To blog or not to blog…

Posted on February 14, 2012 by ginny

A blog is another form of communication you can have with your members. Posting items of interest to them can further help your credit union to engage and retain members. Secondly, a blog can drive potential members to your website through the fresh content that you post and the subsequent results that can be generated by search engines for the blog and your website. As inspiration we provide the following:

  • http://www.cusoapbox.com/ – a B2B blog focusing on how credit unions can market themselves better along with interesting news that affects the industry. Sign up for their email updates and read it once a week. You could potentially re-post stories to your own blog site with comment.
  • http://blog.veritycu.com/ – excellent example of a credit union doing a blog right. They’ve been doing it for a while and have a variety of CU staff (and members) contributing, but you can learn good lessons from reading their posts and understanding what they are trying to accomplish. You can get great ideas from this blog site.
  • http://www.truliantfcu.org/blog/ – a good example of a start-up blog with a variety of light content. You’ll notice that the information in this blog varies quite a bit from the Verity CU blog. It’s just two different approaches.

Whatever you do, if you start a blog, just know that consistency and relevancy are the two keys. There’s nothing worse than going to a blog that hasn’t had any postings for months, except going to a blog that doesn’t understand its audience and therefore has irrelevant and uninteresting posts.

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The CUBUS Manifesto

Posted on January 10, 2012 by ginny

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Houston Credit Union Chooses CUBUS for Notification Suite

Posted on January 10, 2012 by ginny

Houston-based, Energy Capital Credit Union has chosen the CUBUS Solutions’ CUStatements, CUAlerts and CULetters to add to their delivery of next generation online banking services to members. Chartered in 1935, Energy Capital has over 17,000 members and over $170 million dollars in assets.

“These services enable our members to save time, take control of their personal finances and even help the environment by opting to receive electronic statements and letters. It also extends our philosophy of offering a full-service online solution that is convenient and easy for our members to use,” said Randall Dixon, CEO/President for Energy Capital Credit Union.

Click here to see the press coverage on CUTimes.

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Social Media Marketing: Key Principles

Posted on December 1, 2011 by ginny

• Don’t advertise—engage! People come to Facebook to socialize, to be entertained, and to get useful information, but almost nobody comes for the deliberate purpose of being advertised to. To reach people on Facebook, you need to grab their attention by giving them something they need.

• Show, don’t tell. Remember that the best way to persuade Facebookers that you have something great to offer is to use Facebook’s sharing tools to give them a taste of how great that something is, rather than just telling them about it.

• Don’t just talk—listen. The great value of social media is that it creates a two-way connection: an opportunity to build a stronger bond with your audience by listening to what they have to tell you and responding to them directly. In a world where customers who try to contact companies are routinely greeted with, “Please listen carefully because our voice menu options have changed,” genuine communication is a killer app. If fans know they can get your ear by visiting your Facebook Page, that can do wonderful things for your traffic.

• Responsiveness matters. One of the worst things you can do is set up a Facebook Page and then neglect it. Make sure that you have one or more people keeping an eye on the Page on a daily basis to respond to comments and questions in a timely fashion. You want your customers to feel like there’s a real live person on the other end of the metaphorical line when they post on your Wall (as opposed to the feeling of talking to, you know, an ordinary wall).

• Practice good customer service. Generally when customers complain, the main thing they often want is an opportunity to voice their frustration and know it’s been heard—a chance to vent. It’s amazing how quickly you can turn their frowns upside down (or at least smooth them out a little) if you give people a sympathetic ear, acknowledge their frustration, and demonstrate your desire to make things better.

About the Author:  Ginny Cain is the owner of Cain Communications, a 360-degree marketing consulting firm, which assists businesses of all sizes with their marketing strategy.

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Social Media Marketing: The art of the friendly voice

Posted on November 1, 2011 by ginny

Facebook is primarily a social space—it’s like a party where you should show up in something casual and a little fun instead of your navy-blue business suit. The vibe on Facebook is relaxed, friendly, and social. Which means that to enter into the spirit of the party, the voice you use to communicate with customers (and potential customers) on Facebook needs to feel friendly—rather than overly formal, pushy or promotional.

So how do you achieve that social, friendly tone? Here are some useful dynamics to consider:

Cold Warm
Formal Informal
Distant Congenial
“Written” style “Spoken” style
Prerecorded Live and spontaneous
Official Confidential

In general, for social media, you want to steer toward the warm side of the scale for the dynamics listed above.

• Formal vs. Informal: Even if you’re in a more formal kind of business, on Facebook you can move the slider a little more toward the informal side of the scale than you might in your regular business communications. Be conversational, direct, and by all means use contractions. You don’t have to use slang or dumb things down—eloquence and proper English are never anything but a plus—but you want to sound like you’re talking to your “fans” rather than making a speech to them.

• Distant vs. Congenial: Think of yourself as the host or hostess of your Page, and your fans as your guests. Be welcoming, supportive, and continually let them know that you’re grateful for the enthusiasm and energy they bring to your Page. You want your fans to understand that there are real live people on the other side of that Facebook Wall, and that you’re enjoying the process of connecting with them.

• Written vs. Spoken Style: This is closely related to the Formal/Informal dynamic mentioned above. The best social media writers manage to create the feeling that they’re speaking out loud to you as their writing is read. That brings energy and a sense of connectedness that’s appropriate to the medium. Try saying your status update out loud—does it sound natural and conversational? If not, rewrite until it does.

• Prerecorded vs. Live and Spontaneous: Even if you’re writing content for your Page days or weeks in advance so it can be pre-approved by a manager, it should be written to sound like it’s as spontaneous, timely, and “in the moment” as possible.

• Official vs. Confidential: Ideally, you want your fans to feel like you’re lifting the veil just a little bit—confiding in them and giving them the real dish, so they get more out of their Facebook connection with you than they would just by reading your regular advertising or the official copy on your website. I wouldn’t recommend actually typing “Pssst” at the beginning of all of your status updates—but if you imagine doing that, it might help you find the tone.

 

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Social Media Marketing: The Basics

Posted on August 14, 2011 by ginny

Social media describes the online tools that people use to share opinions, experiences and perspectives with each other. Prominent examples include Facebook, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Foresquare, etc. What’s the best way for businesses to get started in social media marketing? First you need to decide what you want to accomplish (goals and plan), then you need to decide which social media technologies to use. My recommendation is to start with Facebook.

Here are some basics to get you started on Facebook.

Determine goals and plan for your social media marketing

  • You should start with a plan that answers these basic questions: what do you want to say (topics), how do you want to say it (tone/media) and how often (frequency). Assign a person to be the voice of the business. This can be a marketing person to begin with, but once your program is in full swing, you might consider hiring a social media manager. Make a list of potential topics for your page: new products, new hires, in-branch events, promotions, market news, community events, business networking events, financial tips, educational videos, etc. These are some items that at least can be calendared in advance. Balance 70/30 engagement and goodwill posts to sales messages.
  • TIP: look for content that you’ve already published that you can repurpose.

Set up a Facebook business page

  • From the home page of Facebook there is an option to “Create a Page for a celebrity, band or business.” From there you can create a business page for your credit union. You can make the page non-visible until you have completed the page to your desire.
  • TIP: Here’s a great example of a credit union on Facebook: www.facebook.com/fairwinds.

Create a custom Facebook “profile picture”

  • These are custom designed banners that give your business page more brand personality. If you have an in-house graphic designer simply have them make the image size 180×540 pixels. If not, here is one company that makes profile banners: www.imageonegraphicdesign.com.

Complete the information part of profile

  • It is important to complete all of the profile questions so visitors can learn more about your credit union when they visit your page. Of course your website will be linked to the page, but at a minimum you should have a good paragraph about your credit union and what makes it special.

Claim your Facebook URL

  • Be sure and set up a specific URL for your Facebook page so it is easy for people to find the page. Typically the URL for your page would be www.facebook.com/ and then the name of your credit union or your website domain name.

Start connecting with local businesses, i.e. “like” them

  • Once your page is set up, you can start to like other local businesses. This will get your page further exposure to the people who are connected to those local businesses. They may or may not be customers and regardless, they are positive brand impressions for your credit union.

Post photos

  • You can start with casual group shots of different departments within your credit union, for example. This starts to personalize the experience that customers and potential customers will have with your page.

Post upcoming in-branch events

  • Events can be highlighted within your Facebook page, and once you have a fan base, these events will be broadcast to those fans who have liked your page.

Announce your page to customers

  • Send an all-member message announcing your Facebook page asking those who are customers of Facebook to like the page. Hold a contest and giveaway for those who like the page within a certain time period. Place your Facebook URL on all printed and electronic material, in all employees’ email footer, on business cards, etc. Place the Facebook like icon on your credit union website.

Start posting daily

  • In addition to what you have calendared in your social media marketing plan, you can comment on just about anything and everything, within reason. For example, if you’ve had several days of rain and it stops, comment about it. If you happen to celebrate birthdays of employees, announce a birthday. Take a photo or two and post them as well. Re-post articles that your fans might be interested in, like home improvement tips, getting ready for back to school, etc. Multiple opportunities exist around holidays and other times of the year for posting tips and ideas.

About the Author:  Ginny Cain is the owner of Cain Communications, a 360-degree marketing consulting firm, which assists businesses of all sizes with their marketing strategy.

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Another Montana Credit Union Chooses CUBUS Solutions Products

Posted on August 14, 2011 by ginny

We welcome Montana 1st Credit Union, with nearly 10,000 members and $60 million dollars in assets, as the tenth credit union in Montana to sign up for CUBUS Solutions’ products. Again, thanks to our partnership with CUsource, we have been able to successfully partner with numerous credit unions in the state. Montana First adds CUAlerts and CULetters to their CUBUS product list, which already consisted of CUPoints. Click here to read the full press announcement.

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Top 50 Credit Union Chooses CUBUS Products

Posted on August 8, 2011 by ginny

Teachers Federal Credit Union, one of the top credit unions in the country, has chosen the CUBUS Solutions’ CUStatements to implement as their electronic statements of choice for their over 200,000 members. Read the full press release here.

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IBM Southeast Employees’ Federal Credit Union Strikes it Big with CUTransfers

Posted on July 14, 2011 by ginny

Convenience for a geographically-diverse number of members is one of the biggest challenges that IBM Southeast EFCU faces. Read their case study to see how CUTransfers solved this challenge plus gave the credit union big gains in member convenience.

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Montana Loves CUBUS

Posted on July 7, 2011 by ginny

We welcome Helena Community Credit Union as the ninth credit union in Montana to sign up for CUBUS Solutions’ products. Helena Community Credit Union has over 14,000 members and $133 million dollars in assets. Thanks to our partnership with CUsource, a credit union service organization that provides data processing for more than 22 credit unions in Montana and Washington, we have been able to grow our business quickly in the state. Click here to read the full press announcement.

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