03/22/2009

A couple of blog interviews with me

By Tim McAlpine

I've been asked to be part of a couple of blog series lately.

First up was an interview with Peter Reek from Smart Savvy + Associates. I've known Peter for about 10 years and he's a great guy. He's found real success with his new marketing recruitment firm. He is an uber-connector and putting people together is exactly what he's excellent at. I was one interview among nine other marketers making a difference in the Vancouver area.

Next up, was an interview with Aaron Strout, the CMO from Powered Inc. from Austin, Texas. I am interview number 55 in a series of profiles he has been doing since January. Honestly, I'm not sure how I made the list considering the first 54 interviews are the who's who in the social media world. Well, I do know, my friend Morriss Partee from EverythingCU.com suggested me. Thanks Morriss!

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02/18/2009

United Federal stands up, takes matters into its own hands and says "We're different and you can trust us"

By Tim McAlpine 

 
Michigan's United Federal Credit Union isn't sitting back and waiting for the new members to find them, they are taking a stand and have launched their own PR campaign. This is from United Federal's interactive press release.

"While Congress continues to pour billions into a bailout stimulus plan for the banking sector as a solution for economic recovery, alternative financial institutions like United Federal Credit Union (UFCU) are standing up and speaking out about being another resolution to the financial crisis, and an institution that Americans can trust."

United Federal is not beating around the bush! Nicely done. More credit unions should step up and get their good name out this way.

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11/16/2008

Is your credit union looking to attract more Moms? You better watch what you say!

By Tim McAlpine

I have heard this one quite a bit at my presentations this year, "This social media thing is fine and dandy, but our members aren't online. I don't see how these things that you are talking about apply to us."

I like to dispell this myth any chance I get. One of the biggest segments in the blog-o-sphere is Moms. They are active bloggers, vloggers and Twitterers. To illustrate the power of the social web and to alert you to one of the biggest corporate goof-ups blow-ups on the web this year, simply watch Motrin's brand new commercial below. From what I can gather, it was released just this past week.

This ad has enraged the Mommy blog-o-sphere. Look no further than these live search results on Twitter. In addition, there are countless video responses and blog posts popping up like wildfire. You can actually buy anti-Motrin T-shirts on Cafe Press already.

This is a constructive video response. Some of them aren't so nice.

Lessons for credit union marketers:

1. Members and potential members have a voice
2. Do not assume your members aren't online
3. Do not underestimate the power the Internet
4. Pre-test your ideas with the target market you are attempting to attract

I will be following this story closely. I am very interested to see how Motrin handles this huge PR issue in the coming weeks.

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08/27/2008

Are you listening? What your credit union can learn from EA and Tiger Woods.

By Tim McAlpine

By keeping tabs on what is being said on-line about its products, Electronic Arts picked up on a user-generated YouTube video that demonstrated a glitch in its Tiger Woods 2008 video game. For the release of the 2009 version of the game they produced this new commercial.

 
This is a quote from the WOMMA website. 

Tiger Woods Responds to Fan's YouTube Video A fan of the video game Tiger Woods 08 posted a YouTube video highlighting a "glitch" in the video that enabled the Tiger Woods character to walk and golf on water—dubbed the "Jesus Shot." In response, and as a promotion for the Tiger Woods 09 game, game creators Electronic Arts and Woods posted a video that shows the real-life Woods taking that very same shot. The video's message: "It's not a glitch. He's just that good." It's a great example of the good ideas that can come from keeping a pulse on what people are saying about you and your brand online.

EA took a possible negative and made it into a huge positive. Well done.

Listen. React. Repeat.

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06/20/2008

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

By Tim McAlpine

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!

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03/15/2008

Do you know who your haters are?

By Tim McAlpine

It started yesterday. At first it looked like a marketer from Washington Mutual had set up a Twitter account to promote its Whoo hoo!™ brand campaign.

After just a few hours it became very apparent that this was not the work of WaMu. Someone with an axe to grind setup an account, followed more than 1,000 people (in hopes that they would return the favour) and started posted disparaging tweets. Evil genius.

This is just one more example of how the social web has given everyone a bigger voice than ever before. Just type 'Worst Bank Ever' into Google and you'll see how close this hits to home in the credit union world.

This is an interesting case though. What will Twitter do? Will they be forced to take this account down? And can they track down the culprit?  I know I will be following.

What can your credit union do to protect itself against brand attacks like this?

• Establish a response policy and put someone in charge of the care and feeding of your online reputation.
   
• Get involved in the social web. The easiest thing you can do is use the free service Google Alerts to let you know when anything is being posted on the Internet about your credit union.
   
• Establish your own credit union blog. Much has been said about the ROI of credit union's blogging, but put that discussion aside for a moment and think about the power of a blog as a pure communication channel. Wouldn't you rather have your haters challenge you on your own turf than having to resort to their own blog or public services like Twitter?

It would be foolish to think that everyone loves your credit union. Get involved and get to know your haters! You will find a lot of fans along the way as well.

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03/07/2008

PR insight: 10 tips for getting unpaid coverage.

By Tim McAlpine

I was recently asked to by Credit Union Executive Society (CUES) to be a guest PR Insights columnist. You might be getting sick of all this Young & Free talk, but here is some more!

How do you garner significant unpaid media attention for your credit union? Create a compelling good news story with multiple chapters.

Here's how our marketing agency worked with $1.6 billion (U.S.) Common Wealth Credit Union, Lloydminster, Alberta, to create sustained media interest that has resulted in incredible unpaid coverage for the launch of a free checking account. While free checking accounts in the U.S. are commonplace, that isn't yet the case in Canada.

Common Wealth CU approached us with a simple brief, "We want to launch a free checking account for the under-25 group and connect with the youth market in Northern Alberta."

Our solution was to name the new product Young & Free and create a fully integrated marketing campaign, combined with a spokesperson search to find the voice of Alberta's under-25 crowd. The campaign comes to life on a dedicated microsite at www.YoungFreeAlberta.com. Public relations has played a significant role in the success of this initiative...

+ Read the rest on the CUES website

+ View all of the media coverage on the program

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07/07/2007

A master lesson in PR 2.0 by Verity Credit Union.

By Tim McAlpine

I was just cruising around my regular credit union blogs and stopped in my tracks when I read a post from Shari Storm on Verity Credit Union's Our Voices blog.

Folks, learn from this. This is how your credit union needs to deal with critical situations. The honesty and transparency shown in this post is phenominal. Verity is a pioneer in the social web space, so I am not surprised by the leadership shown here. This is the power of having a credit union blog at your disposal. Obviously a blog is an ideal way to engage members and potential members on the light and fluffy side, but as you can see here, it is also a perfect venue to deal with the tough stuff. Here is a portion of the post:

Security Breach You may have heard that a credit card processor in Florida had a high ranking manager steal 2.3 million people’s information and sell it to a data broker, who in turn, sold it to some marketing companies. That is our credit card processor. We are waiting on the list to see if any of our members were part of this group. Fidelity should be getting it to us in the next few days. They are also sending a letter to every consumer involved. The good news for us (we think) is that it was Certegy Check Services that was compromised and we do not use them for our check servicing. We may find very few, if any, of our members’ information compromised. The other piece of good news is that it doesn’t look like this guy sold it to identity thieves. It looks like, at this point, that 2.3 million people are just getting more solicitations than they should. I say this NOT trying to minimize the situation. The situation is awful. Nobody should steal another person’s information for any reason. However, it is important to note that the info went to marketing companies and not an organized crime ring.

Way to fess up and get the information out. Bravo.

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