Open Source CU Podcast: Episode 8
Posted by Trey Reeme on May 16th, 2007
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Thanks to the folks from Net.Finance for allowing us to release Shari Storm’s session there as a podcast here on Open Source CU.
Shari spoke on “Optimizing Marketing Strategies: Evaluating the Impact of Social Media on Customer Acquisition and Revenue Generation.” Listening is a must for any CU thinking about entering into social media.
For the next episode, we’ll be releasing William Azaroff’s session from the conference, “Financial Institutions and the Social web: Utilizing Social Change Campaigns to Extend Your Brand and Engage the Community You Serve.”
After you give it a listen, leave a comment below or on our audio comments line at (206) 350-OSCU (6728). You can subscribe in iTunes here or download the podcast here.
How does Verity know how many of their members are actually using their blog – at all, aside from with any regularity? Does Blogger provide capabilities to reliably support her public assertions that they have about 1000 members using their blog? If yes, that would be great and I would love to know about how to use them. If no, I would be careful about making such assertions in public that cannot be substantiated.
Thanks for posting this Trey – it was a great recap of how Shari’s credit union got started in blogging, and their “evolution of thought” during the time they’ve been doing this.
I really found the crisis communications piece to be an interesting point.
It’ll be great to hear William’s comments when they are posted!
Thanks! Jeff
Hey Trey, thanks for launching this, great to hear. I think the first few minutes are missing from my presentation audio, so hopefully the context won’t be lost.
@sam: I think what Shari said was that 1,000 people read her blog each month, not 1,000 members.
@William: You are right. I guess what confused me was that her reference to 1000 people reading the blog each month was immediately compared to members getting newsletters with their statements and how she would be thrilled if she knew that 1000 members were reading the newsletter.
Besides, how can one determine how many unique users are viewing the blog each week when many people do not allow cookies and their IP address is not static? I also find it hard to believe that a person would join a credit union because of their blog. What percentage of your new members do you believe would not have joined your credit union if it were not for your blog?
Forgive my skepticism, but Trabian is clearly financially motivated to oversell results achieved by credit unions using social media and Shari’s reputation is somewhat on the line here. She is now stopping 3 months of her radio ads to pay for Trabian creating a new blog and seems to be spending a lot of time traveling to speak about blogging.
More than just having a thick skin, bloggers need to honestly and openly deal with constructive skepticism.
Sorry to jump into the conversation late. Sam – I did mean readers. Did I say members? Ack! I hope not. I have no way of knowing who is a member and who is not. The slides definitely say “readers” not members.
Thanks.
How can you determine how many unique readers are viewing the blog each week when many people do not allow cookies and their IP address is not static?
@Shari… excellent work with your presentation. You represented credit unions in fine fashion and you indeed are a blogging pioneer. We appreciate your courage and efforts.
@doug: thanks much for the kind words. @tom: If you are asking your question because you truly want to learn about stat counters, I’d recommend talking to someone who knows more about the technology than me (perhaps the guys at Trabian). If you are asking because you want to keep me honest, then, here is my answer to you:
We admittedly do not watch our stat counters nearly as much as some other bloggers we know. We’ve been through a few iterations of them too. We also don’t care about readership as much as some other bloggers do. (we care more about the right people reading / appreciating our blog than we do about a lot of people reading it). You’ll notice in my presentation that I never used the term “unique” readers and I used the term “about” (as in “about 1,000”). If I came across as knowing exactly how many individuals read it and how many of those are members, than I apologize. It was not my intent. I essentially took a bunch of averages, subtracted out what I could gather were repeat visitors and made an estimate.
I would add this – if anyone cares enough about our blog to read it from their office, their home, and while they are on vacation, I will happily declare that as a success and if my stat counter counts them three times instead of once, well, so be it.
Shari -
I think you did an excellent job. I have been experimenting with the blog on our myspace page, and that’s about all I have the guts to do. And I use it more as a financial education tool, so I mainly copy and paste good articles that I find that others have written. So, thank you for your insight and all the information. Maybe eventually I’ll venture into the next level of blogging. :)
As for the “numbers” issue, I empathize with you. With myspace, I’ve been tracking how many “views” the page or the blog has gotten, but have not come up with an accurate way of figuring out any repeat viewers. But then again, I’m not sure it really matters. What matters is that it’s getting seen and the information is getting out there. So, keep up the good work!
Shari -
Good point about the eyeballs on your blog. That’s great for a resource that cost you nothing to build, and requires little time commitment by the employees.
Let’s say you have just 500 readers who regularly check the blog in the course of a month. Using the 1% direct mail response rate, you’d have to do a 50,000 piece mailer to get the same result.
I wonder how much $$ that would cost??
Sam,
Your second comment got picked up as spam, and I allowed it through as soon as I saw it.
I won’t stand for slander though. “Trabian is clearly financially motivated to oversell results achieved by credit unions using social media and Shari’s reputation is somewhat on the line here.”
I’ve never had to remove a comment before, but that’s pushing it. I hope other readers will see that for what it is.
Shari, based on how you have presented yourself, I doubt that anyone thinks you are not telling the truth. However, making general statements based on information that is very unreliable should really be presented with disclaimers. That way the audience can be forewarned and can discount the “abouts” to the degree they perceive is reasonable.
I too believe that social media has something to offer credit unions, but the focus must be on the membership and what it specifically brings to them.
I’ve gotta say Sam, we don’t make any more money on a social media project than we would on a normal traditional web site. The numbers don’t change.
We talk social media because we’re passionate about it. We love dialogue. We love honest conversation. We rely on it for literally every single part of our business – from marketing to project management.
I can tell that you love social media too, although you might not know it yet, because you said, “More than just having a thick skin, bloggers need to honestly and openly deal with constructive skepticism.” You are spot on. I think it’s so important to not become a bright shiny echo chamber, because a room full of “yes men” accomplish nothing.
That’s why we love social media, it encourages conversation and critical thinking. I can’t tell you how much we’ve learned about social media from our commenters. We’ve changed our message a ton – from “everyone should start a blog!” to “make absolutely sure blogging is the right fit for you before you start.”
And to address your question about stat tracking:
I recommend using Google Analytics and Mint. They track unique visitors, geographic location, screen resolution, referring websites, site click-throughs, and a ton of other metrics. Google Analytics is completely free, and Mint is a one time fee of $30 per site.
FeedBurner also provides great stats on traffic from RSS readers (who is clicking through to your site from which posts, and which RSS readers they’re using, etc).
Wow that was a long one. Hope it was helpful.
And Tom,
I agree man. One of the biggest problems with lame-o attempts at social media is that they don’t focus on adding value to the users (in the case of CU’s, to the members).
That’s why the fake Wal-Mart blog flopped. It’s why most corporate MySpace sites flop. It’s why a credit union using a blog to push product or as a competitive-rates-o-matic! will flop. It’s why companies riding the trend-wagon into Second Life are flopping. These were all social media for the sake of social media.
It’s why VanCity’s ChangeEverything has 1000 registered users, 2000 blog posts, and raised $4000 worth of donations for the homeless.
On the side of whimsy, it’s how Ze Frank was able to appear out of nowhere, create a vehement global community, and mobilize them to simultaneously place a piece of bread on opposite ends of the earth….creating an earth sandwich.
It’s about the people – not the hype and not the technology. It’s about the people.
Good discussion.
@Shari: You clearly said 1,000 people not members. I think we’re all pretty honest and open that this represents an innovative opportunity that no one knows how to completely quantify. I know we’re pleased with the 1,100+ people who’ve registered on ChangeEverything.ca. I don’t really care if they’re members or not, I’m just happy that people are inspired by the community and link that inspiration to Vancity. That’s all I need for now.
@Trey: Glad you didn’t moderate the message off. It’s only one voice, but one we can’t ignore. We have to walk the line between being able to address the ROI questions and still innovating in unchartered territory.
Michael Seaton at Scotiabank asked the $64k question: How do you measure the ROI of a golf outing or lunch with a client. Brilliant.
@ sam:
If I may address a few of your comments.
1. We are back full speed ahead with radio advertising. We were only off the airwaves January to March.
2. Speaking on social media allowed me to attend a conference that my credit union would have never been able to afford. I learned a tremendous amount.
3. This week I learned that one of our members who reads our blog is a major influencer and evangelizer for our credit union. He said he joined the CU because of the blog and he told his social media friends to do the same. He appears to have a lot of friends. So admittedly, our results may be skewed due to one person. I’ll give you that.
4. I spoke on exactly what Net.Finance asked me to speak on – the success elements of our blog, the lessons we have learned, and advice to anyone else considering it. With only 30 minutes to get through a lot of information, I didn’t go into the intricacies of stat counters. I had too much to cover in a short time.
5. I compared readership to our newsletter to give the online readership number some context. I was in a room full of people from BankofAmerica, Key Bank, Wells Fargo, Washington Mutual etc. 1000 readers means something much different to them than it does to us (a $340 million shop). I figured comparing it to our number of paper statements would give them a quick reference.
Did she say, “Aviator?”
Haha…yeah she did. Bless her heart. She’ll have to nip that in the bud before Verity opens up their Second Life branch.
“Verity opens up their Second Life branch”—This is how rumors get started.
Ha ha! I knew after I gave my presenation that I had messed it up. You guys know me. I ALWAYS mess up words. (I also typed evangelizer instead of evangilist in the comment above). What the heck is an evangizer? I don’t know.
I thought about asking Brent to edit the podcast for me, but how transparent would that be?
That criticism, I deserved.
-shari storm
Evangelizer: 1. A little pink fluffy haired mammal with two tall ears who never stops going around beating the drum of social media for those who will listen. 2. The new mascot for Trabian? The blog evangelizer bunny?
We could ask, but do we want to know … ???