WEST JORDAN, Utah-For many credit unions, having a Facebook presence helps build brand awareness and foster member loyalty. And it's always interesting to see how many members click the "like" button on their CU's page.
But CU executives shouldn't judge a Facebook page solely on its number of "likes," say industry insiders.
"The likes metric is often greatly misunderstood by financial institutions and leads them to think that by increasing their Facebook likes, they are directly increasing their reach," said Joseariel Gomez, CEO of Shastic, a financial technology firm in Berkeley, Calif. "The reality is that the number of likes that your institution has gathered is only the first step into social marketing and brand awareness on Facebook."
This summer the Financial Brand released the "Top 100 Credit Unions Adding the Most Facebook Likes." Coming in the third place was Mountain America Credit Union, which scored a total of 93,490 "likes" with 13,039 being added during the second quarter of this year. Navy Federal Credit Union came in first place with a total of 731,758, followed by Thrivent Federal Credit Union with 207,264.
"Facebook has been a source of communication with both members and potential members," said Sharon Cook, SVP of marketing and public relations for MACU. "We do not use it as a member service channel per se so much as we recognize it as a strong messaging channel."
Mountain America has a dedicated social media employee who oversees the execution of creative content, campaigns and contests that are relative to members' interests. "This content is updated on an ongoing basis and we market the page in numerous marketing channels just like any other service," Cook said.
Understanding Campaign 'Likes'
Like Mountain America CU, a spike in the amount of likes a credit union Facebook page receives is most often a result of a contest or campaign that requires members to like the page to be eligible. Though this can be an effective short-term goal, the way Facebook interprets this activity is generally different than a credit union might expect, say technology experts.
"Facebook likes represents the number of potential subscribers that may see your wall posts. Facebook uses different algorithms that consider the amount of shares and comments that your previous posts have had, along with many other factors in order to decide what each of your followers sees on their new feeds," said Gomez. "In practical terms, each story you post on your Facebook wall will only reach a small portion of your subscriber base or followers and will have a lifespan of a couple hours at most."
Cook noted that increases in Facebook likes at her CU are usually the results of promotions, but said MACU doesn't stop there. "Yes, most new likes are from campaigns/contests, but we also do pick up some likes from fans sharing posts. Fans tend to like us and stay with us."
And it is not a static relationship, she noted. "If members post business-related questions, we immediately route the question to the appropriate person or department in the credit union. We reach back out individually."
Gomez warns against opting to acquire Facebook likes using one-time promotions, as it yields a low-quality subscriber base that tends to be unresponsive after the external motivator or promotion has ended. This, he said, can lessen the ability to reach a larger portion of a respective subscriber base as it lowers scores on Facebook's algorithms.
"A much better metric to focus on for brand awareness and engagement on Facebook is the 'People talking about this' count, displayed at the top of your Facebook page," said Gomez. "This tells you the number of people who have created a story about your page in the last week. Users create stories on Facebook when they interact with your content."
Aside from algorithms, credit unions are often unsure exactly what each like represents to the overall brand. For example, a member might have liked a campaign that ran in October of 2011 and either "turned off" page updates or-even worse-unsubscribed.
"We have a fairly robust set of metrics we track. There is a natural drop-off after a large campaign, some people like the page just for a promotion and then drop after," said Cook. "Our fallout rate is typically very low less than 2% of likes gained."
Planning Your Facebook Future
Gomez explained that a recent Shastic study of 300 financial institutions with between $60 million and $5 billion in assets found that only 2% of banks and credit unions connected with their members/customers on Facebook.
"According to Facebook, each user has about 130 friend connections. If your financial institution has an average of 70,000 members and you were connected with half of them through Facebook, this would lead to a potential audience of about 4.5 million people," said Gomez. "There is no other channel in the world that offers this type of reach and scalability at practically no cost."
Since July, Mountain America CU has received more than 3,000 new likes. The continued interest in its Facebook page is due to providing content that is relevant to the fan base, according to Cook. "We feel that Facebook is one of many public faces of the brand, and we know our member base likes to stay engaged with us here. We also know that Facebook can provide an actual ROI to the organization when relevant offers are made via this channel."
Cook is also keenly aware that a significant milestone is a mere 3,500 likes away. "Plans are currently underway for celebrating our 100,000 like," she said. "It will be a noteworthy achievement for us."
For those credit unions struggling to increase likes, and in turn brand awareness, Gomez said the best way to address Facebook is to focus on short but meaningful weekly engagements.
"You can choose to follow a content strategy, which relies on offering high-quality content that users want to share with friends," said Gomez. "Or you can opt for engagement marketing and provide valuable, entertaining or moving experiences through Facebook that lead to closer and stronger member relationships."
