A Social Marketing Association?This is a featured page

Just one year, who knew that over 1,000 social marketers would enroll in the social marketing e-conference; 300 would attend the Social Marketing in Public Health conference (despite worries about the availability of travel funds for government-funded projects and state agency staff); 3700 staff in SAMHSA-funded programs refer to themselves a social marketers; that there are 1,758 social marketing list server subscribers - and then there's the over 500 loyal subscribers to the On Social Marketing and Social Change Blog! Add to that the National Social Marketing Centre in the UK, the Pan American Social Marketing Organization, Greenstar Social Marketing in Pakistan, and who knows how many others (feel free to add here)...It seems time for the movement to coalesce social marketers to begin.

This space is to open a dialogue and capture the wisdom of the crowd as to whether and how an association, or more than one, for people (or organizations) who identify themselves as 'social marketers' or are doing 'social marketing' should develop. After an initial conversation at the end of the 2007 Innovations in Social Marketing Conference, a follow-up session was held June 2008 in Clearwater Beach exploring the prospects of a society of social marketing where the discussion focused on questions of what the conceptual base for a society could be (marketing, health communication, behavioral or social sciences), the fields of practice it might include (PR and advertising people, social workers, community nurses - who IS a social marketer?), its geographic scope (US, North American, global) and the structure of the exchange between the organization and its members (service and member benefits and features). This is just the beginning of the conversation among people who gather at social marketing meetings; make a note that two more such gatherings are planned at the CDC health marketing conference in August and the world social marketing conference in Brighton England in September. Here's our chance to involve as many people as possible in thinking and talking this through.

Let's get this party started! Join a thread or start one in the lower right hand corner.

A blog post I did on the meeting held at the CDC National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing and Media on August 23th, 2008 about creating an association summarizes the discussion around the questions:
  1. Why build the network?
  2. Who should join such a network?
  3. What should the scope of the network be?
  4. What should the structure of the network become?


Posted Anonymously Latest page update: made by Anonymous , Sep 24 2008, 5:39 PM EDT (about this update About This Update Posted Anonymously Edited anonymously


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Anonymous A Social Marketing Network 0 Mar 16 2009, 4:27 PM EDT by Anonymous
 
Thread started: Mar 16 2009, 4:27 PM EDT  Watch
Comment here on the social network slideshow or add your own thread on particualr issues it raises for you
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rcraiglefebvre Who are the potential audiences for a social marketing organization? 0 Jul 25 2008, 2:11 PM EDT by rcraiglefebvre
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This may really be 3 or more questions, so feel free to break out into a separate thread if this becomes too large.

One set of audiences I think about is 'who really needs it and will value it?' The core audience for me are the people on the ground doing the work (which as was noted on another thread, raises issues around language and other accessibility issues - internet connections especially if this were to be virtual in some aspects. Then comes the academic community under which I subgroup academic instructors, people who conduct training workshops of various sorts, and then students. The third audience are those who fund social marketing programs and employ the people who work in the field (organizations). The fourth, and most important, are the people formerly known as audiences who work with us in these programs and are the ultimate beneficiaries of them.

The second set of questions for me revolves around 'who is ready to go?' The 'low hanging fruit' obviously starts with the people actively engaged with social marketing through conferences and the list serve, read and use social marketing blogs and this wiki, and students who are looking at what a career in social marketing might mean for them (whether it's an academic, research or practice track). Then there are the organizations who work on the social marketing business/contracts and the ones that fund the work. How do we identify the people in communities who do not self-identify as social marketers but are instrumental in taking the concepts and techniques and making themwork over the long haul.

Finally, 'who is critical for the success of this organization?'
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rcraiglefebvre What should the geographic scope of an association be? 1 Jul 25 2008, 11:41 AM EDT by Anonymous
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My thinking at this point is that we need an international, or global, sm organization that can be an umbrella organization for national ones and serve as a networking site for individuals and organization around the world who are addressing all types of social problems with sm - whether they be public health, health care, environment, climate change, education, housing or any number of issues.
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