What do Percy Jackson and the Super Bowl halftime show have to do with credit union marketing? They are symptoms of the weirdness that is running rampant in marketing these days. In this episode, I go over how credit unions can move past the silos and be effective on social media.
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Transcript
Hi everyone. I’m Jennifer Roland Cadiente, your credit union copywriter. Today on the credit union social strategy podcast, I am talking about how to deal with the fact that marketing has gotten super weird.
I was talking about this on LinkedIn a couple of weeks back, about how I wasn’t seeing marketing for things that I would love and for like TV shows in particular, I was a big fan of Percy Jackson, the Disney show first season. I watched it four or five times, and then when I heard that a new season was coming out, I watched it again. So I had recently watched it, but I didn’t get any notifications that the new season had actually started until it was, like, four or five episodes in. And like, if I’m not the prime target as such a fan of the first season, I don’t understand who is. There have been times over the last few years that the only time I heard about a show that I would have loved was when I saw on variety for the Hollywood Reporter that it had been canceled by one of the streaming services. And I can’t help but think that if it had been marketed better to someone like me who would watch it, maybe it wouldn’t have had to be canceled.
And then I was thinking about like, Why? Why is it like this? And I think it’s because we all have gotten so siloed, like we’re there’s no real popular culture anymore, because there’s so many different options. We’re all so like removed from all the other things that we have no idea what’s going on, gosh, what was it? It was a Taylor Swift group that I’m in. Someone had posted a photo of her friend’s son who was in the Bad Bunny halftime show at the Super Bowl. And a bunch of people thought that it was this one particular kid on social media, so she had edited it to be like, it’s not Bryce or whatever that kid’s name is. And other people are like, I don’t even know who this Bryce person is that you’re talking about, but okay, and apparently in in some part of social media. There’s this kid whose name may or not be Bryce, because I don’t remember exactly, and his mom had posted a lot of content about him, and, you know, had gotten a, you know, a pretty big following. But there’s a whole bunch of us who had never even heard of this kid or his mom, or any of his content, and that just is such a good example of just how far removed we are.
You know, back when we had, you know, three channels on the television and not much else to do that was technological, we all watch the same shows. You know, we all saw the same ads. There was like a really dominant culture across our country and across, you know, where other parts of the world that watched our content. But that’s just not the case now, and we’re just all so siloed that there are things that happen that people have no idea about. And it’s just, it’s just kind of weird, you know, for those of us who grew up in a time when it was much more homogenous and a lot easier to advertise, because the key was just to get your stuff out there in front of as many people as possible, because some of them would be right. But now we have tools where we can be so targeted with our ads that we don’t have to just spray and pray. We can say, I want you know this person who lives in this area, who works in this type of job and who consumes this type of media, that’s the person who needs to see my messaging. But what does that mean for credit unions like I mean, I talked a lot about TV, TV shows, and how mad I was that I didn’t get to see the first episode of Percy Jackson as soon as it came out.
But what does this weird siloization of marketing mean for credit unions? So it means we have to be a lot more creative. You know, a lot of us don’t have the budget to do a ton of paid advertising on socials or on streaming channels. It’s much more affordable than it was, I think, in the days of, you know, the three big channels, when you knew you were getting a ton of people watching your stuff, so they could charge a lot of money for it, but it’s still, you know, we don’t always have the budget to do a ton of paid advertising, so instead, we have to be really creative with our organic reach.
So one of the things that was really successful for us when I was on staff at maps was user generated content, and that’s something that, you know, it remains a successful and easy thing for us to do. Now, what we did a lot was photo contests where, you know, people would wear their maps gear, or, you know, show their maps card with, you know, with the number covered up. We, we always, you know, support, financial safety, we you could get, you know, if it’s your credit union, you could give out pens. You could give out something that that doesn’t identify anything except your credit union, and have people, you know, take a picture of the pen in their natural environment and post it on their social media, and make sure they tag you. That way people can find you and find you, know, the credit union that their friends loves. Another thing that we did at maps is we participated in this big art fair every year, and we used our Facebook page to share the photos that we took. So we had a bunch of props, you know, so people could take pictures with funny hats, and, you know, we had like, these photo frames that they could hold to make just a fun photo. And then they would have to come to our social media channel to download it so that they could then, then share it with their family and friends. And that was something that was really fun. And it, you know, it did get us new followers. And you know, the more followers that you have that are targeted, that are local, that know who you are already, the more chances that people will see the promotions and the information that you’re that you’re sharing.
And more recently, I’ve seen a lot of credit unions and credit union organizations working with influencers. You know, it doesn’t have to be like these huge influencers who have millions of followers, but the ones that are speaking to the people that it makes most sense for your messaging to get in front of. So if you are, you know, looking for for an influencer. Look for who your target people are following. You can do that. I think there are. So there are ways that you can find these influencers. You can, you know, look for keywords, hashtags, things that that you talk about a lot, and find the people that are talking about that too, and that seem to offer promotional partnerships, like Backbone Coalition, which was a client that I worked with on a contract basis last year. They, you know, bought some spots in the How to Money newsletter, and that was really effective for getting the messaging out about backbone and their member credit unions that that are part of that coalition. And then they, you know, just at the beginning of this year, they have, you know, partnered with other influencers who are posting on their socials and tagging them so then they can re share those in their stories or as reels. The thing to keep in mind, though, is these posts are going to get more engagement because these people have, you know, targeted followings. Who are, you know, doing the things that they need to, need to do, and, you know, talking to the to the right people, but you need to be able to track whether that increased engagement actually leads you to get more followers, or, you know, more members at your credit union, more people attending, like your financial workshops and things like that.
So you want to make sure when you’re, you know, working with those influencers to, you know, have some way of tracking the results. You can, obviously, you can go on your Instagram feed, and you can see like that person got, you know, 27 more comments than you typically would get, and that’s great. Did those people follow you? Did they take any other sort of action? And that you know, if it’s about clicks and things, that’s something that that your influencer will need to share with you, you can always search people’s names. Their screen names and see if they start following you after commenting on a post that your influencer did. And you know, just know that it’s also it’s more of a long term situation. It’s not going to be immediately you got this many new members the month after you started doing these influencer posts, because it takes people a long time to make a decision about a credit union. So look at look at your goals, know that it’s for the long term, and make sure that your influencer can give you the information that you need.
One of the things that I find is that people want to really, you know, tell, tell the influencers what to do, and that’s not going to be good content. People follow your influencer because they like what they’re doing, so let your influencer do what they want to do. Obviously, you want it to be positive, and you want to make sure that this influencer has a positive reputation, but, you know, work with them to, you know, on the backbone of what you’re trying to do, but then, you know, let them do what they do best and what their followers like. And another thing that you can do is just make sure that you have great content. You know that user generated content is great content because it’s real human beings sharing their stories, same with influencers, because they are, you know, they tend to be more trusted than, you know, the authority figures. One of the real things that made it great working with Backbone is that they did have so much great content that I could share as a social media person for them, they were working really hard to get earned media so we could share that we made, you know, a plan before I left, to start doing more user generated content so their credit unions that are members of this coalition are, you know, creating videos with the guidance of the backbone team so that they continue to have new stuff to share. And, you know, using the videos is, you know, is really good for engagement. And the more people you get engaged, the more they will start to follow you and pay attention to the other things that you’re saying. And another thing to keep in mind, especially with videos, is to make sure that you’re using them well if you want to post something to your story that only goes to people that are already following you. So it should be content that’s really targeted to people that already know you. If you want to have more general awareness in your in your videos, then you want to post them as reels. You can also post them as stories. If you think there’s that crossover between new people and people that already know you, but just make sure that you’re, you know, you’re using stories versus reels, right? If you’re going to be posting on Tiktok, you want to keep it short, keep it fun. You might, you know if, even if it’s not like you know, the most fun content in the world, you can make it fun. I’ve seen a lot of credit unions do some really fun videos of, you know what it’s like to come join a credit union, or, you know what it’s like to get a get a new loan? So think about ways that that you can make those things fun, to make great content that people will share with their friends and, you know, stitch, if it’s on Tiktok, things like that. So that doesn’t really help us, you know, get out of the silos, but it helps somewhat, and it helps us be real and authentic and show that we’re someone that can be trusted. There is, you know, it’s, there’s just a real problem with trust online these days, because so many people are using AI to create things. So you don’t know what’s authentic and what isn’t. It’s making us all sound the same. So it’s hard to you know, to know what the personality is of the credit union that you’re interested in, to see if it fits with your personality. So just try to be real, try to make good stuff. Try to find different ways to break through those silos. If there’s a big local event, be part of it. You know, post videos from what you’re doing. Another credit union that I worked with, they started having a booth at the local farmers market, and so they, you know, the guy who was running the booth would leave the booth for a few minutes and go, you. Take video of what was around him, you know, like, who’s selling the best fruit this week, things like that. If it’s a music festival, you know, go to the music festival and talk to the people at the booths and take little videos of that and post them. There’s so many different things that you can do that show that you’re real and you’re in the community, and that will break through the silos, because it’s all different types of people who are going to these local events. And that way you can get, you know you can you’re not just going after the like the one specific person, and you’re not leaving everyone else out in the cold. So I hope that was helpful.
As always, reach out to me at Jennifer, at Jennifer roland.com that’s Jennifer hyphen roland.com or find me on LinkedIn. Jennifer Roland Cadiente, and we can talk more about this until next time. I’ll see you on LinkedIn or in my email, and be back in a few weeks with new podcast.
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