OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.-One promotion by FAA Credit Union here has proven successful enough to earn a second date as it continues to pursue strategies to ramp up social media.
For the second annual Date Night Challenge, couples were instructed to go on a date with a budget of $40 and document the details on a credit union-sponsored blog. The contest was open to the public, with potential contestants asked to submit an e-mail to the $511-million FAA CU's marketing department explaining why they needed a night out on the town. From those submissions, the credit union chose four couples to compete as finalists. Among other guidelines, couples had to stay within the $40 budget, were encouraged to be creative in the "entertainment" portion of their date by doing something other than movies or bowling, and were asked to use non-franchised, local restaurants in the Oklahoma City metro area.
The winners of a $250 cash prize, by public votes recorded on the CU's website, were Lusia and Elizabeth Tuiaana, a mother/daughter duo.
Elizabeth described the experience as "a great $40 date for a wonderful, beautiful and strong woman who has done so much for me. It was all about my mom, Lusia, and she deserved a great time out and got a great gift in return! Thanks for the opportunity."
Katie Gillian, senior marketing specialist for FAA CU, said before the contest started the goal was to raise awareness and get people more involved in the CU's social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter and its blog. FAA CU believes it has reached its goal.
Non-Tangible Results
"We don't have a lot of tangible benefits from hosting a contest like this, because we believe social media does not provide a lot that we can attach a number to," she said. "The important thing is branding, so it was a success because we are getting our name out there."
This year's contest had fewer entries than the 2011 version, but it attracted more votes. Gillian said the winning duo for 2012 received more votes than the entire contest did last year.
"The biggest result was our members got involved," she said. "They continue to go to our website, our blog, and to our Facebook and Twitter pages. We don't really know why the number of entries was down, other than perhaps we need to do a better job of promotion or have a longer promotional period as most of the entries came in at the end. We are really happy the number of votes increased, which we attribute to the fact we have more fans on our social media pages and people are sharing more."
FAA CU currently has 806 fans on Facebook and 509 followers on Twitter, she added.
The Non-Sales Sale
The general goal is to keep social media "non-sales," Gillian explained. She said the CU promotes its loans on its Facebook and Twitter pages, "but we don't want that to be the end all because that's not why people go there. We share financial tips and news articles; there is friendly banter and a conversational tone."
FAA CU has two regular social media features. The first is Trivia Tuesdays: once per quarter it hosts trivia contests every Tuesday of one month with the opportunity to win a $25 gift card. The second is Lucky Day, which Gillian described as a grassroots social media effort to spread goodwill in the community.
"We pick up tabs for people eating in local, non-chain restaurants, and we hand them a card that invites them to check us out on Facebook or Twitter."
More recently, the credit union combined its Lucky Day promotion with an organization called "Keep it Local OK," which offers discounts to people with a "Keep It Local" card that can be shown to participating retailers. FAA CU is giving the cards, which normally cost $10, free to random members in its branches.
"People like it so far," Gillian said, "and the area businesses like it, too. We change Lucky Day quarterly, doing different promotions at different locations."
FAA CU has more than 50,000 members and serves Canadian, Cleveland, Grady, Lincoln, Logan, McClain, Oklahoma and Pottawatomie counties.
