How Can Social Media Help My Credit Union?

Wendy Soucie
August 11, 2010 | COMMENTS

This is a good question! As business owners, we are concerned with the return of investment on our time and costs involved in our social media efforts. We want to see change and sales revenue increase right away. If this is hard for you to answer, perhaps you are asking the wrong question. 

If you are interested in true customer engagement, the question should be changed to, "How can I use social media to help my members?"

Social media is a two-way conversation via the Internet (from many to many), bringing shared knowledge that brings value to the people involved. 

What value can the knowledge you have of your business, products, personal passions, or favorite activities have to others? What if you freely shared this information? What would happen?

Social media works by sharing your content via text, images, slides, video, or audio. Businesses win by solving problems; customers win by educating themselves using information from media that best suits their lifestyle, time availability, and depth of knowledge. This is done in the space/place that each individual spends his/her available time.

First Steps

It's okay to take baby steps with social media. Also, don't immediately make a sales pitch—social media is not just about free advertising.

Let's get started. It helps to take marketing materials already created and re-purpose them for social media. For example, nearly every business has a list of frequently-asked questions (or could come up with this pretty quickly). Using this material as our knowledge base, here are some ideas: 

1. Collect frequently-asked questions used in your business.
2. Write it up as an article between 300 and 400 words. 
3. Video yourself or others answering each question (video each question separately and make answers between 60 and 90 seconds max.
4. Have someone else record separately the audio for the interview /answer questions video, with digital recorder to mp3. Length should be the same as the video.
5. Create a slide show of the Q&A with good product pictures and answer the questions using  pictures, or step-by-step pictures with limited text.

Next, let's assume you aren't currently on any social media site—you will have to create business accounts at some social media sites. 

1. Create accounts at Youtube.com (video), pitchengine.com (press release), Ezine (article sharing), Slideshare.net (presentation sharing), and iTunes (audio podcasts).
2. Write and edit your article.
3. Edit your video clip with free, simple video editing software, such as Windows Video maker and Flip video (comes with Flip Video device) editing software. Add title, your website, and contact info to beginning and end of clip.
4. Make sure you introduce each person in the audio recording prior to the interview so you capture that in sound.
5. Build a PowerPoint presentation of less than 10 slides. Use only one introductory slide with contact information on it and repeat as first and last slide.

Upload to appropriate site.

1. Make sure you use the tagging features for each social media site. This lets you categorize each content piece with keywords or phrases about the content that people might be searching for. This is especially important for the video, audio, and slide content.
2. Post as article on enews, Pitchengine.com, event on your website, trade website, online news site, and local newspapers. 
3. Post video on Youtube and your website/blog. Share the link with everyone you know.
4. Upload audio to Itunes in the podcast category.
5. Add the PowerPoint slides to Slideshare.net.

Then make sure your customers know about this free information by:

1. Sending e-mail out to your mailing list, giving them the links to your posted content.
2. Updating your status on any social media sites on which you are active.
3. Asking every employee at the company (and yes, they are on social media) to do the same.
4. Adding the link into your next print newsletter, as a note in your invoices, or as part of your signature in your e-mails and letters.

Don't expect overnight success, but do it again next month with another piece of existing information that helps to solve a member's problem.

Wendy Soucie is a social media/marketing strategist based in Madison, WI. Soucie and Doug Tangwall of End Result Marketing provide marketing and social media services to business clients.