Does your credit union have a CU Warrior in the making?

"Should our credit union blog?"

That is one of the top questions that I hear in the credit union space these days. Well, for North Carolina's Members Credit Union, the answer is a resounding yes.

Members' blog is the Credit Union Warrior and it is an amazing example of what a credit union blog can be.

Here are the questions credit unions are asking and this is how the folks at Members answered them.

Question 1: What the heck are we going to talk about? Our products and services are pretty boring. Who wants to hear about savings accounts and interest rates?

Members' answer: Let's wrap the content around something we are already doing well, our Football Pick'em contest. Let's not mindlessly drone on about products and services. Let's entertain and include our members in a meaningful exchange. Let's be different!

Question 2: Who's going to do it? We can't afford a social media consultant, an advertising agency or an interactive firm.

Members' answer: Let's get Matt—he'll do anything! We have a talented, motivated, engaging and technology savvy young person in our midst. Let's give him the freedom to be creative and the resources and the time he needs to get it done.

Question 3: How are we going to do it? We know nothing about blogging or what it takes to put this kind of thing together.

Members' answer: Let's use free Web 2.0 Internet services like Blogger and YouTube to host and manage our content.

As an aside, the CU Warrior is hosted using Blogger and uses embedded YouTube videos, but you could easily use other free services like Typepad, Wordpress or, the credit union specific, CUBlogs.org for your blogging platform and other free video hosting services like Vimeo or Video Egg if your blog concept requires video.

I met the Warrior himself, Matt Davis, in Indianapolis at the Partnership Symposium earlier this Fall. Matt is the director of public relations at Members Credit Union and he is a totally great guy who oozes credit union passion.

Here is Matt's latest video. It was posted about a week ago and it already has 1,200 views!

I bet if you look around your credit union there is a young person who is eager, willing and capable of doing something like this. Give him or her the freedom to be creative and you will be amazed with what he or she is able to do for their own self confidence and for your credit union.

Rock on Warrior! Rock on!

Tim

P.S. Congratulations Matt on your recent acceptance to the 30 under 30 program from the Filene Institute. You deserve it. Also, congratulations on getting a fancy new Mac Pro to work your video magic on! Welcome to the Apple camp.

FORUM Solutions and Trabian rocked the Indiana house!

I just returned from speaking, learning and hanging out at the Partnership Symposium in Fishers, Indiana. FORUM Solutions and Trabian pulled together a stellar line-up of credit union thought leaders to present the best two-day credit union conference I have ever attended.

I travelled with my collegue Nala Henkel and our friend and client, Gene Blishen from Mount Lehman Credit Union. We had a blast hanging out and getting to know the Trabian crew.

A special thanks goes to Kristi Lowell and Doug True from FORUM Solutions who made us feel like rockstars from the moment we landed to the moment we flew out on Friday morning.

It was also good to get to know fellow presenters Lydia Johnson, Shari Storm, Jason Knight, Ron Shevlin and Denise Wymore and fellow bloggers, Robbie Wright, Matt The Credit Union Warrior and Jeff Hardin. Great company indeed. 

My advice to you: if you get a chance to answer an open audition to be a conference speaker, do it.

Tim

I know what gets me up in the morning. How about you?

The Disclaimer: The primary purpose of this blog is to comment on all things branding and marketing for credit unions with the occasional random musing. I have avoided being too self-promotional, but I figure with 50 posts under my belt, I have earned the right to break one of the unwritten blog rules and blow our own horn occassionally. Hey, if famous tech blogger, Robert Scoble can break all the Twitter rules, I figured why not.

I have added a new category called Currency Work. If these posts sound too much like Currency infomercials, skip to the next post, leave a comment or e-mail me to let me know. What I am really trying to get across is that the credit union industry is filled with amazing people doing great work and that I am proud to be a part of it.

The actual post: I love my job. Working for credit unions is very fulfilling. I wrote our purpose a few years ago and I honestly believe what I said: "Simply put, it is our purpose to help credit unions deepen their relationships with members and persuade bank customers to become credit union members. We can’t wait for the day when credit unions have more members than banks have customers."

So getting to do good work for good people is thanks enough. But when I get an e-mail like this, it really drives home why I get up in the morning:

“Working with Currency has been awesome. Your team is professional, efficient and full of personality. From your designers to your account executives, I have enjoyed working with everyone. The best part about working with Currency was your team’s understanding of the credit union system and our challenges and opportunities. Your specialization in credit union marketing and branding helped us create a dynamic, fresh, professional brand that we are very proud of.

"The branding process that you lead us through was fantastic. From our front line staff to our board of directors, it truly was a collaborative effort. As a smaller credit union the cost of doing a project like this is a big decision. We are very pleased that we chose to undertake this project with Currency and have definitely seen first hand how this will be an investment rather than an expense. From the beginning you said we needed to love our new brand, and I am very pleased to say that ‘we love it.’ Thank you Currency for helping us bring our brand to life.”

Sandra McDowell
Sales, Marketing & Operations Manager
First Credit Union, Powell River, British Columbia

We helped launch a new brand for First Credit Union (formerly Powell River Credit Union and, coincidentally, the first credit union established in British Columbia) a couple of weeks ago. Nala and I presented the strategy and the new identity to almost 70 staff members. The new brand was very well received and a real treat to work on. Thanks for the feedback Sandra!

In the first three issues of our e-newsletter (hint-hint, please subscribe), I touched on the various positions that we believe credit unions can take to differentiate. For First Credit Union, we have built a brand around the primary position of the local insider with a secondary position of the member advocate. and are recommending that they beef up their already great member rewards program to combat against any future competing credit unions.

Nala worked through a great brand strategy and Caleb and Kevin established the new brand standards.

I was so thrilled by this letter, that I asked Sandra if I could post it here. We had a great time working with the core brand team. It was a great experience.

Tim

A master lesson in PR 2.0 by Verity Credit Union.

I was just cruising around my regular credit union blogs and stopped in my tracks when I read a post from Shari Storm on Verity Credit Union's Our Voices blog.

Folks, learn from this. This is how your credit union needs to deal with critical situations. The honesty and transparency shown in this post is phenominal. Verity is a pioneer in the social web space, so I am not surprised by the leadership shown here. This is the power of having a credit union blog at your disposal. Obviously a blog is an ideal way to engage members and potential members on the light and fluffy side, but as you can see here, it is also a perfect venue to deal with the tough stuff. Here is a portion of the post:

Security Breach

You may have heard that a credit card processor in Florida had a high ranking manager steal 2.3 million people’s information and sell it to a data broker, who in turn, sold it to some marketing companies.

That is our credit card processor.

We are waiting on the list to see if any of our members were part of this group. Fidelity should be getting it to us in the next few days. They are also sending a letter to every consumer involved.

The good news for us (we think) is that it was Certegy Check Services that was compromised and we do not use them for our check servicing. We may find very few, if any, of our members’ information compromised. The other piece of good news is that it doesn’t look like this guy sold it to identity thieves. It looks like, at this point, that 2.3 million people are just getting more solicitations than they should.

I say this NOT trying to minimize the situation. The situation is awful. Nobody should steal another person’s information for any reason. However, it is important to note that the info went to marketing companies and not an organized crime ring.

Way to fess up and get the information out. Bravo.

Tim

A shout out to Prospera and Vancity for their innovative work.

Two British Columbian credit unions made me smile and proud to be a credit union advocate this week. I am giving them their proper props.

Prospera Credit Union

Prospera launched a new microsite this week, www.breakupwithyourbank.com. The site features bang-on copy: "Ever get that sinking feeling that you're in a no good relationship with your bank? In that moment, when your heart sinks with the knowledge that you just might need to get out, we'd like to offer a little teensy bit of advice: Dump the loser!" The design is refreshing and the Relationship Quiz is the highlight. See if your banking relationship is the dead-ender, the lovelorn, the coaster or the have it all!

I have always admired the work being produced by Prospera and its agency Identica—the cheeky tone and ballsy approach sets this credit union apart, and this site is no exception. Some might look down on bank bashing, but I say use whatever means possible to take a bite out of the big banks! They can take it. Great work.

Vancity

I have been following Vancity's Change Everything campaign for more than a year and it keeps getting more and more interesting. The smart folks at Vancity totally get who they are and what matters to their members and potential members. The latest example is their Vancity Bike Share program. Simply put, Vancity donated 45 bikes that anyone may use for three weeks then pass on.

I first caught wind of this last week through a very grassroots viral campaign. I saw it show up on blogs, then a Facebook page and then, "boom" it's on the evening news and on the front page of the Vancouver Sun today.

They are doing a really good thing which likely didn't cost more than $10,000 and reeping the rewards (again!) of massive positive media coverage. Once again, Vancity is harnessing the power of the social web and cutting through to traditional media. Keep up the good work!

Tim

We are receiving great feedback on Cuckoo, but this one from Gene takes the cake!

Gene Blishen from Mount Lehman Credit Union made our day recently with the most creative best-wishes e-mail ever. For those of you who have never met Gene, you need to. Gene is a genuine advocate for small credit unions and has been an awesome client for almost a decade. His Tinfoiling blog is a must read and he was a major contributor to us switching from PCs to MACs a few years ago. I couldn't take his mocking any longer! As long as there are people like Gene in the credit union movement, we've got nothing to worry about.

Thanks Gene. You rock!

If you have no idea what Gene is referring to, we have launched a new stock campaign service for credit unions called Cuckoo.

Tim