Smartphones – the new way to connect with association members

I’m going to make a bold prediction: the success of associations in the next few years will depend on how quickly they can adopt mobile technologies.

It won’t matter whether you have the best training courses, accreditation programs or annual conference, if your members can’t interact with you while on the move, using their smartphone (or tablet such as an iPad).

People check their smartphones 34 times a day
Apparently we do, according to a study in the journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.

If you’re like me, I use my smartphone as my watch, my address book, my calendar, my alarm clock and my way of checking the weather forecast before I get out of bed so I can work out what to wear for the day.

I also use my smartphone all the time to do stuff. While I’m in a taxi or waiting at the airport, I might look up the location of my next meeting on Google maps, read the news using the smh.com.au iPhone app, or do my banking using a mobile banking app.

If your members are doing the same, can they easily register for an event or course on their smartphone? Can they find an archived story on your website without having to ‘pinch’ to zoom in dozens of times? Can they ask a question to an expert or check out the latest association news?

With sales of smartphones in Australia expected to exceed 9.6 million in 2014, according to international research company Gartner, soon we’ll all be in the habit of using our smartphones to do stuff.

In fact, Gartner tips that by 2015, companies will generate 50 per cent of web sales via their social presence and mobile applications. Now is the time to get your association ready.

Tips for associations
Make your website mobile friendly: even if you don’t have an app for all your member benefits, making your website mobile friendly will help members find what they need while they’re on the move.

Here’s a good example from Media Access Australia, a not-for-profit organisation devoted to increasing access to media for people with disabilities.

Start small: you don’t have to start with the most expensive mobile app that covers everything your association does. Apps for events are a great place to start.

For example, the Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM) recently developed a mobile app when they hosted the global conference for the International Project Management Association (IPMA).

You can check it out here. Features of the app included:

• Event program: day, time, session details and live poll to rate the session
• Speaker bios
• Exhibitor and sponsor info
• link an events calendar with the readers’ own calendar
• Event maps
• Alerts used to update delegates on room changes, new speakers etc
• Live feeds including Twitter and Facebook
• Surveys
• Attendees able to ‘check in’ to the conference and search others who have checked in

Another example is the recent annual convention for the National Insurance Brokers Association (NIBA). They decided to try running a Twitter feed, which was promoted up on the screens during breaks and in the introductory speaker remarks.

Members took to the Twitter feed with enthusiasm, using their smartphones to add comments during sessions. They tweeted their own thoughts about what the speakers said – some were controversial but these also stirred up the most Twitter conversation.

All up, there were around 200 Twitter posts using #NIBA11 to identify that they were about the conference.

Smartphones are only just getting started
CSIRO scientist Dr Stefan Hajkowicz was recently tasked with predicting the megatrends of the future, and he says smartphones are one of the key indicators for how the world will look in a decade’s time.

“Smartphones are just starting,” Hajkowicz said. “Eventually they will become your credit card, your driver’s licence and will contain all the information about you.”

In fact, smartphones will soon make further use of ‘augmented reality’, where you can take a picture of something around you and the phone will tell you the location of a similar shop, give you a person’s name or add the barcode of a product to your shopping list.

By Roslyn Atkinson, Managing Editor, Mahlab Media