5 Questions Series: Greg Hill From The Kansas Dental Association – How To Effectively Create And Maintain Multimedia On Your Website

Welcome to the Vanguard Technology 5 Questions Series where we ask an association professional who is doing unique and innovative things with technology to share with us what it’s like to be them. The purpose of this series is to help association professionals learn  how to better use technology to streamline operations or attract more members.

The format for the 5 Questions Series is that one question is answered in writing right here on our blog and the other four are answered in a recorded interview that you can listen to now or download to listen to later.

Our guest for this edition is Greg Hill, assistant executive director from the Kansas Dental Association. Greg manages all video and social media for the KDA. Over time the KDA has evolved into a multimedia powerhouse of content. Their members love the immediacy of KDA’s content and enjoy receiving their dental industry information in relevant and innovative ways.

Greg talks about the opportunities and, more importantly, the misconceptions associations have about creating multimedia for the web. He talks about how easy it is to cost-effectively move into the multimedia space by using a few simple strategies.

Below is Greg’s written answer to one of the five questions. Click the play button below to hear the rest.

Question: Explain the types of multimedia the Kansas Dental Association uses today on your website and what the member response has been from each.

The Kansas Dental Association has implemented a number of social networking and multimedia applications into its website, including our own video content and, of course, Facebook and Twitter.

We believe that one of our most basic roles in the profession of organized dentistry is to provide our members with information that might affect their dental practice. We search news sites daily for articles and videos on dentistry and oral health and share that information through our Facebook and Twitter streams. Part of that stream is statewide and local media outlets that know day in and day out what we are doing here at the Kansas Dental Association.

We have also been producing an in-house video news report we call the “KDA Video Minute.” This concept began quite modestly, but has developed into a much deeper, graphically charged report we produce weekly during the legislative session and, then as issues warrant, during the remainder of the year.

We complement our membership with the KDA Network (developed on the Ning platform), a members’ only social network that provides our members with a secure site for posting of sensitive legislative issues, or even just a way for our members to communicate with one another.  It replaced what had been our members’ only section and now contains content that serves our membership.

Our social and multimedia efforts are well received throughout our membership.  Nearly a third of our members are part of the KDA Network, our KDA Video Minute has been recognized by the American Dental Association, and our Facebook and Twitter streams feed dental news to over a thousand people every day.

These efforts allow us the opportunity to serve our membership in ways not possible in years past.  Our goal is to remain on the cutting edge and continue to create value for our members.

Listen!

Hear Greg’s answers to the other four questions now. If you’ve ever considered doing multimedia or social networking or are already doing those things but have questions about how to do them better, then this will be the best 20 minutes you’ve spent in a while.

Download MP3 (9 MB)

Listen to our podcast with Shana Rieger. She manages InfoComm International’s social media full time.

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