MySpace for Credit Unions - I've changed my mind.
Posted by Trey Reeme on August 28th, 2006
Admittedly, I haven’t been the biggest supporter of the idea of credit unions using MySpace.
(Note: My aversion to this idea was never shared by Brent or Matt – yes, they both have MySpace pages. I was also the guy who thought Open Source CU would never fly.)
But I’m starting to reconsider its potential. Josh Jones made a great post on his People, Not Profit blog today.
Some of his tips for building a credit union profile on MySpace:
Aside from pictures of wild credit union parties, be sure to keep sales pitches and any mention of great interest rates off of the profile. The last thing a MySpace user wants is to be “solicited” by a financial institution. You can always post a link to your credit union’s website where folks who want to find out more information on various products and services can do so.
Why not have an employee post a story about a financial experience when they were young… [or] explain why credit unions are different than banks….
Take advantage of placing a profile on MySpace to educate members and potential members. Do not treat this as free advertising, MySpace users won’t warm up to how great your interest rates are, or that they can get a great new car loan. Save that stuff for your real website.
My favorite part of his post:
So, how do you post a profile? Ask a young adult who works at your credit union to take some time and post one. Can’t afford to have your valuable employee away from serving your members? Here’s a great idea… make it a contest among your young adult members to come up with a design, and then have young adult members vote on the best idea.
Trust me, MySpace can work… as long as you are careful about what you post. This is a great opportunity for credit unions to reach out and communicate with the younger demographic on their terms. It’s a great opportunity to put a friendly face on your credit union, and explain a few things along the way. Who knows, you might even gain a few young adult members.
Now to just find a credit union willing to take the plunge! Any takers? Brent and Matt (ok, and maybe even me) need some MySpace friends.
Update (8/30): Want to find credit unions already on MySpace? Look no further than Brewery Credit Union, Hershey FCU, Land of Lincoln CU, Motor City Community Credit Union, and USA CU.
Even CUNA’s Little Man – a.k.a. Credit Union Guy wants to add you as a friend.
Better not believe everything that you read in a blog.
This whole undercover idea to infiltrate social networking with positive credit union messages is really weak.
Genuine. Real. True. Yeah that’s what every generation wants. Not guys pretending to be interested in dialogue,.....promoting their credit union for goodness sakes.
Why—
I left a comment for you on the Vancity Responds to Criticism post. I mention it here because it summarizes my views on social networking for credit unions and because I don’t want it to get lost in the old post (we’re working on adding a “recent comments” box in the sidebar).
I’m interested in hearing more of your thoughts.
Since when has the idea of credit unions using the public realm for the benefit of the general public been undercover? Are we not openly discussing the possibility? I reject your assumption that there is some clandestine plot for credit unions to take advantage of others.
I don’t know that our CU is ready to be on MySpace.com… But – we know that several of our employees do list that they work for us in their My Space profiles.
:)
Although I’m all for business using social media, including MySpace, to put their word out…I think we’re teetering on a dangerous and fine line.
My plea:
Don’t do this unless you do it right, because companies who are doing it wrong are jacking it up for the rest of us.
Yesterday, Futurelab pointed out an interesting MediaPost article about the rising annoyance of the MySpace corporate takeover -
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t run with this stuff, it just means you need to be real (which is different from “being hip!” or “acting like you’re being real”).
This fantastic opportunity for making real legitimate (not to mention cheap, easy, quick) brand communication happen is quickly getting hijacked by businesses who don’t understand it and don’t care to understand their consumers.
Please just know what you’re getting into.
Good lord I need a glass of ice water or something, I’m all riled up.
And to respond to the very existential “why am I here,”
I think don’t think wanting to promote your credit union and being interested in dialogue have to be mutually exclusive. I would say if you’re running a business, you’d better be interested in dialogue or it won’t be long before you’re irrelevant.
I’d like to take off on something “V” mentioned.
Providing an atmosphere where employees are encouraged to acknowledge their affiation to a Credit Union sounds interesting. Employees with pre-existing myspace pages are much more likely to be in tune with the myspace ecosystem and therefore not do anything socially stupid on the site.
Now I do see a few downsides for employees. First, if you list the actual place you work…you have to be careful what you say about work…it could get you in trouble.
Second, it could be another place where the lines between work and not work are blurred. If your employees are fielding questions from their “friends” like “Hey I see you work at a credit union…what is a CD?” on their free time, they may not like it.
Maybe consider a way to document myspace correspondence and come up with incentives people for using their free time to help out.
I’m just throwing stuff out there. My thought is, if there are already employees on myspace, shouldn’t we be looking at ways to empower them?
I am with Brent. Personally, I don’t feel like a credit union could build a genuine MySpace page. I would rather see credit unions devote time and energy into creating raving fans to the point that these raving fans actually write about their credit union experience on MySpace or any other social gathering type of site.
If I may reiterate something… in my opinion a MySpace profile is an opportunity to share financial literacy information, not a free advertisement for services and rates. It’s also simply an adjunct to traditional methods. Want to see what credit unions are already taking the plunge? Visit MySpace and do a search for credit unions…
Okay, one more post… Check out the following MySpace profile: http://www.myspace.com/creditunionguy There are a few credit unions listed under this profiles “friends” category along with a smattering of credit union employees.
Also, if you run a search in the Groups section of MySpace for “credit union” you will find a number of credit union related groups… mostly for employees of credit unions to interact on MySpace.
What do you think??
First off, I would like to say, this is an awesome site. I just now learned of it. There are a lot of good thoughts on here. My main point here though, is that our credit union has a myspace page. The link is www.myspace.com/llcu. With all of the opinions here, I would like to get some opinions. The whole point of our myspace page has been to get suggestions and find out what people want. So, I’m looking for feedback. Thanks. :)
Josh: Wow, I’d looked for “credit union” on a regular MySpace search, but I didn’t dig deep enough. Thanks for the link!
Jessica: OOOH! We want to know your opinion! How have your members responded to this? How long has your credit union had the page? Any tips for other credit unions thinking about following in your footsteps? Have you encountered any negativity from other MySpace users?
I think our other commenters will be very willing to give you some feedback – especially coupled with your responses and after they look around your MySpace page.
Ok, well, so far the page has been a very good resource. We have gotten linked in with some other credit unions, along with Credit Union Guy and a couple other really good resources for information. Credit Union Guy is actually the one who let me know about this site. We don’t have a large group of members at our branch yet, especially in the Y generation age group. That is why I really wanted to do the myspace page, to reach out to that group of people. They are crucial to the future of our credit union. We have only had the page up for about a month. So, not to sound redundant, but my goal here is two fold. One, to link in with other resources, and two to get our name out there to as many people as possible, and be a source for them to gain information and get any questions answered that they may have. As far as suggestions for other credit unions with a page, I don’t know that I have a lot of advice, simply because we are new to it ourselves. But what I would to see, is for all of us to share ideas and work together as a team. Post comments with a promotion or idea that worked especially well for you. If you come across a good website, share it. If you have member concerns that you have addressed and think the rest of us may need to address as well, please share. If you have found a way to make your myspace page known to others, please share. I really think this is a great way to team up and become somewhat of a united front. The more great minds we have thinking together the better. We are all after the same goal, building memberships and relationships. . . serving our members.