Joining the Conversation, Being the Conversation

It has been much too long since I've posted here on The Loop. The past several weeks have been filled with exciting, but time consuming, progress as well as a bit of panic due to some hardware failures. Anyway, lets get to it.

The hot topic right now in most spheres of marketing is “how do we join the conversation?” Between Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, and all the other social sites that are enabling people to communicate in new ways we have our hands full. So, how DO you join the conversations that take place in these venues?

First, make a note, you can’t just start a Facebook page and hope people will be your friend. Take this past election for example. Every time McCain dropped “my friends” into a speech, twitter exploded with people replying “I’m not your friend!” You can be sure that you will get a similar response if you put up a Facebook page and try to be your members’ friend. As much as we’d like to be, we just aren’t their friend; we are their credit union.

People use these social sites because it offers them something. That might be a way to keep track of long time friends who have moved or are in school, entertainment, activism, etc. So, ask yourself this question before trying to get into the social media space, “what would this offer our members? What’s in it for them?” If you’re not providing something useful or engaging in the space you become just another advertisement that will be largely ignored.

The trick is to engage people and to show them that there is a person/people behind your logo. Be a person, do something that engages them and encourages their participation.

Don’t think this takes millions in your marketing budget either. There are so many great free tools and networks online that require little to no monetary investment. It just takes creativity, time, and knowledge of who your members are.

Here are a few simple things to remember when trying to engage your membership.

Get them involved

Let your membership feel like they are in control. Give them a space to interact with you, or be in the space that they are already conversing in. Encourage them to participate, and offer them something for their participation. Let them know that their input matters and that that this is their credit union (and in turn their website, and their branch, and their community).

Get them engaged

The best way to get your membership engaged is to actively participate in something. Maine State Credit Union just ran a photo contest that allowed people to submit their photos of “Maine through a Mainer’s eyes” to be used as the header images on the website as a small scale test of user generated content (pardon my cliché). We got over 200 photos from over 20 people (all members). I then put all those photos into a Flickr account (thanks to a great tip from Morriss Partee) and added them to several Flickr groups dedicated to photos of Maine. This attracted quite a few eyes to Maine State Credit Union’s Flickr account, the contest, and hopefully the institution itself. This has led to a lot of great conversations via email with members from all over the state about where they live and the places they love in the state.

Just a side note, running this contest cost almost nothing other than an investment of time and effort.

Start Conversations

Be a person, talk like a person, and interact like a person. If you are running a contest, or any other campaign geared to encourage member participation, try to be personal. Strike up a conversation. Make a comment on their participation. As an example, many of the photos that came in during our contest here at Maine State Credit Union were of places that I have been and it was actually quite fun to start conversations about those areas of our state. Find a common ground with your members and be a person they can identify with through conversation.

Join Conversations

There are some very easy, and cheap, ways of tracking what is being said about your credit union. Set up Google Alerts and keep track of what is happening online. If somebody posts a blog that mentions your name (especially if they are an existing member) leave a comment and join that conversation. If you want your members and potential members to be engaged with you, you need to be just as engaged with them.

Be a Person

Sign your blog posts with your name, not your credit union’s name. During your interaction with members online, be personal and avoid canned email responses. There is always something you can comment on or say that can really break down that “us vs. them” feeling that usually comes with an email from a financial institution.

So, be creative, be a person, and have fun with it. Find the tools that best fit your goal of engagement and be an active participant in your community. Show them that you are there because of them and that they are the ones that make the credit union go ‘round.

I wish you all the best this Thanksgiving!

Morriss Partee CEO of Everythingcu.com at the 2008 Partnership Symposium

Morriss just wrapped up the final presentation of the day with a session on creating an engaging community.

Here are a few highlights.

This is our time to shine.

Community is not just a business to business thing, its between individual people.

Word of mouth is what worked for credit unions at first. The internet has enabled the spread of word of mouth in a big way.

Mass media has never really worked very well for credit unions.

Facebook has 100 million members.

Facebook would be the 12th largest country in the world if it were a physical country.

The traditional view of marketing is that the CU is in the center of the universe and we are sending out messages at them.

The networked word shows that those members are all connected in some way or another socially.

If we can engage in two way communication, we can become a part of that social network.

"56% of Americans fell a strong connection and better served by a company that is involved in social media."

The relationships that could be formed between front line and member via social media (if it were unblocked) could be much more powerful than marketing messages injected into the social media venue.

7 points of a successfully engaged community:

1. Have a common bond or purpose
2. Make them the rock stars
3. Give them a voice
4. Make it easy
5. Its alive (there are people behind the pages)
6. Make it easy to refer a friend
7. Merge online and offline communities and activities

well folks, that's all for the traditional sessions for the day. I'll be updating during the Idea eXchange sessions as I get the chance.

Credit Unions in 2020 (or Will We Have Flying Cars?)

I read this article on CUNA’s web site a couple of days ago detailing how Dennis Dollar (how cool is that name) thinks the credit union landscape will look in the year 2020 (thanks to Deb Trautman for passing the article along). Now, I’ve never been one to put much faith in forecasts that stretch for a period more than 5 days (even the weatherman can’t get THAT period of time right) because things never look like you think they will. Heck, we were supposed to have flying cars 8 years ago according to many “forecasters”.

Distrust of long term outlooks aside, some of the predictions don’t quite jive with me.

• Credit union service organizations will exceed the number of credit unions;

My understanding of a CUSO (and please correct me if I’m wrong on this) is that they are cooperative organizations of credit unions designed to help them deal with regulatory issues and the like. They are like a credit union’s credit union. From Wikipedia:

A Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO) allows a credit union the ability to conduct business that they would otherwise be restricted from due to regulatory constraints. Most CUSOs are limited liability companies (LLC) which also provide a measure of protection to the credit union from the actions of their CUSO. CUSOs are usually wholly-owned subsidiaries of their corresponding credit union, and most if not all of the profits generated by a CUSO are returned to the credit union. CUSOs can also sell stock, usually to other credit unions, to help fund the creation and operation of the CUSO. In this situation, the profits are then converted to dividends and paid out to shareholders as specified by the CUSO's charter.

CUSO’s, like any other business, operate based on demand. I don’t see the demand for CUSO’s ever warranting more CUSO’s than actual credit unions. In fact; wouldn’t that be bad business?

• Credit unions will face greater regulatory pressures, and this will drive mergers;

Credit Unions may face an increase in regulatory pressures in the coming years. Some of it can be avoided by staying true to the credit union mission, and beyond that, showing people that we stay true to that mission.

Beyond the fact that some of this regulatory pressure might be avoided, the first bullet point about CUSO’s seems to be contrary to this one. If CUSO’s are there to help groups of credit unions stay in compliance with regulations, and there are more CUSO’s than credit unions, shouldn’t all the bases be covered?

It would be a shame to see so many unique, small credit unions disappear due to being unable to stay within regulatory guidelines. There is much to be said for a small credit union, dedicated to staying small, and dedicated to its membership. A prime example is Mt. Lehman Credit Union. They have, with the guidance of their General Manager, Gene Blishen, positioned themselves perfectly to serve their members. They know what those members want, and offer it to them. Things like their TextUs product cater to the people they serve. It isn’t a giant marketing campaign, but a product that connects the credit union with its members in a way many CU’s struggle with. As Morriss Partee would put it, they are a microbrew of a credit union; unique and incredibly awesome.

• Credit unions will market cooperatively nationwide

This is kind of a vague one. By “market cooperatively” does he mean a nationwide brand? If so, I think you already know my opinion. Credit Unions are a diverse animal. To brand something, it takes a common thread, product, or culture. By trying to put all credit unions under a single brand, it smothers so many cool, unique credit unions (like MT. Lehman) that have a brand that works for them and their field of membership.

Not only does it smother uniqueness, but branding credit unions under a single banner would be nearly impossible. There are so many different cultures, each credit union has it own way of doing things, and a brand requires a coherent culture throughout. When you walk into a Starbucks, you can pretty much tell what your experience will be. Credit unions are totally different. Walking into Boston Firefighters’ Credit Union is necessarily different than walking into Maine State Credit Union because the demographic served by each credit union requires a different approach.

In the first part of the article, Dollar is quoted stating that, “The megabanks will lead to a disconnect with local citizens.” If credit unions end up nationally branding/marketing how would we be able to connect with local citizens any better than a megabank? Our strength is in our diversity, not our size.

• Shared branching will be a key credit union differentiator, with nearly all credit unions participating nationwide, thus reinforcing a national branding campaign.

I’m sorry, but shared branching is not a differentiator. Shared branching is a way for credit unions to compete with the nationwide banks, but that’s as far as it goes. With BoA having branches on every street corner, the fact that you can do business at many credit unions nationwide does not make us different, it makes us the same. It is something we certainly need to educate our members about more often, but to say it differentiates credit unions from banks is nearly outrageous.

My take on credit unions in 2020?

Credit Unions, in my opinion, will be the main provider of community banking. Not based on national branding, not based on shared branching, not based on mergers, but based on diversity. Our strength has always been, and will always be, our ability to listen to our members and provide them with the things they want. Credit Unions will collaborate, rather than merge, to deal with regulatory pressures. They will collaborate to form marketing efforts if it applies to a shared demographic. They will collaborate to pass innovative new products and services from one credit union to another, allowing each credit union to tailor the innovation to their members’ needs. What we need is not a national brand, but to work as a team of unique, individual credit unions. That is where the strength, differentiation, and innovation lie.

Only One More Week!

One week until BarCampBank New England! I haven't been this excited for something since getting a PS2 for Christmas!

It's being held on the site of the first credit union in the USA. What better place to sit down with some of the people who are changing the credit union movement to brainstorm, discuss, debate, and inform than at America's Credit Union Museum.

I'm really excited to be able to meet some of the big dogs in the blogotwittershpere such as Morriss Partee, Ron Shevlin, Ginny Brady and Gene Blishen as well as some cool people from Andera and Geezeo.

A BarCamp is like no other conference you've ever attended. It offers an opportunity to speak with people rather than be spoken to. It offers the opportunity to bounce ideas around, collaborate, and create relationships with people who are shaping the way the industry will look in the coming years.

If you have the chance (there's still time to sign up!) take the opportunity to come to Manchester on April 5th for what promises to be an incredible experience.

Have an awesome weekend everybody, I hope to see you all next weekend in Manchester, NH.