Buzz2009 Social Media For Associations--Why I Wish I Was Going

Right now I should be battling traffic on my way to BlogPotomac but, because I don't want to go down in the bad mom hall of fame as being the mom who chose a blogger conference over her son's grade-school graduation, I'm not going. I did slog through traffic hell to go to the happy hour last night, but since I didn't know anyone there, I totally forgot the names and faces of the people I'd vowed to go say hi to and beat a pretty hasty retreat. Such is life. I did meet a few nice people, though, so all wasn't lost.

The heartbreak of my summer, though, will be if I don't get to attend Buzz2009 Social Media for Associations. I've already blogged about the reasons I'm so obsessed with going: a) it's being put on, in part, by my friends Maddie Grant and Lindy Dreyer and b) Guy Kawasaki--who recently shared a Navy ship with my ultimate blog crush The Bloggess--will be there. Unfortunately, though, like every other association out there, my association's professional development budget is on hold so unless I start scouring my house for stuff to sell on eBay, I won't be able to go.

But aside from socializing, the reason the conference will be so awesome is that the focus will be on association social media. How many other conferences can you say that about? I believe that would be none. What's the difference, you say, between regular social media and association social media? Either way you slice it it's just a bunch of nerds talking about Facebook and Twitter, right? Hey--wrong!

Even though there's always tons of talk about social media in an association context--ASAE conferences, blogs, listservs, etc--the bulk of those conversations revolve around the theme of convincing fellow association people that they should be using social media. Case studies about what associations are doing, lots of slides and stats and reports--all of it essentially a sales pitch for why your association should be using social media. Here's the thing: I'm in. I don't need convincing or 101 sessions on what is Twitter and how should you be using it, etc. I need help.

That's right--help. Because the fact of the matter is, association social media is tricky. It's like the classic wedding/marriage analogy. You make the big announcement 'We're getting married!" or, in this case "My association has agreed that we need to start using social media!" The wedding day comes and goes, as do the drafting of social media guidelines and strategies, of unveling your association's page on Facebook or Twitter account. And there you are. Now what? How do you keep the momentum going? How do you navigate the silos? How do you measure success? Or failure, for that matter?

These are the kinds of things I want to hear about and talk about, in the company of people who are dealing with the same challenges.

5 Fun Facts

Susan Murphy aka SuzeMuse, an awesome Canadian blogger, somehow found me worthy of being memed. The concept of being memed--or tagged--is you tell 5 things about yourself, then tag (e.g. link) to 5 other people asking them to do the same. You get to shock the world with your shameful secrets and spread some link love. Even if you couldn't care less about my 5 fun facts, scroll down and check out the people I tag because you might discover some cool new blogs.

Ok--let me see if I can scrape together 5 fun things about myself.


1) I bought my wedding dress for $9.99 on eBay. We were eloping in Vegas, so nobody was going to see it anyway, but I wanted to at least look "bridey" in the pictures. I combed eBay and found some girl selling her prom dress, took a chance and ordered it and it was perfect. We got married at the Wynn (in our suite--how cool is that?) and when we walked around the hotel for the photos a million people all told me how gorgeous the dress was. (Yes, that is a photo of us.)

In fact, the whole outfit--dress, veil, tiara (I was determined to wear a tiara even though I was almost 40), shoes--cost under $50. Ok, well I already had the shoes, but still.

2) I once wore the same pair of socks for an entire semester without washing them.I got to college and promptly took up with the hippies--something nobody who knew me would have ever called. Don't ask me why, but I just decided to see how long I could wear the same pair of ragg wool socks (worn, of course, with Birkenstocks) without washing them. It was also, coincidentally, the semester I had a 1.54 GPA and almost got kicked out.

3) I had a radio show in college. You'd never know it now, but once upon a time I was a cool DJ. I even had Dave Wakeling, by that point of General Public fame, as a guest. He dubbed me "Ranking Maggie" and gave me a tambourine signed by him and Ranking Roger.

4) I was one of the original PayPal users. This fact is probably not fun to anyone but me, but I remember when PayPal started they offered $5 to open an account and $5 for each person you got to sign up. Talk about a brilliant exercise in social media--guess it panned out for PayPal pretty well. That was also back when I used to sell stuff on eBay all the time and friends told me I should start a business selling other people's stuff on eBay. If I had taken that advice I'd probably be a millionaire by now.

5) I was a guest on the Oprah Show. This is my fun fact trump card. I was one of the "real life desperate housewives" on the episode featuring the cast of the then-new show, Desperate Housewives. An Oprah producer and a camera crew came to my house, followed me around and filmed me for 9 hours, all to make the 2 minute clip they featured on the show. They totally scripted me too--told me what to do, how to look, what to say, etc. I figured, whatever, I just want to meet Oprah and who's going to see it anyway--everyone's at work at 4 pm on a weekday, right?

Wrong. Every single person I've ever known happened to be watching Oprah that day. Friends from high school, friends from college, neighbors, friend's moms, teachers at my kids' school, coworkers...everyone. Oh well, the adventure was well worth the stigma of forever being known as "Maggie from Oprah" and being shunned by most of the moms in my community.

Ok--now it's someone elses' turn:

1) My sister, Cassie of Cute and Evil fame.

2) Lindy Dreyer, association social media blogger/starlet and her counterpart

3) Maddie Grant. They just launched a new company, SocialFish, to help associations dive into social media. Sorry ladies--I'm sure you've been memed before but you're the first two people who came to mind!

4) Penelope Trunk. I'm going to pull a Tim Ferriss and go out on a limb here. Penelope Trunk is a superstar and doesn't know me from Adam, but hey, she's big on sharing fun facts about herself.

Ok, poor Patrick is going to kill me if I don't sign off now, so I'm going to have to sleep on who to pick for #5.