Avoiding "Grief" - Grabbing Hold of Social Media Now

by Ron Daly

Ever been on the bumper cars at the fair and had to drive the car that didn't work? It just sat there and you got slammed into by the other kids. They were driving around and you were just taking hit after hit. It stunk. And after a while, you just had to resign yourself to the fact that you'd get slammed around the arena until the ride was over. 

In the world of credit union marketing and public relations, ignoring the "next big thing" and learning later the value it could have added to your communication strategy can feel the exact same way - like you're just getting hit and not participating at all. 

There's a great article over at Banking4Tomorrow.com that covers the "Five Stages of Social Media Grief" and how they affect the perceptions and capabilities of your company in that social media space. 

Stage one, says the article, is "total ignorance". I question how prevalent that is anymore, we've been talking about this stuff for years now. Is there a credit union or bank that hasn't heard about social media? If there is, I'm betting they're not reading this post right now. 

Stage two, the "It's a Fad" phase. The site has a GREAT example of how a major news outlet wrote off the oncoming technological wave in 1995. Go read the article and keep that pull-quote in your back pocket for when a naysayer says a technological advance will pass and never matter. 

Stage three, the money stage, deals with the question I grapple with every day as a former CFO and CPA - Where's the money? How can you monetize your investment in social media? What's your ROI and how's the best way to evaluate it? 

Some folks have suggested ROI can't be measured for something like a social media campaign. We're seeing more and more evidence that's counter to that claim, with more businesses coming up with hard numbers related to their social media promotions. Dell Computers, anyone? 

Stage four, "The Sonic Boom", is where it seems most CUs and banks are now. After all the early adopters managed to squeeze a little more interest and a little more money out of their online relationships, everyone else jumped in the pool head first. Now it seems every email we send on the behalf of our clients gets a Twitter or Facebook button stuck in the sidebars. It might be late in coming, but at least it's there. 

Stage five is referred to as the "Mad Scramble" and it brings to mind the recent bad press surrounding BP and B of A. What do you do when people start speaking against you (or for you, falsely) online? If you're not in that space dealing with the criticism directly, where are you? On the fringes with egg on your face. 

The article really is a great read, I encourage you to chew over the information and start applying it to your credit union's marketing and PR strategy. When it comes to any online communications, start sooner rather than later. "Too little, too late" is never a good thing.

Comments

[mike]

Great post, Ron. Social media from my perspective is the ultimate complementary customer service piece any organization should use to get immediate feedback from its customers -- aka credit union members. It's also a tremendous tool to continue building relationships and find out what members like and dislike -- and make appropriate changes from there. It really humanizes an organization.

Good stuff!
--Mike