Membership

Daily Buzz: Flip the Script on Mentoring

Empower members to shape their own mentorship experience. Also: getting to the bottom of your loss in web traffic.

What does your organization’s mentoring program look like? If it’s the same as it’s always been—an assigned, yearlong, one-on-one relationship—then it might be time for a change. Associations should give members the power to choose their own mentorship experience, argues Tirza Austin on the Community by Association blog.

“Like other association models, the mentoring model needs to continue to shift and change with the times,” she says. “It should be flexible, low commitment, and virtual.”

Start by changing the dynamic between mentor and mentee. Instead of assigning a mentor, let members pick one. The best mentor might not be the person your organization has in mind.

“The best mentor is not your retired lifetime members. It is the person who is five to 10 years above the person asking to be mentored. They are relevant,” Austin says. “From mentoring requests, we have seen that younger members are the most requested.”

If members don’t want face-to-face interaction with their mentors, let them take things online. Emails, texts, and video calls still give mentors the chance to provide valuable insights and build relationships, Austin says.

Ultimately, the terms of the relationship should be set by the mentee, not the association. The organization should provide recommendations, while members determine the goals of the relationship, its term length, and the frequency of meetups.

“Members want flexibility. What works for one partnership will not work for all of them,” Austin says.

Why You’re Losing Web Traffic

A drop in web engagement is frustrating, and without a clear reason, it’s hard to buck the trend. If you need answers, tools like Google Analytics can help determine the source of the drop, suggests Levi Wardell on Association Chat.

Google Analytics reports like the Acquisition Overview Report and the Landing Page Report provide a breakdown of your web traffic and can help identify the problem—or lack thereof.

“Many times I’ve seen folks panic over a sudden loss in traffic just to learn that a PPC [pay-per-click] campaign was shut off the week before and they forgot, or maybe a social media campaign just ended and it wasn’t mentioned,” Wardell says.

Other Links of Note

Do you have valuable business information? Share it, don’t hoard it, says Adrian Segar of Conferences That Work.

Don’t make conference attendees suffer with poor Wi-Fi. A recent post from Event Industry News shows how to make sure your network is optimized.

Want to better promote your association online? Madgex’s Sergio Garcia walks through best practices.

(fizkes/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

Michael Hickey

By Michael Hickey

Michael Hickey is a contributor to Associations Now. MORE

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