Congratulations to Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells for their tireless efforts in building Social Media Club (SMC) into a vibrant organization that now has more than 100,000 members. Their goal is to transition SMC from a grass roots organization of 230 local chapters and into a professional association.

Chris Heuer explains:

While we will still hold onto the open roots upon which we have grown, we will also emphasize the importance of membership dues to provide the funds needed to operate a non-profit on a global scale. These funds will enable us to provide an honest view on the social media industry, support the establishment of professional standards of conduct and expand our educational initiatives to further media literacy. The crucial step in making this vision a reality involves bringing our loosely affiliated 'chapters' closer together, but first we had to find them.

With the help of Yong C Lee and Jessica Murray, we have just finished the SMC Global Census, resulting in a blog post for each local chapter on SocialMediaClub.org. Each post directs you to their existing social channels across the web and now also aggregates their blog posts (if they have one) onto the global Web site. So if for instance, you want to find out how many people are involved in Social Media Club in Moscow, all you need to do is visit their chapter page. Same thing with Seattle, Brisbane, Miami, Kansas City, Washington DC and Kuala Lumpur.

Now that we know where everyone is, we also have a better idea of who you all are. At present we have 230 local chapters around the world with a total potential reach of 158,558. Accounting for overlapping channel participation between their various Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other sites, this gives us an approximate reach of 100,000+ unique social media enthusiasts and professionals.

On a global basis, Social Media Club HQ has a total potential reach of 87,146, with 68,000+ Twitter followers, 7,800 Facebook Fans, a mailing list of 4,300, a LinkedIn Group with 3,400+ members and an RSS subscriber base of 8,500+. As we launch our membership drive to start promoting the organization with more marketing then just stickers in the weeks ahead, we expect these numbers to grow dramatically. Especially in light of all the new content we will be providing through our consolidated calendar of social media events and the launch of Social Media Journal and Social Media Observer.

Coming up: Social Media University, November 10-13 in Orlando, FL.

Plus the launch of a consolidated calendar of social media events and the launch of Social Media Journal and Social Media Observer.

More details here: From The Clubhouse | Social Media Club