Several months ago, I had a conversation with Zach Wilson of Gulo Solutions about whether associations really needed to incorporate social media into their programs or not. My conclusion is it depends on what your audience is like, however it is definitely worth building capacity because in the future this stuff will simply be the way it is.

I am thinking about that convo again because of the USA Today experience with social media. From what I understand, they really had some scary stuff (nasty comments and so forth) going on at first and I'm sure management was questioning their move. However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Their site registrations are now up 380% and it appears to be a huge success. Here is a great roundup. I'm sure most associations would like to see that kind of bump, and, just like USA Today, we produce lots of content that our communities might be quite interested in.