From Founder Member to Membership Manager with Ali McGee Kelly

Behind The Membership with Callie Willows

Our guest on this episode of Behind the Membership is offering an interesting and slightly different perspective on memberships…

Unlike the majority of our guests Ali McGee Kelly doesn’t actually own her own site, she manages The Social Media Marketing Society, a membership owned by one of the world’s biggest social media marketing blogs, Social Media Examiner.

In this episode Ali shares what it's like to manage a membership as part of a wider team for a larger business, she talks about the changes the company has been forced to make as a result of the global pandemic and the Society’s unique approach to recruiting guest experts.

She also reveals some changes that have been made behind the scenes to enhance member experience, why the Society has decided to adopt the open door model and how Ali and her team manage content within the membership to ensure it stays relevant in an industry that changes almost daily.

About Ali:

Ali McGee Kelly is the manager for the Social Media Marketing Society with Social Media Examiner. For the past several years, she has pursued an expertise in social media marketing to help businesses capitalize on this relatively new marketing resource. Her passion for making social media work for businesses is evidenced by my MBA thesis where she benchmarked the use of Social Media for small businesses in Central Kentucky.

Key Quotes:

“I’m not responsible for acquiring the members, but I am responsible for retaining them.”

“We take pride in the level of service and communication we have with outside speakers”

“The interesting thing that I think makes us a little different than a lot of other memberships is, we do not come to the table claiming to be the expert in any one thing ourselves. And this is the same across all of our products with Social Media Examiner. We are acquirers of talent.”

Connect with Ali:

The Social Media Marketing Society

Social Media Examiner

Twitter