Does Social Media Work for CUs? Let’s find out

A lot of credit unions are wrestling with the business case for social media. Others are adventuring out into the social media arena, looking to see what makes best sense for their business strategies.

Filene Research Institute has launched "groundbreaking research regarding the quantifiable impact of social media marketing strategies."

Can you make a commitment of about two hours over the next year to complete one survey per quarter regarding your marketing activities?

"The results of the year-long research will produce a statistically tested way to predict changes in membership and products per member (or, member share) based on social media activities."

"In plain English: If you keep wondering whether social media is just hype or an effective marketing tactic, this is your chance to find out. We want you and many other credit unions to participate because more responses make for better analysis. In return for your participation, we will provide you with the results of the research. Even if you are not using social media, we would like you to participate."

Credit unions have been built around people helping people. Working together is the best way for us to position credit unions forward. Hoping you make the commitment to be part of this timely project!

Credit Union Lovers, Your Vote is Needed

Your action is needed today to vote for James Robert Lay to become the CU Water Cooler Wild Card Speaker at the 2010 CU Water Cooler Symposium going down October 28 - 29, 2010.

Look Outside to Grow Inside
Your vote will help James Robert have the opportunity to lead an exciting, interactive session while sharing thoughts and ideas on how credit unions can “Look Outside to Grow Inside” by examining companies and cultures that are doing things differently and succeeding. Company cultures that will be explored and related to the credit union movement include Starbucks, Google, Zappos, Tom Shoes and more. 

Vote & Share
Remember, you can vote once with each valid email address you have. Please also help spread the word and tweet, Facebook, call, text and email your friends and family asking for their help and to vote for James Robert Lay.

Register to Attend
In addition to voting, we also encourage you to register to attend the CU Water Cooler Symposium. Get discounted early bird registration if you register to attend before July 31st with a super low investment of $199.  Attend and enjoy two days of fresh speakers, awesome topics and great conversations with fellow credit union lovers.

Vote Denise Gabel for Oprah's "Your Own Show"

Watch, vote and share your support for Denise Gabel. As an agent of change, Denise wants to know what makes a business unique? Where are they going? And how can she help? Why not help small businesses grow? Why not lend them a hand? 

Click here to watch the video as it could not be embedded.

Denise R. Gabel is the Chief Innovation Officer at the Filene Research Institute, an academic based, consumer finance think and do tank located in Madison, Wisconsin.

A recognized innovation catalyst and in-demand speaker, Denise has been interviewed widely from National Public Radio to the Wall Street Journal. She authored the Filene Research Institute’s Key Findings: Innovation Through Collaboration, annual publication Key Findings: Blueprints for Innovation, and Reimagining the Dream: The Future of Home Ownership.

Show some credit union love and vote for Denise.

Credit Unions Say No to Interchange

In good old credit union grassroots fashion, two "say no to interchange" videos have surfaced this week. Both provide a fun, lighthearted way to educate your members and community about the facts of interchange and what they can do to take action.

Watch, laugh, learn, share below.

Breaking News: Bankzilla Attacks!

Reports were pouring in yesterday from The Consumerist that Bankzilla was on the loose terrorizing people in Washington, DC. We have a special report with details coming in from another attack of high rates and hidden fees in Pasadena, Texas. Consumers can take action. 

Credit Unions - Social Media, Word of Mouth, Viral Marketing

If you missed the RadioFREE Credit Union Show, you can catch it here as we discussed credit unions, social media, word of mouth and viral marketing with Jason Dias and Scott McKenna. Be sure to follow @cuswag as we played a little game giving some CU*SWAG out to those who counted the number of times CU*SWAG was said. Fun times! Happy Friday to all.

Make a Credit Union Video. It's Good for Your Culture.

It's been a good race and congrats to Amy Leahy-McGraw for a job well done and bringing home first place.

I just came across something that hits close to home as we just completed the Young & Free "Lookin' Like a Fool With Your Money in the Bank" video challenge.

Geico just released a new video featuring staff and yes, even Warren Buffet himself dressed up rocking it out like Axel Rose (tats and all).

While it's a simple video titled, "All for You", the Geico culture really bleeds through in a fun and quirky way. Here you have one of the richest men in the world most likely stepping out of his comfort zone to do something different.

So what can we take away from this "service video" that Geico did?

Sharing from our own experiences in making the Young & Free  videos, I feel the video challenge was a great way for us to do something different at the office.

It was a great team building exercise for PTP NEW MEDIA and CU*SWAG that allowed us to come together to create something different while having fun.

Many times we are busy creating for our credit unions, however, we were able to step back and create something for everyone to enjoy and help spread the credit union love.

As always, wanting to go above and beyond, there was a lot of time spent in planning, recording, shooting, production and then campaigning through non-traditional channels with full microsite. 

Traditional thinkers may say "wow... what a waist of time and resources". 

On the contrary, the investment that was dedicated to this campaign was well worth it from an internal perspective simply for the fact that it forced us to come closer together as a team, step outside comfort zones and do something to help promote a movement that we love and are so passionate about.

Watch, enjoy and feel free to share and use our labors of love and passion below:

A Message From Paul for Video #8

Listen to Paul share his story about how Video #8 changed his life. Click here to watch, share and vote video #8. If you missed it, you can also watch the original campaign spot here.

Credit Union Video Contest - Vote #8

In an effort to help spread the credit union love of people helping people, I now ask for your vote in the Young & Free video contest. Watch the campaign video below then click here to watch video number #8. Furthermore, to help you out, you can join the move your money movement and the campaign with three simple steps (WATCH, VOTE, SHARE). 

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1. WATCH - I invite you to first watch the videos that we produced for this challenge. Wanting to go above and beyond, the entire www.cuswag.com and www.ptpnewmedia.com teams came together to make something special.

We produced not one but two videos for this challenge to show our love for credit unions in addition to the microsite: www.isyourmoneyinthebank.com

Click to Watch Video #8 | Click to Watch Video #13 (the remix)

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2. VOTE - After you have watched our videos above and see our true love and passion for credit unions, I now ask for your vote. It will take only 30 seconds to cast your vote for Video #8 - James Robert Lay.

Click Here to Vote for Video #8

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3. SHARE - Once you have watched the video and have voted for video #8, I now ask you to help spread the word and share the credit union love with your friends, family and co-workers.   

You can share by sending emails, tweeting, Facebooking, texting or simply telling those around you to repeat the same three steps (Watch, Vote, Share).

Is Your Money in the Bank?

Quick question... Is Your Money in the Bank? The PTP NEW MEDIA and CU*SWAG team had a blast putting this little diddy together for the Young & Free video contest in an effort to help educate the public about why you should move your money.  You can watch the video below or on the Young & Free HQ web site.  Voting starts Monday and we will keep you updated on that. Mad props to Tim McAlpine for putting together such a great challenge. 

Transparency, Authenticity, Honesty and Passion for Topics and Brands

Thanks go out to ConversationAgent by Valeria Maltoni for a little morning inspiration! Time to put your thinking caps on.

Transparency, authenticity, honesty and passion are commonly thought about and addressed as people navigate a wide variety of social media channels. If they are not being thought about, warning, do not pass go. Please slow down and give these areas serious consideration. You owe it to your customers, employees, board of directors, share or stock holders. What are the norms for your business environment? Your team?

Take a moment to hop on over to a blog referenced by a tweet from @ConversationAge:

Diva Marketing Blog - "Where Does 'Transparency' Fit In The New Social Media Marketing Model?" The post highlights insights from 39 people active in social media.

Questions that raced through my mind:

• Should your organization have degrees of transparency?

• Is it important for your audience to know who writes copy for your communication channels?
  To know who is responding to them?

• Do you have content strategy? Communication goals? Are you having conversations and building relationships?

• How personal should your social media, public conversations be? As work and personall communication channels blurr, when are you simply yourself and when are you representing your company? Both 24/7/365? Are we ready for that?

• What lessons have you learned?

Credit Union Viral and Word of Mouth Marketing Idea

As you know, we really like to focus on non traditional ways for credit unions to help connect and build relationships with members... both online and offline.  Doing things differently, thinking huge, and pushing creative boundaries gets people talking. 

Plus a lot of credit union viral and word of mouth marketing ideas provide a low investment, high impact solution that can complement traditional marketing channels.

Check out this creative idea that got people talking about Red Bull (known for doing things differently). A well thought out plan that gets people talking in a positive way can create a long lasting positive impact on your credit union's brand.

What are you doing to get people talking about your credit union and do the marketing for you? Shout back below and share your thoughts and ideas.

Credit Union Twitter Idea - Will Tweet for Food

How far is your credit union willing to take Twitter? Are you ready to move past tweeting regurgitating marketing messages. The latest rates, loan promotions, and press releases?  Think outside the bird and start doing some crazy things.  Get people engaged and talking.

We have developed some pretty cool offline word of mouth campaigns and are working on one that involves Twitter as a key player but not as you might traditionally think of a credit union using Twitter.

To help nspire you (shout out to @jaduplant), check out how Twitter is being used on the East Coast and West Coast with the two videos below:

Props to @mrjlay for shooting this video over to me.

Is your credit union using Twitter? How are you guys using it? Are you just "talking" or are you listening and conversing? Is the conversation one way or two ways. What has the response been?

A word of warning, we are finding through our research and focus group that Twitter is NOT a key communication channel at this time for the traditional Gen Y credit union member.  This is not to say that Twitter can not be an effective communication channel for your credit union but it is important to note and set clear expectations.

Shout back and share your credit union Twitter experience or tweet me up here: @jrwlay

Either way, I look forward to your thoughts and ideas so that we can all can innovate, communicate and collaborate together.

Credit Unions: Don't Tick Your Members Off

Have you ever been wronged by a company? Of course you have. What did you do about it?  Complain to them? Write a letter?  Tell the BBB?  Was the issue rectified and did they ever do anything about it.

One guy was wronged by United Airlines for breaking his guitar and wrote a song about it.  It went viral on You Tube and has been seen by over 2,800,000 people.

Watch the video below to see and hear his story...

United Airlines had to put on damage control fast and “a managing director of customer service called Carroll and apologized, going so far as to ask if United could use the video internally to train its people.”

So credit unions, take note, if you tick off your members (even one member) who has the skills, technology and know how, this could be you. The question is, are you prepared how to handle this?  How long would it take for you to try to make things right?  What would you do?  I’m not trying to scare anyone but more of this could happen (maybe just not with this much production).   

This is why it’s so important to listen in social media. For some tips on this check out Google Alerts and Twitter Search where you can setup RSS feeds to stay in the know.

Shout back and share your thoughts and ideas about this.  Look forward to the conversation.

Note: I know this was first published here and here.  This post was written on Friday, July 11th but was scheduled to go out today after some other things like this and this.  This just goes to show how fast things like this can travel.

CUMA: Part Deux!

Calling all nominations for the 2009 C.U.M.A.- Credit Union Movie of the Year Award. Last year Larissa Walkiw, spokesperson for Commonwealth CU’s Young & Free campaign, won the very first C.U.M.A. with The Difference Between Banks and Credit Unions – Part One . Who will be the winner this year? Who will take the coveted C.U.M.A. home? Blog back with the link to your nomination- to do this post a comment to this article and include a link to the video you are nominating. You can nominate any credit union film you have seen this year- it doesn't even have to be from your credit union. Feel free to nominate more than one. We will have an online vote next week. The winner will be announced Tuesday July 21 at the SCMS Alumni & Student Scholarship Auction & Networking Dinner. The deadline for nominations is July 17, 2009. The only rules are:

• The video is no longer than 5 minutes.
• It must have premiered between July 2008 and now
• It promotes the credit union industry in a positive way
• It is uploaded to a public viewing site: Such as YouTube or a public credit union website.

Campaigns and Credit Unions: "Change" Your Approach

Social media and micro sites have played a vital role in connecting people with candidates throughout the campaign process. Even now, with the beginning of a new presidential term, these marketing tactics are being implemented by companies (and the government) to connect politically with people. Using modern and innovative techniques to raise awareness took these marketing campaigns from average to viral.

No matter what your political preference is (or if you even have one), credit unions should take note of these marketing tactics. Use these large scale campaigns as a jumping off point and follow two rules: 1.) Scale it back significantly to fit your credit union size and 2.) Make it your own...personalize your campaign in a way that speaks to your community (an example of this is Security One FCU's Experience Change 2009 micro site*). Here are a few ideas worth reviewing:

• Connecting with the country in an updated way, New White House Web Site.
  
• First, this micro site encourages Americans to speak their mind to the new president and now, it's staying current with a SuperBowl focus, Pepsi's Refresh Everything.
  
• Action followed by a free reward generates brand awareness, Free Starbucks Coffee.
• Schipul highlights the important role of social media during the Inauguration, Social Media Inauguration.

Implementing similar strategies on a smaller scale gives credit unions the opportunity to connect with current members and expand their reach to new audiences.

*Disclaimer: Security One FCU is a PTP NEW MEDIA client.

WWUP- What would you pick?

I am currently serving on the Texas Credit Union League Youth and Millennial Task Force. One of the tasks we have at hand is to create a new tagline for credit unions. Currently some of the taglines used for credit unions are "People Helping People" or "Where People are Worth More than Money." Although, these are true they do not resonate to the majority of the youth market, who is unaware of what a credit union really is… So, if you had to pick a new tagline for credit unions that would captivate the younger mind, what would you pick? Below (not in any order) are a few that I have played around with for fun. Blog back and tell me some of your ideas for a new tagline. Who knows it may be the new tagline for the industry.

• $-greed= credit unions
• Wanna be cool? Join a credit union.
• Bail Out Free since 19__...
• Why make others rich? Join a credit union.
• You have a choice- credit unions.
• Ready for a change? Join a credit union.
• If you like to own stuff- Join a credit union.
• Credit Union = Economic Justice
• Some places let you keep the change- We let you own it- Credit Unions
• We are old school cool- credit unions

Mike Garibaldi-Frick: Transform Banks into Credit Unions

I saw this article and just had to post it.

Mike Garibaldi-Frick: Transform Banks into Credit Unions

Posted using ShareThis

It’s Time for Credit Unions to Rock the Vote

Now is the time to vote and make your voice heard. Watch the video below we produced that embodies the credit union spirit and feel free to post on your on blog or credit union web site.

Credit Union Difference from James Robert Lay on Vimeo.

I have included the embed script below for easy copy and paste. Shout back and let us know if you have any questions on how to embed this.

<object width="400" height="267"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1967137&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=0&amp;show_byline=0&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=00ADEF&amp;fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1967137&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=0&amp;show_byline=0&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=00ADEF&amp;fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="267"></embed></object><br /><a href="http://vimeo.com/1967137">Credit Union Difference</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user838207">James Robert Lay</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.

Change is Beautiful!

Change is beautiful. Change is weird? Check out this viral video campaign from the CUOW (Credit Unions of Washington). They have put together a micro-site along with some very different videos about change starring Carl Weathers (best known as Apollo Creed in Rocky).

This is not the first time the CUOW have done something like this. Click here to read up on their background and venture into viral. The CUOW has also received some good press for the campaign. I have "featured" a spot from the mini site below. Click here to watch more.

The only bad thing about this campaign is that they do not allow for the videos to be shared or embedded. I think that would really make help the campaign be even more successful.

How do you think your credit union would be able to implement change like this? Change that is different. Change that is weird. Change that is talked about. Shout back below and let us know below.