Building a SM presence at #ACUC11, one plank at a time
Social Media presence isn’t easy and building momentum for its use at a national conference can be a challenge, however it planked our expectation this year at CUNA’s ACUC (America’s Credit Union Conference). And one of the entertaining highlights? Random pictures of attendees laying face-down in peculiar locations, in San Antonio and across the US.
Twitter is a natural tool for a conference. It allows attendees to post great take-aways from sessions, network with peers, share bright ideas, suggest city hotspots, plus much more. We used the hashtag of #ACUC11 so attendees of the conference could search tweets to find what others were saying about the event.
Over the course of the 4-day conference (6/19-6/22), according to Topsy.com’s Analytics, there were 679 mentions of #ACUC11 (!!). Thanks to the influx of tweets, retweets, and @mentions CUNAverse managed to gain many new followers, and we can now stay connected to our new friends (in 140 characters or less).
Planking goes Big Time
I won’t go into the history of planking (you can find it here on Wikipedia) but it took this years’ ACUC by storm! From State League presidents (see NC’s John Radebaugh planking on a riverboat) to speakers, and attendees. Even CUNA Mutual and those holding down the CUNA fort in Madison got in on the action(See a collection of CU planking pics here).
It was a great way to build a community of attendees outside the conference sessions also by tying in some tourist sights San Antonio has to offer. Has anyone ever planked the Alamo? If not, @PJLiving is the first!
Twitter seemed to bring a new life to America’s Credit Union Conference. As a staff member that stayed in Madison as things were in full-swing, I felt like I was right alongside of attendees. Reading highlights from breakout sessions and quotes from our Keynote Speakers, it was a nice breath of fresh air to check in the #ACUC11 search to see what would pop-up next. It was a great tool of inclusion in an age where we may not all get to travel for training. Though the information is fleeting (twitter keeps a tweet’s search functionaly for about a month), it’s a great way of connecting “in the moment”.
Are you using twitter at your credit union? If so, share your best practices and ‘wow’ moments with a comment below. Oh, and don’t forget to follow @CUNAverse 
Great job! I definitely saw all of the #acuc11 tweeting and planking going down in Texas and I totally felt like I was missing the boat!
I loved following along. In fact, I was headed out to dinner in Philly with my boyfriend and there was a mini statue of liberty in front of a bar. I told him that I was going to go “plank” in front of it and wanted him to take a picture. Took an entire evening of explaining…finally showed him the twitter stream. Thanks for sharing the conference with all of us!
Great post and great planks. I liked that it was an interesting way of getting people involved that weren’t even at the conference!
But mostly, I like how it gets folks’ creative juices flowing – “How can I outdo the others?” “What can I do that hasn’t been done before?” Those types of questions are healthy and hopefully can be carried over to our CU jobs.