The worst feedback is often the best
Posted by Trey Reeme on October 11th, 2007
Brent and I gave our “Building your relationship with Gen Y Members” presentation in Wisconsin a few weeks back.
One of the slices of feedback we got:
I was a little disappointed in the Gen Y presentation. They kept talking about social media, but saying not to do it.
That makes me feel good. Too many marketers are looking for a silver bullet, and social media isn’t it. I’ve never said, “Don’t do it.” But I have said, “Don’t do it without a strategy.” And I’ve said, “It’s not a fit for every business.”
During my co-presentation with Shari at Symposium, I showed the following slide:
My next point was:
I then called Tim McAlpine up to chat about Young & Free Alberta, which had just launched.
It’s immediately up there with Change Everything on my best FI social media campaign list. BTW, this outtake video from their CEO cracks me up:
Also gaining ground is what Diva Deb’s doing with the hoopty loan. As Charlie commented,
Talk about promoting thrift and building community. Nice work, CPCU.
So, back to the comment our WI presentation drew. I’d say that the keys to using social media successfully in your business are:
- You’ve got to have something compelling to talk about in the first place.
- It’s got to fit your culture. Thick skin is required.
- You’ve got to treat it as part of a larger marketing strategy.
Sure you can launch a blog or build a MySpace page or get that Jumbalooster account for your CU. But unless you know what you’re trying to accomplish, as Brent likes to say, all you’ll hear will be crickets chirping – or worse yet, criticism for not having it worked out in the first place.
Trey – excellent points, especially the “thick skin” comment. CUs with an open, member-friendly culture are best positioned to dive in to the Social Media arena.
The folks who aren’t there in their corporate culture ought to look into making the change. As you have pointed out many times before … an open, ongoing, non-defensive dialogue with consumers is the new paradigm.
The folks who adapt to this paradigm will thrive … the others need to stay out of the water.
Trey – totally agree. I think many folks attend those sessions looking for the secret handshake of social media and are dissappointed to here someone say NOT to do it.
A related post is here along the same lines on how Target succeeded but Wal-Mart failed on Facebook.
I’ll piggy back on Christopher’s comments. There’s no quick fix, and a lot of opportunity… to look good, and to look bad.
Also, three “huzzah’s” to Trabian’s efforts with the Partnership Symposium. I’ve heard nothing but great things about it.
Commonwealth is on the right track. The social media maxim their CEO gets: ‘transparency.’ It takes a brave soul to bare yourself on YouTube. My hopes for the Y&F initiative are starting to be realized already. Good job and kudos to Commonwealth and Currency.
Christopher makes a great point, that many folks attend those session looking for the secret handshake. Our business has changed and if anything those that are directly involved in the credit union operations should know this. I mean how the heck can you not see it? Does some speaker have to tell it to you? I think some of the ex-bankers now credit union managers, should try being a teller for 30 minutes just to find the pulse of the organization they are supposedly trying to lead. That is what I loved about the Partnership Symposium. There were a lot of like minds that understood credit unions. Sure Ron and Denise can debate for hours but both know what a credit union is. And when you know that, when that relevance to your members is real, not contrived or phony, then you will know what needs to be accomplished and use the creative genius of your credit union and system to accomplish it, just like you have in the past. When I hear ‘how can we control’ whatever when it comes to social media it points to this formula Fear + ignorance = control. Guess what that spells?
Trey, thanks for giving me a heads up.
You know that we are pretty much on the same page as far as the credit union industry’s infatuation with social media. “If you are going to do it, do it right” and if you don’t stick to your brand it will come off as phoney and you will go down in flames.
I am slated to speak at an upcoming CU conference on this subject and A LOT of what I will be covering are the “Do-Nots” of social media marketing. Your experience will definitely help me make sure that I cover they WHYs of the do-not list :)
Hey Trey,
Do you have anymore of your Jumbalooster invites left? I can’t seem to get one from anybody! :)
Thanks for the props and feedback. Jeff Mulligan and the Common Wealth team have been a pleasure to work with. The creative freedom and the willingness to traverse uncharted waters has been refreshing. There was no, “we need to see 5 examples of something like this before we proceed” best practices “idea killers.”
Keep stirring the credit union pot! What you guys have done on the industry side of things with Open Source CU is the kind of authentic community building initiatives I believe credit unions can do in their own communities.
Hi Trey, if I may, I’ll add a fourth key to using social media successfully.
Participation/engagement = committment/passion + consistency
In other words, there is no silver bullet or secret formula.
Trey -
I think these are some great points.
I was giving a presentation a few weeks ago to a group of bankers who were eagerly looking for a list of “the best” social media outlets to pursue.
The point I like to make with financial services marketers is that you can’t do it successfully until you’re ready. And, this certainly means making sure your message is compelling, that it’s in-line with your culture and that it fits with a broader strategy. I’d also add that marketers need to take the time to educate themselves before being drawn into something based on what they hear is the “latest and greatest.”
I think there is a tendency to rush into these efforts – and as a result, they fall short of success.
Brent/Trey
I wrote that comment because I wanted to get better ratings than you at that conference.
George
Any media can work, in my opinion. I agree with all these comments. You have to be passionate, know your audience, know what you are trying to say and do, and then do it consistently. There are no short cuts.