"Online Relationship Building" article for OCA Newsletter

Jeff Daly and I wrote this article for the Ontario Camps Association's newsletter.  They didn't have a permalink, so I've copied and pasted it here.  Enjoy!

================================================

Online Relationship Building - Don't Ignore Social Media by Jeff Daly and Dan Weir

A key component of being a camp director is relationship building.  Creating relationships with our campers and their families is extremely important in keeping our campers coming back year after year. Whether it is handwriting birthday cards for all of our campers, arranging mini-reunions during the 'off season' or making that friendly phone call in the middle of winter saying 'we miss you', we are always striving to enhance and maintain our connection.  This connection encourages our families to share their experiences with their own friends and families.  Several years ago, they were sharing their experiences in the grocery lines, now they are posting their experiences on Facebook, Twitter and email.
 
For some reason, we in the camp industry have this huge stigma about campers, families, and staff being online. We dismiss it because friends can't hug hello online. We say it's evil because "the world needs to disconnect." We're afraid of it because we can't control it. We need to get over it.
 
People go on to social media websites not because they don't know how to make friends but because they want to keep their friends. When someone goes off to college for the first time, they can find their college roommate on Facebook and get to know them before moving in. Our campers would tell the world how much they miss camp by wearing the camp sweatshirt five times a week. Now they also wear a digital sweatshirt by making a video telling the world how much they miss camp.
 
According to Facebook, there are more than 400 million active users. That is more people than live in the United States. Over 50% of those active users log onto Facebook every day. Despite all of this data, a lot of summer camps ignore anything Facebook related. The reasons why range from: "our camp is rustic" to "I want to keep our camp off that site". What they don't know is that their camp is already on Facebook. Their campers, staff, and family are already talking about their camp online.  It's the same for YouTube and Twitter. When people have any type of experience, good or bad, they process it by telling their friends what they thought. Now instead of sharing over a meal, they will tell them in a sentence online.
 
We need to embrace the online community. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (www.kff.org) in a study titled "Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds", 40% of children are daily logging on to a social network or watching video online compared to only 34% that are visiting a website daily. This means the thousands of dollars we spend on creating a new website is not getting used as much as the Facebook page a 12 year old camper set up to connect to other campers. If you aren't tech savy, find a teenager to help you. You have no excuse. Unfortunately, this isn't something you can set aside and forget. It does take monitoring. It is an instant medium. Instead of panicking, create the culture that mimics your camp. Let people know that you want a positive presence online and we need to do it together. Not only will you be better represented, it will also build your camp's community.

 
Jeffrey Daly is the Director of Camping Services at the Frost Valley YMCA and Dan Weir is the Director of Camp Wawayanda at the Frost Valley YMCA. Find out how Jeff and Dan build their online communities at www.frostvalley.org; www.fvsummercamp.wordpress.com; www.twitter.com/frostvalley