The Perfect Facebook Post?

Earlier this year, I worked with a credit union in Saskatchewan, Canada to help set up and guide their foray into social media. They have a small marketing department and weren’t sure they’d be able to do everything they wanted to do when it came to social media. As well, this credit union has a membership of 24,000 in rural Saskatchewan—not exactly the hot bed of social media usage.

Along with setting up and designing the look and feel for their social media for them, I wrote some social media guidelines to help them become comfortable in knowing what to post and when. The two-person marketing department has obviously taken Currency’s guidance to heart and have produced some great engagement and growth in their social media platforms in just a few months.

I recently saw one of their Facebook posts, and it struck me as perhaps a perfect Facebook post.

Here it is:

What made it “perfect?” I spotted a number of things.

1. A colorful photograph that drew your attention.
2. A statement about summer—something that’s been a bit delayed in Saskatchewan this year. This connected with a lot of locals, since they’re also feeling happy about summer arriving.
3. A relatively low-cost, yet desirable prize being offered.
4. A great description on the prize that gets people thinking about what they would do with it if they won it.
5. A super easy entry process—just comment on the post about your favorite thing about summer.
6. A bonus entry process! Share the post and you’re entered a second time.
7. A short, clear deadline that’s not too far away that people will forget about it and encourages people to just enter immediately.

All good stuff, but the question is, what results did it generate? In the first 17 hours it was posted, it resulted in 37 people liking the post, 147 comments, 166 shares, and most impressively 7,568 people reached without any paid boosting. It also generated 34 additional page likes alone. Those 34 page likes represent approximately a 15% growth—in one day!

And the subject obviously resonated with followers (old and new). Just read through some of the comments (first screen shown here):

Every comment was relatable to people in the area (there are lots of lakes/beaches, camping, and agriculture in the region). Every comment was positive and generated more comments. The number of happy faces and hearts attached to the messages was significant.

One more significant fact. Their head office is in a town of 16,000 and their branches are in towns much, much smaller. At the beginning of the day, they had only 264 people that liked their page. Cornerstone Credit Union hit the nail squarely on the head with this post, and found a way to speak to not only their members, but the rest of the community too. And isn’t that what being a credit union is all about?

Michael

Michael Berger has nearly 20 years of experience in the credit union industry—having worked for Canada’s two largest credit unions as well as at a credit union service bureau. Michael is a nearly life-long credit union member who grew up on a farm in a small town. He loves to help others succeed at work and in life, and is always open to discussing the latest happenings on "The Amazing Race."