We noticed some tweets this morning about an article on Active Rain concerning some statistics in our 2011 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. With over 50 comments, it was a popular post. There was some question though as to what the numbers really represented. I contacted our research department (who creates the profile) via email to give them a heads up.

Research agreed that further clarification would be helpful and wrote a blog post about the topic. Then they left a comment on Active Rain that linked to our clarifying post. They ended the post with a call for action by inviting people to learn more about the profile with a link to it in the NAR store. I followed up by directing people who had tweeted about the original article to this new article.

What was accomplished:

• We helped to clarify some statistical information in a post about the association.
• We showed our membership that we are listening and want to engage in discussions with them.
• We marketed a product that creates non-dues revenue.
• We drove traffic to our website.

This is a very minor “victory”, but one we should strive to win more often.

Beyond the content, I was really impressed with how Doug used QR codes in the book to advance the reader to tutorials and other online media. It’s really the first place I’ve seen where a QR code makes sense (I’m not a fan of them).

Anyway. It’s a great book that fits easily into your laptop bag. Check it out here.

Broadcasting Live with Ustream.TV

BlogWell is all about “How Big Brands Use Social Media”, and I’ll be presenting on how the National Association of REALTORS® shared our 2010 Midyear and Annual meetings online. For our Annual meeting, we had a sizable budget, but for Midyear, we needed to do it on a shoestring. So, I’ll be sharing what we accomplished for both kinds of budgets. The web traffic we enjoyed for both events was a huge jump over years past, and has laid a foundation for how we will virtualize conferences in the future.

Hope to see you there.

On Monday, May 9th, unassociated returns to Washington D.C.! This day long unconference for association professionals is all about sharing ideas and experiences in being a game changer in your association.

The 2010 event was organized by Maddie Grant, Lindy Dreyer, Ben Martin, and Myself. With approximately 75 attendees, will drilled down into topics like virtualized conferences, online privacy, and the role of social media. The best part about an unconference is that the topics are brainstormed by the attendees the morning of the event.

Bring your A-game because every attendee will be an active participant throughout the day.

Once again, the event will be held at The National Association of REALTORS® D.C. headquarters just blocks away from Union Station and lasts from 9:30 to 4:00.

There’s no registration fee but you need to apply to attend. The event is for association professionals, so they will be picked first. Tell us why you want to attend and why you think you belong at the event. We’ll confirm you ASAP.

Apply Here

Over the next couple months, I’ll be posting here about the session topic. What works, what doesn’t, and what could work in the future. And maybe, I’d like you to join me. I’d like to find 2-3 people interested in presenting with me. I’m looking for people who have played a leading role in one or more of the following topics:

• Hosting an unconference like RE BarCamp
• Planning and hosting technology focused conferences for an association.
• Building an online/virtual conference.
• Using online platforms to cover a traditional conference.
• Doing something disruptive to the status quo in building a conference.

There’s no compensation for speaking. I expect those who are interested will already be coming to AEI, but it’s not required. If you’re interested, please fill out this form.

cforms contact form by delicious:days

While the discussions on the board can’t be publicly repeated in detail, the irony of a recent discussion was to rich not to blog about in the most general of detail. The discussion was about picking the best social media listening software for their enterprise. Several top vendors were compared by more than a dozen members. I thought it was ironic because, despite the fact that each of these platforms were designed to “monitor your brand online” and “listen to your customers” none of the companies being talked about have the slightest clue about what was being said. The forum is private. At that point I lost interest in which one others think works best because “monitoring my brand” through an online tool that only listens for the people hoping to be heard sounds like a short sighted solution at this point.

What good is listening if you aren’t engaged in the right conversations in the first place?

With the advent of Facebook groups, your members, customers or clients can talk about you in plane sight, and yet completely hidden from you. Being a good listener means less and less as these tools evolve. The hard truth to swallow is that “monitoring your brand” will more and more be performed by the members, customers, or clients that you’ve engaged with. The ones that listen for you when they are invited into these private groups. The ones who act as your ambassadors in the spots you’re not invited into. How you build that army is far more important that what listening software you buy.