FERNDALE, Mich.-Credit Union ONE here has quadrupled its social media reach in less than a week.
The CU's Facebook page is ground zero for its "Random Acts of Kindness" promotion, awarding $250 in gift cards to Facebook fans during a five-week period. Winners are drawn at random by the CU's marketing partner, and membership at the credit union is not a requirement to be eligible to win.
"We launched our Facebook page about a year ago and determined this year that we wanted to further engage our fan base and grow that," said Katie Cummings, senior education specialist and social media point-person at the credit union.
Since launching the campaign at the end of February, CU One's Facebook "Likes" have risen from 459 to more than 2,000. "It's caught fire; we weren't expecting that. It's amazing."
CU ONE promoted the event by sending an e-mail blast to members encouraging them to become fans of the Facebook page, as well as on in-branch televisions. Cummings explained that the 103,000-member, $739-million CU has not yet parsed out how many of the new "Likes" are members or non-members, but said that data will be examined at some point during the campaign and then again when it is completed.
No Plans For Non-Members
Despite that tracking, CU ONE has no plans to reach out and actively market itself to those consumers who are not members.
"Even if they're not current members and they are fans of our page, we're happy to have them," said Cummings. "What we're hoping to do through that channel is educate them and let them know what we're offering through different postings and different focuses on topics each month."
Cummings said that CU ONE is hopeful the campaign will result in more business down the road, but noted that "our goal with this channel at this time is really to promote awareness and contribute to positive brand awareness."
CU ONE has no plans to change its social media messaging strategy.
"I think our frequency is at a good level," said Cummings. "We try to stay prominent in our members' news feeds by posting daily for the most part throughout the week. I don't know that the number of fans alters our plan with that at all, nor does it call for changing the message, because we still want to share those education-type postings where we're informing members and potential members about promotions, loans and other helpful information that's not even related to our products and services."
