Don’t mean to pry, but … sometimes it’s good to pry. A little bit.

Getting to know your members better is always valuable, even if it takes a bit of a nudge to get them talking.

More in today’s Social Media Roundup:

Pokin’ Around

https://twitter.com/CallieCady/status/458248731406512128

If you want to know more about the needs of your members, you can’t just wait for them to come to you—no matter what your organization looks like. Which is why, according to MemberClicks’ Sarah Hill, you have to be a little nosy.

“I’m not saying you should Facebook stalk them or find out where their kids go to school, but you should definitely start talking,” she writes on the MultiView blog. “Ask questions! Be genuinely curious about your members!”

She suggests the “cocktail party rule”: Listen to the concerns of others 70 percent of the time, share the other 30 percent. While she notes this isn’t easy for association execs, who have a lot to share about their organizations, it can get members interested in what’s going on.

Read more of Hill’s tips over this way. (ht @CallieCady)

Start Small, Then Burn Big

Not just for startups: Start With A Small, Intense Fire #sachat #salead #sagrad #greekchat #highered #assnchat http://t.co/y8QWBn7SJu

— Mike McRee, Ph.D. (@mikemcree) April 20, 2014

Paul Graham is a master of starting things small. Graham, a former Yahoo employee and the cofounder of the Y Combinator startup accelerator, has helped many seeds sprout into giant companies over the years. That’s why business trainer and Fizzle cofounder Chase Reeves was so excited to hear Graham offer his advice on growing a startup recently.

“You’ve got to start with a small, intense fire,” Graham told Jason Calacanis at the LAUNCH festival a month ago. “Suppose you’re the Apple I. They only made about 500 of those things, so, all they had to do was find 500 people to buy these computers, and they launched Apple. APPLE!”

Reeves points out that Graham’s advice translates anywhere, from building a startup to growing a blog.

“Any successful thing I’ve built that didn’t embarrass me out or burn me out has grown slowly, realistically … like the way friendships grow from scratch,” Reeves writes on his Sparkline blog. “That feels right to me.”

Sometimes starting small is the first step to getting big. (ht @mikemcree)

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