We’re just about halfway through the week; we hope everyone is having a good one!

Today we have some awesome slideshows to share (courtesy of SlideShare). Building communities can be challenging, but nurturing them and allowing them to flourish can sometimes be even more difficult. The presentations below have some great tips.

TALK TO US: What has been the most challenging aspect of building your association’s online community?

Happy Friday to all the Splash blog readers! Here in Atlanta it’s such a gorgeous day that we’ve been counting down to the weekend all day long.

But, it’s Friday and before we head out to enjoy the weekend, we’ve got to share five of our favorite blog posts from around the association community this past week. Feel free to share your own in the comments!

1. We tweeted this one earlier today but the message is so great we wanted to share it again: Resisting resistance is futile. Jeffrey Cufaude shares a number of reasons why people resist facilitation – including the purpose, the process and the people – and how you can deal with resistance when it occurs. How has your small staff association handled resistance?

2. Shelly Alcorn asks, who should be setting those standards for those companies in your industry or profession who want to be benefit corporations?. Her answer? You. Setting standards for those companies is part of the association’s role to advocate for its members.

3. “There are no bad ideas.” It’s a common phrase during brainstorming sessions for many associations. However, David M. Patt argues the opposite: there are bad ideas, but they may be OK. Brainstorming’s purpose, after all, is to gather a lot of ideas. Not every idea will be implemented, and, David writes, a better introduction to brainstorms would be, “all ideas are welcome.”‘

4. At the SocialFish blog, John Haydon shares seven ways to increase engagement on your association’s Facebook page. One of our favorites? Interject virality. Ask fans to share a post if they agree, or like a post if they agree. Sharing automatically makes status updates and photos viral, which is a great way to boost engagement. Be sure to check out the comments here too.

5. Aaron Wolowiec shares how to avoid the absolute trap of the word never. He asserts that many people stand in the way of their own success because of the barriers we put up around us. Aaron asks how often you or your association uses the word “never,” and if it holds you back from reaching your full potential.

From all of us at MemberClicks, have a great weekend!

Happy Thursday, Splash blog readers! Is it just us, or has this week gone by extraordinarily quickly?

Today, we’ve got some awesome slideshows and presentations to share. We love getting insights from others’ presentations and think the three below have some great resources.

How integrated is your social media strategy with the rest of your marketing strategy?

For a few years now, social has been the “big thing,” and marketers every where have been pushing for brands and organizations to embrace it. Social media jobs are hot, and every type of agency – marketing, public relations, advertising – wants a piece of brands’ or organizations’ social budgets.

However.

A study recently released from Forrester reveals that only 49% of marketers say social is fully integrated into their communication strategies.

This is despite the fact that 59% of of online consumers are active on social media sites weekly and one-third have become a fan of a brand on Facebook or Twitter.

Although this study was focused on brands rather than organizations and nonprofits, I can’t help but wonder how those nonprofits stack up against brands. Do you think associations have been quicker or slower to embrace social?

I think at this point, everyone agrees that social plays an important role in marketing and communications. But the real trick is successfully integrating it into a holistic, omni-channel strategy.

At larger associations, create a “‘social media taskforce” with representation from every department. This way, every department will have a stakeholder in the success of social, and it will be inherently tied to marketing efforts. Small staff associations, on the other hand, may have an easier time integrating social, since they might only have one or two people dedicated to all marketing efforts.

TALK TO US: How has your association integrated social media into its over-arching strategies?

Are you a community manager at a small staff association looking to increase your knowledge of word-of-mouth and social marketing? This Community Manager Online Training Course might be for you!

Who will benefit from the course?

• WOMM-COM Module 1 graduates looking to extend their knowledge and/or begin to explore what it means to take the next step in their career.
• Current community managers looking to round out their knowledge and insure their skills are up to date.
• Executives and managers looking to better understand the community manager role and how to best leverage it in their organizations.

Community Managers often serve as the face of the organization, and can include both senior and more junior-level duties, including moderation. Depending on the size of your association’s community, moderation, listening and measurement might fall under the “community manager” role too.

Sponsored by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, The Community Roundtable and ComBlu, this course is sure to help association community managers. Register here!

Props to KiKi L’Italien for the heads up on this.