SAN DIEGO — Credit unions have vastly expanded their online footprint in recent years by establishing a social media presence, but the social media landscape for CUSOs is less clear. Who is their audience: CUs or consumers? What purpose does a CUSO's social media presence serve? And is there a business case for a CUSO to use social media?
"If credit unions are in social media, then CUSOs should be in social media," said Valorie Seyfert, president and co-founder of San Diego-based CUSO Financial Services. But she was quick to note that because her organization deals in the highly regulated field of investing and financial planning, any social media postings they make must first be approved by the CUSO's compliance department. "Social media is a very instant and interactive tool that's a little bit in conflict with our regulations."
For that reason, CUSO Financial Services is currently most active on LinkedIn, rather than Facebook or Twitter, explained Seyfert. "We are pretty active now on the LinkedIn side, and some of our advisors are also on LinkedIn. We do have to monitor that, but slowly but surely we are getting there," she said.
She expects that the company will gradually expand into more broadly used social media spaces like Twitter and Facebook, and said that CUSO Financial Services recently hired a social media specialist to start work later this spring. The position is a new one for the CUSO, and Seyfert said "I think this will enable us to get more active in that space, because we'll have a person dedicated to making sure we stay current, and here at our home office making sure that everything is pre-approved when we jump through all of our regulatory requirements."
Seyfert said that CUSOs need to be in social media for the same reason the credit unions they serve are in that space: to be sure that their messaging reaches as wide an audience as possible.
Different Sites, Different Audiences
Mike Weber, chief marketing officer at Credit Union Student Choice, noted that CUSOs such as his face a delicate balancing act with social media in that while they are primarily speaking to the credit union industry, their social media postings may also be seen by members of the credit unions they work with or other consumers looking for student lending solutions.
"We've had to put on two different hats — potentially dealing with the consumer and potentially talking with a credit union," he said. "We have to always be careful to be mindful of that and make sure that what we're utilizing social media for could be on both ends of that spectrum."
One way that CU Student Choice finds that balance is by using different social media sites for different reasons. While the CUSO doesn't necessarily aim its social media presence toward the consumer, it does rely on Facebook as a way to post information about student lending, paying for college and other topics, as well as some of its own blog postings. By using the site in that way, said Weber, CUs can also share that content with their own Facebook followers. "They can 'Like' some of the content we put onto Facebook and it gives them another way to distribute... really good information to their members and prospective borrowers."
On the other hand, the CUSO uses Twitter more for business-to-business content, such as announcing partnerships and other information that might be relevant to CUs, but not necessarily to consumers. With LinkedIn, he said, the CUSO uses the site to spread the word about their business. Also, said Weber, "it's a place to make yourself known to future folks you may want to hire if you've got a job opening."
Part of the challenge CUSOs face with social media, many said, is finding the right channel to reach a specific audience.
Mike Joplin, CEO at San Diego-based CUSO CU Revest, noted that his firm's source of revenue is not the consumer or member, so to be on social media would be "attracting... attention away from the credit unions themselves; those are the people we need to address," he said.
'Not Critical'
Credit unions struggled for years with finding a business case for social media, and many ultimately gave up on that search out of the belief that they were better served just being in the same space as their members and hopefully using social media as a way to promote themselves and keep themselves in members' minds.
Similarly, said CU Student Choice's Weber, "we felt it was something that we could do with a relatively small investment of time and energy. I view it as just another channel for distribution at this point in our life stage. It's not necessarily a critical element for us."
One group that hopes to change that mentality is Chatter Yak, a Wisconsin-based CUSO focused on social media strategies for credit unions and CUSOs. IN April the service organization signed a partnership with Grand Rapids, Mich.-based CUSO CU*Answers, which will expand Chatter Yak's reach to CU*Answers' network for credit unions and CUSOs.
Bryce Roth, co-founder of Chatter Yak, reminded that "all social platforms aren't created equal," and CUSOs must examine which platform will help them best reach their desired audience. But, he cautioned, they must also be sure they have a social media strategy.
"It doesn't really make sense to spend a lot of time on Facebook because you're not going to have 1,000 fans there," he said. "But Twitter is a great place to share useful information, talk about new clients [and] about what some credit unions are doing to innovate. Blogging is also a fantastic way to tell a story and position yourself as the expert on a specific topic."
Roth pointed out that there are proportionally far fewer CUSOs engaged with social media than credit unions, but said that CUSOs' social media usage is best divided between Twitter and Google+. While Twitter can help CUSOs expand build their brand and expand their name recognition, Google+ may help with the business case for social media — a "relationship-based" strategy that may sound familiar to credit unions.
"There's not a lot of people on Google+, but Google changed their algorithm in November for the first time in eight years," he said. "Now they're rewarding businesses that use their services more or fully integrate into the Google network of services. So even if you're not posting on there every day, to have a presence and stake your claim improves your SEO for your website.... They're rewarding the people that use more of their services by boosting their pages up higher."
For CUSOs unsure of the business case for social media, Roth offered Chatter Yak as a success story. The organization was launched in 2011, and "up until this last year, our only method of marketing was social media," said Roth. In addition to the partnership with CU*Answers, which should broaden its reach, Chatter Yak has worked with CUs of various asset sizes in 13 states.
"There's no question that you have to be there," said Roth. "You just have to decide what platforms and how much time you spend on there. It's a great way to start the sales process, rather than just cold calls all the time."
