There are lots of examples out there of successful viral videos, which give the impression that social media is an easy way to build brand awareness and generate new customers – but is social media really a jackpot machine that will pay off to all firms?
TASK/ACTIVITY
The following is a summary of the key findings of a 2013 report undertaken by The Financial Brand – their full article is available here.
They looked at a cross-sample of credit unions (which are forms of small mutual banks) in the USA. They were primarily interested in their Twitter usage for business and promotional purposes. Ideally, if a credit union could get their members (what they call their customers) to follow them on Twitter, then this could become an effective form of low-cost communication.
With that highly beneficial outcome in mind, this is the key findings of The Financial Brand’s report:
- Almost 1 in 3 credit unions appear to have abandoned (that is, no Tweets for 30 days or more) their Twitter accounts,
- Around 20% of their followers are “junk” – either spam-based or now inactive, and
- The average credit union only has about 400 followers, which is less than 1% penetration of their membership (customer) base.
QUESTIONS
- Because credit unions are a financial institution, do you think that they will struggle to get their customers to “engage” with them via social media?
- Other than Twitter, are there other social media platforms that may be more appropriate for a credit union to use?
- Can you suggest any low-cost approaches that the credit unions could use to increase their Twitter following?
- Do you think that there is any “downside” with a credit union NOT utilizing social media platforms at all?
