Michelle Dosher

From Michelle Dosher:

Traditional communication channels and marketing campaigns may no longer be enough to grab members’ attention. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn—just a few of the social media tools available to your credit union—can help promote the online personal finance products your credit union offers. Posting a product link on your credit union’s home page is a great first step in driving member traffic back to your website. Using social media tools is a great next step in engaging members with your products.

Posting pulls in members

Hughes FCU in Tucson, Ariz., drives traffic to its website by posting article and blog links from onlineEDGE publications—Home & Family Finance Resource Center®, MoneyMix™, Googolplex®, Plan It™, Anytime Adviser®, and El Poder es Tuyo™—on its Facebook page (search “Hughes Credit Union”). These posts link directly to the articles within the onlineEDGE publication featured.

Hughes FCU draws members from Facebook to MoneyMix on its website.

“We post links to onlineEDGE articles on Facebook because it helps us with our lifestyle marketing,” says Kathy Hippensteel, marketing manager at Hughes FCU. “We use Facebook because it allows us to have interactive communication with our members.” The credit union receives quite a few comments and “likes” about the posted articles. Since Hippensteel’s social media coordinator posts articles from different CUNA consumer publications, there is information posted for each target market. “The best thing about the products and about posting information about the products on Facebook is that it ties in with our goal of making a positive difference in members’ financial lives,” Hippensteel says.

Educators CU promotes a Youth Week activity.

The credit union also posts links to onlineEDGE information on Twitter, such as posting a link to remind members that they can win Visa gift cards by participating in the Resource Center’s Financial Fitness Challenge.

Getting started in social media

When using social media, credit unions should do the following, according to CUNA’s 2011-2012 Credit Union Environmental Scan:

• Allocate proper time and resources
• Have a social media strategy
• Define goals and objectives
• Set proper expectations
• Set a realistic budget

Hippensteel concludes that, if possible, it’s important for credit unions to have someone on staff dedicated to working on social media marketing. “Social media is another way to keep members informed about what your credit union is offering,” she points out.

Michelle Dosher is a managing editor in CUNA’s Center for Personal Finance. This article originally appeared in CUNA’s Connection newsletter.