hello everyone!

I just started my new role yesterday as the Manager, Social Networking & Online Communities for the Society for Human Resource Management.  We have about 350 staff, over 250,000 members, and chapters/state councils/international networks.  We have offices in Alexandria, India, and China.  I am based in Alexandria, VA.

My position oversees our internal social networking site - bringing the members into our site - promoting our content, conferences, products, etc.  We also have a social media staff member in our public affairs office that oversees the LinkedIn, FaceBook, and Twitter - the external social media.  We work closley together in our roles.

I have been with SHRM for over 9 years - previously I was in our Member Services division.  I truly see social media as the future of associations.  Social Networking is an extension of engaging the members - bringing them together to share, discuss, and build the content for the organization.

Whoo hoo!  Congrats Anne-Margaret!  That's awesome.