My advice: Don't over think, over edit and under power your social marketing efforts

The fine folks from the CU Grow blog interviewed me after my presentation last month at the 2010 CUNA Marketing and Business Development Council Conference in Washington, DC.

After watching it, I should put a footnote on my 'ignore compliance and legal' comment. I don't want to get anyone in hot water! I would involve those that have product and compliance knowledge at your credit union in your social media marketing activities and equip your 'social voices' with the know-how and freedom to put accurate information out there without a lot of editorial review.

The point I was trying to make is don't let the red tape get in the way of enthusiasm and action and don't just try things half way. Use common sense and connect with your audience in a meaningful way.

Tim

He wore our shirt! Fantastic fun for about $600

As I mentioned yesterday, I rented Jason Sadler's torso (of iwearyourshirt.com fame) to promote Living Young & Free. For $313, we received the use of said torso for the full day of November 17, 2009 (the 313th day of the year). To get the most bang for our buck, we added a life-size cut out of DeAndre', Josh and Myles which ran us $100 plus shipping. Finally, add in the cost of an XL T-Shirt and you've got a $600 media buy beyond compare.

For that price, we received two tweets to Jason's 23,000 Twitter followers...

Mutiple status updates to Jason's 3,000 Facebook friends...

Four Flickr photos...

A wrap up video on YouTube and Facebook...

Four minutes on national live TV on MSNBC...

Plus, we owned Jason's home page for the day...

And if that weren't enough, Jason will be wearing our shirt on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric this coming Monday, November 23. Seriously.

What an absolute gas. Jason Sadler is the hardest working man on the Internet. I cannot believe that he does this seven days a week. What I love is that it is 100% real and authentic. There is no automation (tweeting in advance, auto DMs, etc.). Just one guy being incredibly social!

What's the social media marketing ROI of the above? I have no idea, but $600 seems like a steal to me. Thanks again to Jason Sadler, who will likely be running for U.S. President in 2012.

Tim

Do you want some TARP?

I am not an expert on the US economy (or the Canadian economy for that matter). I can't profess to know which side is up in the current economic situation. All I know is that any discussion about TARP funds gets a lot of US credit union advocates pretty upset. See here and here and here and here.

Oh, and the other thing I know, is that if you hit play on the above video, this song will be in your head all day.

Tim

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac explained Pecha Kucha style by Ginny Brady

Ginny Brady from the Boardcast blog in New York put together a very informative Pecha Kucha presentation on the recent unravelling of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the US.

Check it out. I found it really helpful to understand how the financial services industry and the US economy got into this mess. Great job Ginny.

By the way, a Pecha Kucha (pronounced "peh-chak-cha") is a presentation given in 20 slides and a maximum of 20 seconds per slide. If you want to try this form of presentation live, there are eight spots still available at the upcoming BarCampBankBC. Click here to find out more information.

Tim

Get 'em while they're young and pissed!

A Generation Y and X study has concluded that 53% of those in Gen X (30-42 years old) and 61% of Gen Y (18-29 years old) had either changed their primary financial institution (PFI) or considered doing so in the past two years. That compares with 20% of the Silent Generation and 37% of Baby Boomers surveyed.

Some of the key findings:

The survey indicates that young people can be more impatient, less tolerant and harder to please than their cohorts in the older generations. It also found that younger customers are more likely than older customers to find fault or have problems with their primary financial institutions. For example:

37% of Gen Y and 36% of Gen X believe they would get better customer service at a different bank;

22% of Gen Y and 21% of Gen X reported being upset in the past year about high fees, compared with 14% of Boomer and 6% of Silent Generation respondents; and

18% of Gen Y and 17% of Gen X reported being upset about a lack of ATM locations, compared with 11% of Boomers and 3% of the Silent Generation.

This report should be very encouraging to credit unions. With the average age of credit union members pushing 50, attracting young people is definitely on credit union leaders' minds.

The biggest issue I see is that while young people are open to change, credit unions aren't doing enough to get on young people's consideration list. So unfortunetly that change is more than likely to be from one bank to another bank.

Since young people are not in love with their primary financial institution, credit unions have a great opportunity to step up and be that alternative that young people are obviously craving.

Tim

Wow. An actual brand-spanking-new credit union is being formed in Canada!

Canadian artists, film and television industry professionals are celebrating their approval to incorporate the newest credit union in Toronto, the Creative Arts Savings and Credit Union.

It will be a banking institution tailored to meet the needs of working artists and professionals in the entertainment industry.

"This is great news for artists," said Peter Keleghan, Canadian star (Made in Canada, The Newsroom, Billable Hours) and Creative Arts board member. "In the past, traditional banks have tended to overlook our needs. It's high time an institution was created to give artists a leg up, by providing access to the financial services many other people take for granted."

The approval marks a key milestone in a long process that was spearheaded by ACTRA, together with the DGC-O, IATSE, NABET and other film and television industry guilds and unions. Creative Arts is poised to begin operations, after it raises $2.5 million in start-up capital through investment shares.

My take

This is very cool! It's refreshing to read about a credit union being born rather than another one being merged out of existence.

It's reads like a good screenplay—a compelling story with a compelling name and an interesting cast of characters. This is a credit union being built from the ground up to meet the needs of a specific group of people with very specific financial needs. This is what credit unions used to be all about! Good luck Creative Arts Savings and Credit Union.

Tim

Should your credit union be engaging in the social web for issue management?

A regular reader of our blog recently tipped me off to an interesting story regarding asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) being discussed on Facebook.

A group of individual investors have formed a Facebook group to draw attention to ABCP and provide a forum to discuss ABCP and its roll in the sub-prime mortgage crisis in Canada. This has been a burning story in the Canadian press for quite awhile. For the past few months most of the coverage has focused on the institutional investors, but during April and May the spotlight turned to individuals—the mom-and-pop investors whose life savings (in some cases) got trapped in what they had been told was an investment that was as secure as a GIC.

The discussion board on the Facebook group is available only to members of the group to see, but what I can relay is how these concerned members have used this social media platform as a tool to air their grievances. And I'm not talking about Gen Y—I'm talking about older, close-to-retirement (or retired) folks. They seem quite knowledgeable about the credit union system, the provincial centrals and their relationship to investment firms that service the credit union industry.

To be frank, my knowledge and understanding about these issues is limited, so without talking over my head or getting political, I am interested in starting a discussion about the questions this type of situation raises. Here are some basic questions for you and your credit union to consider.

1. Is your credit union doing enough to keep tabs on social media for issue management purposes?
2. Do the available social media tools offer credit unions an opportunity to be proactive about an issue like this?
3. And, do those of us in the credit union world tend to be too narrow in our view of who is using social media, demographically speaking?

Over to you!

Tim

Here's two more communities to join...

... even if you are suffering from Too Many Social Networks Disorder (TMSND).

I seem to get an invite to join another social network site every few days. Between Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, I can barely keep up. However, if you are a credit union marketer, there are two more communities that you should consider joining.

Banktastic

Banktastic is the brainchild of The Garland Group, a Texas-based IT and security risk-assessment firm.

Pros:

• A close-knit growing community of progressive members who care about Web 2.0, financial services and all things bank and credit union.
• Bantastic is open to everyone.
• Bantastic is simple. There are three basic areas that you can participate in:
  • Questions and answers
  • News
  • Product and company reviews
• The Garland Group CEO, Brad Garland, and software developer, Mark McSpadden are very active participants throughout the credit union blog-o-sphere.
• Community manager, Lisa Randolph, is very active on the site and is a huge contributor to the content. She also produces much of the Banktastic videos. Having a dedicated manager is brilliant and really ensures that the site will be active in the future.
• There is lots of great video content cranked out weekly. There are two shows, The Burst and The CU Scoop. Both shows can be found on The Banktastics blog.
• Although it is not credit union specific, there are a number of credit union folks participating and Banktastic will give you exposure to the broader banking world.

Cons

• It just came out of semi-private beta on April 1, so there aren't that many members yet, but this will change over time.
• The word 'Bank' is in the name. Sorry Brad, I had to give you a bit of a dig on that one. You know me and my credit union singularity!

EverythingCU

EverythingCU is an active community of credit union marketers dedicated to discussing marketing and branding issues facing credit unions of all sizes.

Pros:

• It is well-established with over 5,900 members.
• Open only to credit union employees, so you can discuss things openly with your peers without feeling like vendors (like me) are spying on your world.
• Chief Innovation Officer, Morriss Partee, is a card-carrying credit union cheerleader and he and his team have done an amazing job at creating a wonderful resource for the credit union world.
• Everything CU offers great webinars and the discussion board is very active.
• Since I am unable to sign-up, I can't tell you much more about Everything CU, other than I have heard it is very worthwhile.

Cons

• For you, nothing. For me, I am stuck outside looking at the home page. Hey, if I am going to give Brad a hard time, I should also give Morriss a dig to keep things fair.

Even though your TMSND might be at an all-time high, check out Banktastic and EverythingCU today and sign-up. Both communities are free, offer valuable information and will do you a lot more good than adding another useless drinking game app to your Facebook profile (did I just say that?).

Tim

Cent-a-mental. Should we keep the penny around?

The Canadian penny just turned 100 and for its anniversary present, there is legislation on the table to kill it. This article in the Montreal Gazette, Making cents makes no sense at all goes into detail.

NDP MP Pat Martin introduced the legislation yesterday to stop production of the penny, phase it out of circulation and introduce a ''rounding'' system to adjust prices to the nearest nickel.

"We believe at the same time we have a birthday party for the penny, we should have a funeral," Martin told a news conference yesterday.

Bitter sweet. My earliest memory of money is filling a jar full of pennies. Today, I am 100% debit and credit cards, so I guess I can't be all melancholy about the penny disappearing.

Tim

P.S. OK, maybe my cheesiest blog headline ever!