Jack McGrath: Hi, and welcome to another in our series Ask the Experts. My name is Jack McGrath. Today we’re talking to Jay Daughtry who is the author of the blog, ChatterBachs and also the relationship development manager for Personify. Thanks for being here Jay.
Jay Daughtry: Thank you for having me.
McGrath: A few questions we had for you. So in the blog, recently you asked readers of the blog, “What’s one area where you want to see improvement in the coming year?” But we were curious, how would you answer that post?
Daughtry: Okay, sure. So I have a session at Great Ideas where we’re talking about content marketing ideas from the major brands. What are they doing to engage their customers? Most of them don’t have members, per se. But what are they doing to engage their customers? There are great lessons from the corporate world for that and that’s an area where I really want to grow more. I do a lot of reading, a lot of thinking, about content marketing. The tech conference in December just had a whole learning pathway on content marketing and I think that’s something I’m going to explore more over the coming year as well.
McGrath: Great, cool. And it’s interesting, there’s this story that you talk about that you wanted to interview Kat Cole who is president of Cinnabon and you took that mission to social media. And how can associations use social networking platforms, such as Twitter, to gain the attention of their members, or maybe even would-be members, and persuade them to complete a call to action?
Daughtry: Sure. So, first of all in the story with Kat Cole, I had seen Undercover Boss where she was a featured CEO and when I saw that she was going to be attending the ASAE annual conference I was like, “That’s great! I want to meet her. I’d like to interview her.” And so I put it out there is social media. I think I might have had to put it out there two or three times before I got a response from her. But over and over again you hear celebrities, leaders, different people say the way to access them is through social media. And so it’s such a great platform to leverage whether you’re talking about LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Vine, there are so many platforms now. And I think from an association perspective the main thing is to make sure you’re putting your message out there, you’re putting personality behind the organization. I think sometimes organizations are a little too formal, a little too stilted and you’ve got to remember that you’re relating to people and you want to let people shine through. And sometimes that means giving voices to them in unofficial and official capacities.
McGrath: You know it’s interesting, what you’re talking about. You know, we’ve been talking a lot about how to attract Millennials to associations and some of them are a hard sell. I’m curious, do you feel like they’re more apt to want to turn to social media and look to that?
Daughtry: I think so. I mean, from the things that I’ve heard and read a lot of the younger people, say under thirty, are not even using e-mail anymore. You know, it’s all texts, it’s all social media, that’s how they’re finding out their information, that’s how they’re connecting, and it’s much more natural for them. And certainly, that’s a powerful tool to tap into.
McGrath: Right. Well, I encourage you all to check out ChatterBachs, the blog, it’s great. And Jay, thanks so much for being with us today, and thank you for watching and look for others in the series Ask the Experts.