Credit Unions Doing Better with Social Media than Banks

The major banks in Australia seem to get a lot of the headlines when it comes to social media – the NAB being an example with their “Break Up” campaign (read my thoughts on that here). But are they really the best examples of effective use of social media in the financial services industry down here?

Whilst some of the banks are starting to do some good things around social media, it worth noting that in many respects their smaller cousins – the Mutuals – are quietly getting on with the job of using social media to create different ways of engaging with their communities. One example was bought to my attention this week and I thought it would be interesting to look into this further and contrast it to another Australian Mutual that I think is doing a pretty good job.

As Christophe Langlois pointed out recently the most liked financial institution brand in Australia is actually a credit union – CUA.

It’s impressive to see a Credit Union doing so well with over 90,000 fans. I’m sure this is creating some interesting data for them around the Facebook insights platform – the key question for mine is how this is translating into measurable results – possibly a noticeable increase in new members?

However, one of the key points I keep banging on about to Australian Mutuals is the need to make it easy for their community – members and prospective members to find and engage with their specific social channels. So whilst CUA has a lot of fans on Facebook – you wouldn’t know it if you visited their website…

Contrast this with Queenslanders CU

I’ve written about Queenslanders CU a few times and continue to be impressed with how they approach social media (clearly they’ve had some expert training!).

What’s interesting about Queenslanders CU is they do the simple things really well. This starts on their core homepage – and is reflected in every part of their social footprint.

Their Facebook welcome page is one of the best examples I’ve seen of a welcome page – simple, clear value proposition, and clear references to how else a user can engage with them – links to YouTube, their core website, Twitter, FourSquare, and LinkedIn. They also have the CEO generating blog content (see here).

Finally, they also regularly generate YouTube content – here is an example:

Probably the biggest difference between CUA and Queenslanders CU is how obvious Queenslanders make it to their community that they have multiple options to engage with them – this is key to achieving organic growth in your community – if you’re going to invest in building social channels – let people know…

Tagged: credit unions, CUA, facebook, queenslanders cu, social media

Posted in: community, Financial Services