Wow! Young & Free Alberta wins first place in the Forrester Groundswell Awards
By Tim McAlpine
I was in Dallas at the Forrester Consumer Forum today accepting the first place Groundswell Award in the Talking category on behalf of Common Wealth Credit Union.
This is the biggest recognition yet for Young & Free Alberta and I actually kept a lid on it since finding out 19 days ago! Here is a little video that documents my trouble with keeping secrets.
What are the Groundswell Awards?
The Forrester Groundswell Awards recognize excellence in accomplishing business goals with social applications. Forrester developed this awards program to support and recognize the principles outlined in the Forrester book Groundswell: Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies (Harvard Business Press, 2008). Winners were selected based on a combination of online community reviews and proof of business value. The awards recognize companies that effectively use social media across seven categories: Listening, Talking, Energizing, Supporting, Embracing, Managing and Social Impact.
What's the big deal?
The big deal is being recognized as the best initiative amongst the 34 nominated entries in the Talking category. Honestly, I thought being included with this group was recognition enough, but winning against these incredible initiatives is hard to fathom.
- Quickbooks Community
- Kraft Philadelphia Cream Cheese blog
- Bud Light Facebook application
- Sears Arrive Lounge
- General Motors iGotShotgun launch site for new Corvette
- American Express OPEN Forum
- The Wall Street Journal Get Socialized
- Intel Chinese user-generated advertising campaign
- Rubbermaid's Adventures in Organization blog
- Johnson & Johnson health channel on YouTube
- Microsoft Office Poke Facebook application
- Coca Cola's MyCokeRewards.com
Wow! We are all on cloud nine. Thanks again to everyone who has been a part of this initiaitive.
+ Click here to see all of the finalists and winners in each category
+ Click here for our press release
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10/23/2008
Kids today...
... are amazing (Part 2).
By Tim McAlpine
Last year during the voting phase of the inaugral spokesperson search for Young & Free Alberta, I blogged about how impressed I was with our three finalists, Larissa, Paula and Shane. Fast forward one year later and I have the exact same feelings. But this time the feeling is doubled because we have twice as many finalists!
What amazes me most is how far above and beyond the minimum requirements each of our applicants is taking their campaign. A Young & Free finalist is required to create an application video and blog post plus answer our video challenge. That's it. Everything else is completely up to them.
Below I have bolded some of my favourite pieces of content from each finalist. The effort, creativity and drive being displayed is inspiring. Each one is qualified and deserving of the job.
The voting phase for TDECU's Young & Free Texas Spokesperson search ends Friday at midnight. Amy, DeAndre' and Jason have been going crazy for the last two weeks driving votes for their campaigns. Just look at the volume of creative content being churned out.
And, the voting phase for Common Wealth Credit Union second annual Young & Free Alberta Spokesperson search ends Monday. James, Jenna Mae and Myles efforts have been equally impressive.
|
Name: James Morrison |
Name: Jenna Mae Togado |
Name: Myles Peterman |
I especially love the incredible video work. I'll say it again—from this 39-year-old Gen Xer, the future of today's youth is not just bright, it is brilliant!
10/23/2008
Larissa's year (well nine months)
By Tim McAlpine
I put this video together for my last presentation on the Young & Free Story and never got around to posting it on our blog. Take a look—it boils Larissa Walkiw's nine-month term as the Young & Free Alberta Spokesperson down to six minutes.
It is wild to look back on what Larissa was able to accomplish in just nine short months. I have to remind myself that at the very core of this initiative is a simple free chequing product launch.
10/21/2008
Guest post: It's about the spinach, stupid. And the carts. And pretty much everything else
(Or what credit unions can learn from the mind of a disgruntled big box shopper.)
Dear SuperDuperBigMart [and credit union professionals],
When your new store [read: branch] opened near my house a few months back, I deliberately stayed away for a while. About three days to be exact. Finally the lure of cheap toilet paper [read: free chequing] became irresistible.
But the line. Oh sweet-mother-of-smiley-faces, the line. It. Could. Not. Have. Moved. Slower.
And the bag of spinach I picked up was already expired. Kind of weird since you just opened. [read: What? You’re out of envelopes at the ATM?]
Then there were the carts [read: brochures and other marketing paraphrenalia] scattered everywhere. Carts crying out for some sort of cart corral, if not a full-fledged cart jockey or two.
Today, I went back. Again, the parking lot was a mess. No one greeted me when I walked in the door [read: I thought it was about relationships?]. You didn’t have what I wanted [read: practical financial advice] and the items you did have, didn’t have any price on them [read: weren’t priced right].
When it was time to check out, you only had one cashier open [read: wicket]. No problem, I thought. I’ll use the self-checkout [read: profit-maximizing, expense-minimizing ATM]. But the technology worked against me. Finally, it stopped working altogether.
"Please wait for employee assistance!" it kept announcing in its loud, electronic voice. So I waited. And waited. And waited some more. But no one came to help. They walked right by. I just stood there helpless with my juice boxes and my garbage bags [read: U.S. cheques and other transactions].
Finally, I left my cheap toilet paper [read: free chequing account] in the cart and high tailed it out of there—‘cause seriously, I don’t have time to be ignored, no matter how low your prices are [read: don’t you want my money?!].
But then I thought maybe I should tell someone about my terrible, no-good, very bad day(s), so I logged onto your website. I used all 150 allowed words to tell you my story and then you sent me this—or rather, your computer did:
PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS E-MAIL
Please be advised that your email has been sent to the Customer Relations Department. You will receive a response in the shortest possible time. We thank you for visiting www.SuperDuperBigMart.com. We look forward to serving you on your next visit. Thank you.
Pardon me? The shortest possible time? By whose assessment? Not mine, obviously, or you would have responded by now. How about an actual service promise?
Making matters worse, I also read this on your website:
SuperDuperBigMart is committed to giving Canadians the best shopping experience in the marketplace by delivering everyday low prices, exceptional customer service, top-quality merchandise, and extensive community involvement, philanthropy and corporate social responsibility. SuperDuperBigMart has repeatedly listed among the 50 Best Companies to Work for in Canada, as published in Report on Business Magazine.
You know. I’ve always wondered what makes people go postal [read: bank?]. And now I know. Thank you, SuperDuperBigMart, for reminding me there’s more to being super than just having 'SuperDuper' in your name.
Oh, and if you’re thinking of calling me today, please note I’ll be out re-buying all the things I tried to buy at your store yesterday, this time with my three-year-old in tow. [read: Where is Mount Lehman Credit Union anyway?]
Signed,
Some crazy lady in Surrey
About our guest blogger: Colleen Pepper is a freelance writer and editor specializing in the credit union industry since 2001.
Colleen writes radio spots, campaign collateral and more serious things like annual reports, brochures and newsletters. This week a client asked her to write a letter telling members their account manager died, demonstrating that she can do funny and funerals—although whether a letter is the right choice for the latter is a blog in itself.
Colleen has a B.A. in Communications and History from Trinity Western University. In her spare time, she is a mom and aspiring mystery shopper. She’s recently discovered how much she hates SuperDuperBigMart—or at least the sparkly, brand new one by her house.
10/17/2008
Currency Pies a Mayor!
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10/13/2008
The Finance 2.0 Summit in New York City: if you're nice to me, I can get you a discount!
By Tim McAlpine
My next speaking date is day one of The Finance 2.0 Summit. It is a new conference being held in New York City at the swanky Harvard Club on January 26 and 27, 2009. It is 100% dedicated to educating financial industry professionals about social media. Here are some of the key learnings attendees will get out of it:
- How to measure marketing success in the world of Finance 2.0
- Social media's impact on consumers' financial decisions
- How to optimize the revenue-earning potential of your eMarketing division
- Leverage the channel partner model online and offline to extend your product footprint
- How to maximize the benefits of blogging and other new mediums
- Successfully integrating social media campaigns into traditional marketing strategies
I will be presenting Young & Free Alberta: Integrating Marketing and Social Media to Connect with Consumers.
As a speaker, I am able to offer my blog readers a discount. Ten of you can get a 15% discount off the regular registration fee.
If you want a discount, contact me at tmcalpine@currencymarketing.ca and I will send you the discount code.
It should be a great conference, with many talented, entertaining and smart speakers, including:
- Trey Reeme – Are You a Spider or a Fly? Defining Your Relationship with the Web
- Ron Shevlin – Why Are We Talking About Finance 2.0 When We Haven't Figured Out Finance 1.0?
- Ed Terpening – Crashing the Party: Are Financial Institutions Welcomed on the Social Media Scene?
- Shari Storm - Best Practices in Blogging: How to Maximize the Benefits of This New Medium
- William Azaroff – Using Social Media to Connect with Your Community
- Morriss Partee – Perfecting Your Palette: Recipes for a Successful Social Marketing Campaign
- Jeffry Pilcher – Results 2.0: Using Web 2.0 Tools to Achieve Real Business Objectives
I hope to see you there.
10/10/2008
Our credit union needs to be in Facebook. That's where all those crazy kids are!
By Tim McAlpine
Many credit unions are trying to figure out how to best create a presence within the walled-garden-of-promise that is Facebook. The most popular approach is to set up a free page and hope people find and become fans of your page.
These credit union pages have attracted a range of fans from a dozen to perhaps a hundred fans. The most I have seen is our Young & Free Alberta page with 231 fans. And I'll admit that about half of those are credit union folks. There are likely credit unions with more fans than that, but it still seems pretty paltry considering that Facebook now has more than 100 million members.
But what if there was a better way to build a presence in Facebook?
I have been watching a really interesting and really effective by-product of the Young & Free Alberta and Young & Free Texas spokesperson searches this year. The proliferation of campaign-specific Facebook groups by spokesperson applicants.
DeAndre' in Texas started the trend and between the two competitions there are now 10 Young & Free Facebook groups that I know of. And the member numbers are growing like wildfire. Here are the member numbers at the time of writing this post.
Alberta
- Myles (230 members)
- Jenna Mae (163 members)
- Starsha (142 members)
- Raymond (100 members)
- Damien (94 members)
- Daniel (45 members)
Texas
That's 1,264 young people that have now been exposed to Common Wealth Credit Union and TDECU through unsolicited third-party endorsements within the last three weeks.
But these aren't real credit union fans!
Fair enough. Many of these groups will fade away as quickly as they appeared when we shortlist for the voting stage (today in Texas, next Friday in Alberta), but I would argue that the real value lies in what you do with the momentary attention. Most Facebook pages result in a bunch of credit union employees and industry peers becoming fans and little more.
These unsponsored, spontaneous Facebook groups have resulted in the biggest new account opening month for Young & Free Alberta since we started and a record amount of site traffic and blog comments on both sites over the last few weeks.
Another way we have been able to capitalize on this influx of traffic is by adding a simple question to all of the forms on the sites, including the blog comment form. We simply ask: "Would you like to receive e-updates and the chance to win great prizes?"
More than 75% of form submissions are opting into our e-mail lists. We have grown our Alberta list by nearly 900% in the last two months. These are young people giving us permission to open a dialogue with them in their in-box.
I talk a lot about being more blatant with your social media activity and asking for visitors to engage with your credit union and that you should not be afraid to seek opportunities to ask for the sale. Here is living proof that you can mix social media and word-of-mouth advertising with commerce and have it be authentic and very effective.
The cool thing is that this was not our idea or the credit unions' ideas. It just happened naturally. Pretty exciting stuff don't you think? If you have other ways that your credit union has been effective within Facebook, please add them to the comments.
10/05/2008
CU Branding 101: What's the difference and does it matter?
By Tim McAlpine
There were many highlights at the FORUM Solution/Trabian Partnership Symposium, but the best part to me was the unveiling of the CU Skeptic. We now all know that the CU Skeptic is Mark McSpadden from The Garland Group and the host of Banktastic TV's the CU Scoop.
Mark did a great job of presenting his case. One of the screens that he employed to prove his point was simply titled "The Difference Between Credit Unions and Banks" which was followed immediately by a blank screen. In Mark's sub-30 Gen Y opinion, there is absolutely nothing different between the two. We can all go on and on about the member ownership, the not-for-profit structure and the community centered focus, but to the Skeptic and in his estimation, to the general public these things either don't matter or are completely invisible.
Mark's blogging as the Skeptic grew out of being tired of the credit union cheerleaders (including yours truly) blogging about how great and different credit unions are.
Does the difference between credit unions and banks even matter?
The problem with this age old comparison is that the differences are subtle and the differences are often different!
Ultimately, each credit union needs to be relevant and desirable to its own members. This point was brought home by William Azaroff presenting his story about Vancity (400,000 members and $14B in assets) and Gene Blishen presenting his story about Mount Lehman Credit Union (2,000 members and $40M in assets).
Other than both being credit unions, these two institutions have absolutely nothing in common. This is a good thing, because both serve a very different group of people and both of these credit unions are very successful.
So why the fixation on a national brand campaign?
A recurring theme at these events and online is the need for a nationwide brand awareness campaign in the US to illustrate the difference between credit unions and banks. In theory, this is a good idea, but the main problem is that large groups of credit unions can never agree on a compelling universal difference.
Since hearing the Skeptic's talk, I have had this mock meeting conversation rattling around in my head.
|
The scene: the Motel Owners Association National Convention 300 motel stakeholders have congregated to discuss the need for a national branding campaign. "We need to get the word out that motels are better than hotels. Those hotel guys are eating our lunch." "Yeah, hotels are all about making the big profits. Motels are an affordable alternative. So first of all, let's decide on what makes us different." "Doors on the outside?" "No, we have halls at our motel." "How about anything under two floors?" "Nope, we have three floors." "Kitchenettes?" "No. Some hotels have kitchenettes. We can't use that." "What if we go after the business practices of the hoteliers?" "Not our style. Besides, we'll have the tourism regulators kill our campaign." Two hours later after serious brainstorming and debate, two final message emerge that all 300 conference delegates can agree on: "Motels... Our towels are slightly scratchier." "Motels... It is 68% fewer steps on average from car to pillow." |
But perhaps now there is a compelling difference that needs to be told
With the big banks in the US in an endless downward spiral, now would be the time to promote a unifying difference between credit unions and banks. A message of trust would resonate more today than ever before.
Will it happen? Not likely. There are too many cooks and there is fear of casting any doubt towards the stability of the big banks.
Bottom line:
Defining and promoting your credit union's brand is your problem. Do everything you can to stand out against the competitors in your marketplace. Lean on some of the global credit union differences if that makes sense in your situation or define your own difference and stick to it over time.
The CU Skeptic provided all of the Symposium attendees with a splash of cold water. Thanks Mark!
10/01/2008
My keynote speech in Indiana: Young & Free One Year Later
By Tim McAlpine
Here is the Ustream.TV recording of my presentation today.
I am happy with the way it turned out and it looks like my son's magical mind-controling powers worked on our host Ron Shevlin. He didn't really give me the business.
A special thanks to Doug, Cam and Leah from FORUM Solutions and Matt Dean from Trabian for giving me the opportunity to kick off their terrific conference.
10/01/2008
Live from the Partnership Symposium in Indiana
By Tim McAlpine
I am at the FORUM Solutions/Trabian Partnership Symposium in Fishers, Indiana. Brent Dixon is live broadcasting the event through Ustream.TV on Open Source CU. Tune in here or there. Enjoy the show.
Viewing 1 - 10 of 10 |
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