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We need to communicate with former members who dropped their membership. Do you have any example letters?TheHEROmicrosite hasmore than 1,200 samples, including letters for droppedmembers and“ComeBacktotheChamber”campaigns.ThisquestionrecentlyappearedontheACCELinkedIngroup. There were several replies with others wanting to see example letters. We asked the same question of some of our division members who sent five more letters to add to the Samples Library. These examples all include benefits of renewing membership with the chamber, stressing networking, online inclusion in business directories, and making a difference to build a sustainable local economy.Visit theSamplesLibraryandBrowse“Flyers,Mail,Forms”or searchbykeyword“dropped.”Needhelp?EmailusatHERO@acce.org.

We need to do more with social media. We have accounts with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube and Flickr, but only Facebook, is active. Even then we struggle with staff posting regularly.

We often hear from chambers who are working on social media planning and communications. This is an exciting time to be in communications and marketing for chambers and businesses. As Charles Leadbeater, author of We Think: The Power of Mass Creativity, noted: “You are what you share.” From our Chamberpedia section on Communications and Marketing we have collected excellent resources on the Social Media page. It highlights social media marketing, including several marketing plans, a white paper with social media definitions, and examples of what some chambers are doing with their social media campaigns. View examples of the social media marketing plans, and then adapt the goals, objectives, strategies, andmetrics analyses for your own chamber.Use these resourcesfreely to help your own chamber put a personal touch on marketing through social media. Addi-tionalACCEresourcesincludeourCommunicationsandMarketingDivision,anetworkofchambercommunications and marketing professionals who offer even more support and resources. ACCE alsohasaLinkedIngroupforMarketingandCommunications,andACCEUniversityofferslinkstopre-recordedwebinarsonsocialmediaandnumerousothertopics,includinganewrecordingfor“Grow Your Chamber with Email & Social Media: Simple marketing strategies for chambers.” These resources are part of your ACCE membership benefits.

Help, Expertise & Resources Online

ACCE’s HERO team (Help - Expertise - Resources - Online) strives to save theday and provide valuable information to make a difference at your chamber. We answer your questions on membership management, sales, board retreat planning, outsourcing,socialmedia,buy-localinitiatives,ACCE’ssurveysonOperationsandSalaries&Benefits,otherbenchmarkingdataandlotsmore.Herearesomerecentquestions we handled:

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at www.acce.orgBy Sarah Myers

Chamber Executive Fall 2013 15

Help, Expertise & Resources Onlineat www.acce.org

We are seeking policies or guidelines on non-member attendance at chamber events. Are your events open to businesses in your community, member or not? Do you have specific guidelines that you follow for non-members?

To find this answer, we queried chamber members through ACCE’s LinkedIn group and Hometown Chambers Council. All said they didn’t have written policies, but noted that most chambers charge morefornon-memberstoattendevents,andsomeeventsaremembers-only.Someofthechamberssaid theycharge$10moreperevent fornon-members.Anotherchamberchargesmore fornon-members to attend their SmallBusiness Seminars ($30 formembers; $50-60 fornon-members).Comparatively, other chambers offer a “member price” and a “general admission” price that ranges 25-75%higher.Somechambersoffermembers-onlyeventssuchasaBusinessExpowheremembersparticipatewithboothsandbusinesspromotions;non-membersmayattend,butnotexhibit.Anoth-erchamberoffersmembershipluncheonsandBusinessAfterHourseventsaspromotionstonon-members.Non-membersdonotsponsortheluncheons,butalllocalbusinessesareinvited,membersandnon-members.Non-membersusuallypayahigherratefortheluncheons.Manychambersviewtheseguestsaspotentialmembersandencouragetheirmemberstoinvitenon-members.Anotherchamber has most events open to the public except when seating is limited, which then becomes a members-onlyevent.Mostoftherespondingchamberschargebothmemberandnon-memberfeesfor events, and only members can sponsor specific events.

How does work?The HERO team is co-directed by Audrey Imhoff and Sarah Myers, reference librarians withadvanced degrees. An ACCE member question or information request starts our sleuthing through ACCE’s growing database of chamber documents, samples, surveys and best practices reports. To get answers, we will contact other ACCE staffers and members, or tap online resources such as LinkedIn groups or email groups. When we find useful information, we not only use it to answer your ques-tions, we file it in that growing database mentioned earlier, and make it searchable for members like you.Thefinalresultisliveinformation,alwaysevolving,alwaysavailableonlinethroughtheHEROmicrosite,andusuallylife-savingforharriedchamberprofessionals.VisitusonthewebbyclickingontheprominentHERObuttonatwww.acce.org and let us save your day!

Sarah Myers is Co-director of Information and Research at ACCE.

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