If any political parties out there are wondering what to do to recruit or engage new members they could do worse than have a read of an article I recently had published on the website, New Media Knowledge.
The piece covers a draft report being produced by Megan Griffith at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations on how social networks and social networking will impact on the voluntary and community sector.
The draft version I saw is a great piece of work that is easy to understand but (hopefully) conveys the enormity of the challenges and opportunities of those working in the sector.
It is also a hugely important report for political parties as it examines the role of social networks in membership organisations. I found this section of the report fascinating for two reasons:
1) Any organisation that relies on a traditional membership base for revenue and support is facing major changes to the way it functions and engages with its members/supporters.
2) I am deeply interested in the way networks develop and what drives their growth/expansion and contraction.
All political parties which rely on membership for public support and to an extent, revenue. If they are to maximise their public engagement - particularly engagement with the party members of the future, party fundraisers need to understand why social media and social networks will and are changing what people want from organisations.
The traditional reasons for joining member organisations such as accessing resources, volunteering time and meeting like-minded people are being eroded by the power and ubiquity of social networks. Suffice to say that membership in the future is likely to be characterised by the following points:
- require member participation in a horizontal, non-hierarchical series of networks rather than a rigid top-down one;
- see people aggregating around causes they believe in rather than traditional organisations;
- see people exploiting their ability to form a highly personalised network around a number of these causes.
An example of how this may affect political parties is that using social networks, people may aggregate around two or three causes they feel strongly about which in turn may span party political beliefs.
have a read of the full article here. It's short and is broken up into easy to follow headings so you can jumpt to which bit you find most interesting.
It really, really is exciting stuff that ultimately reflects the very real way in which social technology is affecting society and those that work within the public sphere.
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