Finally, I can explain what Young & Free is to my Mom

I've had a "What is Young & Free?" video on my to do list for at least a year. Well I can finally scratch that off my list!

What do you think?

Tim

Hey, want to see what the Canadian big banks and big credit unions are up to?

A common question that our clients ask is, "How do our young adult marketing and social media efforts compare to other banks and credit unions?"

I typically answer with something like, "Oh, you are doing awesome!" This isn't necessarily enough info to satisfy their curiosity, so I decided to do some heavy duty investigation, document what I found and share everything with all of our clients and blog readers.

As I began to work through the project, I decided to break the findings down into two separate reports—one for Canada and one for the U.S.

First up, Canada! I’ve added my opinions and graded each financial institution based on how they are doing with products and services for young adults, marketing to young adults, social media activity, and finally, how they are doing with integrated product marketing.

Five largest Canadian banks
• RBC (Royal Bank of Canada)
• TD Canada Trust
• Scotiabank (Bank of Nova Scotia)
• CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce)
• BMO (Bank of Montreal)

Other banks with substantial operations in Canada
• HSBC Bank of Canada
• ING Direct Canada
• ATB Financial
• Canadian Western Bank

Ten largest credit unions in Canada
• Vancity
• Coast Capital Savings
• Servus Credit Union
• Meridian Credit Union
• Envision Financial
• Conexus Credit Union
• Steinbach Credit Union
• Assiniboine Credit Union
• First Calgary Financial
• Affinity Credit Union

Co-operative marketing programs
• Desjardins Group
• Central 1 Credit Union

This is a living document, as I intend to add to it and update it periodically. If you have additional information or corrections to share about any of these financial institutions, please add to the comments.

+ Download PDF (3.7M)

I will publish the U.S. counterpart within the next month.

Enjoy!

Tim

Why does engaging Gen Y on the social web make sense?

Continuing where I left off with my Why Gen Y? post, let's talk about the case for engaging Gen Y on the social web. Again, the bold text is what I say in my talks. The text following is what I would say if I had a lot more time! I've taken a page from a friend of mine's book. Denise Wymore told me last year that she wasn't taken seriously until she added some charts to her presentations. You want charts? I'll give you charts!

Why utilize the social web to attract Gen Y? Because that’s where Gen Y lives! Gen Y's use of social media eclipses all other generations.

Last June, I co-presented at the Forrester Financial Forum in New York with Catherine Graeber, a Vice President from Forrester Research. Catherine spent the first 15 minutes laying the groundwork with some great data-filled slides. You can find the entire presentation here. As you can see from this slide, members of Gen Y are way more involved on the social web than all other generations.

This gap goes a long way to explaining why credit unions are slow to get involved with social media marketing. Only 10% of Baby Boomers are involved in social networking, only 9% are reading blogs and only 4% are commenting on blogs. Since the decision-makers at most credit unions are Baby Boomers and have very little understanding or interest in what's going on within this newfangled social web, it makes total sense that they are apprehensive about getting involved.

Social networking usage is only going to increase. According to Netpop Research, 105 million Americans use social media sites.

There has been a 93% increase in social networking usage since 2006. Consumers are using these sites to comment—sometimes positively and frequently negatively—about brand experiences, products and services!

Facebook and MySpace both have more than 200 million registered users worldwide. There are many other sites with significant users including YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Blogger, Wordpress and Ning to name a few. Socializing has eclipsed e-mail as the number one use of the Internet. In fact, of the top 10 most popular websites ranked by Alexa, seven of them are based on social interaction and user-generated content. There is no signs that this trend is going to slow down.

A study by Pew reveals that 75% of the 18- to 24-year-old age group have a profile within a social network. Adult Internet users participation in social networks has quadrupled in just 4 years.

This slide again proves the disparity between generations. If three quarters of the 18- to 24-year-old crowd have a profile within a social network, it is an undeniable fact that this is not a flash-in-the-pan trend. If your credit union is serious about connecting with members of Gen Y, then it makes sense to meet them on their own turf. In fact, as more and more banks and credit unions build a presence within these environments, your credit union is at a huge disadvantage if you choose to ignore this opportunity. Social media is no longer an experimental medium and needs to be taken very seriously.

There's another three slides explained! As you can see, Gen Y is all over the social web and if you are seriously considering connecting with the next generation of credit union members, you need to figure out how to get your credit union involved.

Tim

Is your credit union looking to attract more Moms? You better watch what you say!

I have heard this one quite a bit at my presentations this year, "This social media thing is fine and dandy, but our members aren't online. I don't see how these things that you are talking about apply to us."

I like to dispell this myth any chance I get. One of the biggest segments in the blog-o-sphere is Moms. They are active bloggers, vloggers and Twitterers. To illustrate the power of the social web and to alert you to one of the biggest corporate goof-ups blow-ups on the web this year, simply watch Motrin's brand new commercial below. From what I can gather, it was released just this past week.

This ad has enraged the Mommy blog-o-sphere. Look no further than these live search results on Twitter. In addition, there are countless video responses and blog posts popping up like wildfire. You can actually buy anti-Motrin T-shirts on Cafe Press already.

This is a constructive video response. Some of them aren't so nice.

Lessons for credit union marketers:

1. Members and potential members have a voice
2. Do not assume your members aren't online
3. Do not underestimate the power the Internet
4. Pre-test your ideas with the target market you are attempting to attract

I will be following this story closely. I am very interested to see how Motrin handles this huge PR issue in the coming weeks.

Tim

Our credit union needs to be in Facebook. That's where all those crazy kids are!

Many credit unions are trying to figure out how to best create a presence within the walled-garden-of-promise that is Facebook. The most popular approach is to set up a free page and hope people find and become fans of your page.

These credit union pages have attracted a range of fans from a dozen to perhaps a hundred fans. The most I have seen is our Young & Free Alberta page with 231 fans. And I'll admit that about half of those are credit union folks. There are likely credit unions with more fans than that, but it still seems pretty paltry considering that Facebook now has more than 100 million members.

But what if there was a better way to build a presence in Facebook?

I have been watching a really interesting and really effective by-product of the Young & Free Alberta and Young & Free Texas spokesperson searches this year. The proliferation of campaign-specific Facebook groups by spokesperson applicants.

DeAndre' in Texas started the trend and between the two competitions there are now 10 Young & Free Facebook groups that I know of. And the member numbers are growing like wildfire. Here are the member numbers at the time of writing this post.

Alberta

• Myles (230 members)
• Jenna Mae (163 members)
• Starsha (142 members)
• Raymond (100 members)
• Damien (94 members)
• Daniel (45 members)

Texas

• DeAndre' (228 members)
• Jason S. (175 members)
• Amy A. (83 members)
• Amy G. (4 members)

That's 1,264 young people that have now been exposed to Common Wealth Credit Union and TDECU through unsolicited third-party endorsements within the last three weeks.

But these aren't real credit union fans!

Fair enough. Many of these groups will fade away as quickly as they appeared when we shortlist for the voting stage (today in Texas, next Friday in Alberta), but I would argue that the real value lies in what you do with the momentary attention. Most Facebook pages result in a bunch of credit union employees and industry peers becoming fans and little more.

These unsponsored, spontaneous Facebook groups have resulted in the biggest new account opening month for Young & Free Alberta since we started and a record amount of site traffic and blog comments on both sites over the last few weeks.

Another way we have been able to capitalize on this influx of traffic is by adding a simple question to all of the forms on the sites, including the blog comment form. We simply ask: "Would you like to receive e-updates and the chance to win great prizes?"

More than 75% of form submissions are opting into our e-mail lists. We have grown our Alberta list by nearly 900% in the last two months. These are young people giving us permission to open a dialogue with them in their in-box.

I talk a lot about being more blatant with your social media activity and asking for visitors to engage with your credit union and that you should not be afraid to seek opportunities to ask for the sale. Here is living proof that you can mix social media and word-of-mouth advertising with commerce and have it be authentic and very effective.

The cool thing is that this was not our idea or the credit unions' ideas. It just happened naturally. Pretty exciting stuff don't you think? If you have other ways that your credit union has been effective within Facebook, please add them to the comments.

Tim

We helped Vancity change everything about ChangeEverything

I am thrilled to be able to talk about the redesign and relaunch of Vancity's hugely successful social network, ChangeEverything.ca! The new verson launched today. Currency was hired to redesign the user interface and was part of a fantastic team including Affinity Bridge for Drupal development and Ballistic Arts for video production.

Kate and William from Vancity are passionate about Vancity's online community and brought plenty of insight to the project. The key challenges were to increase usability, clarify navigation and, most importantly, to reveal the wonderful dialogue and participation going on within this vibrant online community.

The community member videos are terrific and immediately tell visitors why ChangeEverything.ca exists and why people should care and get involved.

This was a dream project to work on and we are honoured to be part of such a great team.

Tim

Should your credit union be engaging in the social web for issue management?

A regular reader of our blog recently tipped me off to an interesting story regarding asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) being discussed on Facebook.

A group of individual investors have formed a Facebook group to draw attention to ABCP and provide a forum to discuss ABCP and its roll in the sub-prime mortgage crisis in Canada. This has been a burning story in the Canadian press for quite awhile. For the past few months most of the coverage has focused on the institutional investors, but during April and May the spotlight turned to individuals—the mom-and-pop investors whose life savings (in some cases) got trapped in what they had been told was an investment that was as secure as a GIC.

The discussion board on the Facebook group is available only to members of the group to see, but what I can relay is how these concerned members have used this social media platform as a tool to air their grievances. And I'm not talking about Gen Y—I'm talking about older, close-to-retirement (or retired) folks. They seem quite knowledgeable about the credit union system, the provincial centrals and their relationship to investment firms that service the credit union industry.

To be frank, my knowledge and understanding about these issues is limited, so without talking over my head or getting political, I am interested in starting a discussion about the questions this type of situation raises. Here are some basic questions for you and your credit union to consider.

1. Is your credit union doing enough to keep tabs on social media for issue management purposes?
2. Do the available social media tools offer credit unions an opportunity to be proactive about an issue like this?
3. And, do those of us in the credit union world tend to be too narrow in our view of who is using social media, demographically speaking?

Over to you!

Tim

Here's two more communities to join...

... even if you are suffering from Too Many Social Networks Disorder (TMSND).

I seem to get an invite to join another social network site every few days. Between Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, I can barely keep up. However, if you are a credit union marketer, there are two more communities that you should consider joining.

Banktastic

Banktastic is the brainchild of The Garland Group, a Texas-based IT and security risk-assessment firm.

Pros:

• A close-knit growing community of progressive members who care about Web 2.0, financial services and all things bank and credit union.
• Bantastic is open to everyone.
• Bantastic is simple. There are three basic areas that you can participate in:
  • Questions and answers
  • News
  • Product and company reviews
• The Garland Group CEO, Brad Garland, and software developer, Mark McSpadden are very active participants throughout the credit union blog-o-sphere.
• Community manager, Lisa Randolph, is very active on the site and is a huge contributor to the content. She also produces much of the Banktastic videos. Having a dedicated manager is brilliant and really ensures that the site will be active in the future.
• There is lots of great video content cranked out weekly. There are two shows, The Burst and The CU Scoop. Both shows can be found on The Banktastics blog.
• Although it is not credit union specific, there are a number of credit union folks participating and Banktastic will give you exposure to the broader banking world.

Cons

• It just came out of semi-private beta on April 1, so there aren't that many members yet, but this will change over time.
• The word 'Bank' is in the name. Sorry Brad, I had to give you a bit of a dig on that one. You know me and my credit union singularity!

EverythingCU

EverythingCU is an active community of credit union marketers dedicated to discussing marketing and branding issues facing credit unions of all sizes.

Pros:

• It is well-established with over 5,900 members.
• Open only to credit union employees, so you can discuss things openly with your peers without feeling like vendors (like me) are spying on your world.
• Chief Innovation Officer, Morriss Partee, is a card-carrying credit union cheerleader and he and his team have done an amazing job at creating a wonderful resource for the credit union world.
• Everything CU offers great webinars and the discussion board is very active.
• Since I am unable to sign-up, I can't tell you much more about Everything CU, other than I have heard it is very worthwhile.

Cons

• For you, nothing. For me, I am stuck outside looking at the home page. Hey, if I am going to give Brad a hard time, I should also give Morriss a dig to keep things fair.

Even though your TMSND might be at an all-time high, check out Banktastic and EverythingCU today and sign-up. Both communities are free, offer valuable information and will do you a lot more good than adding another useless drinking game app to your Facebook profile (did I just say that?).

Tim

Is your credit union embracing blogging and social networking yet?

From the research I've done, very few credit unions are participating in and taking advantage of all of the Web 2.0 tools available to them. For a Wikipedia definition of Web 2.0 click here.

Sure, most every credit union has a website and online banking, but does your credit union communicate with your members in an open, two-way conversation? Are you aware that your members are talking about your service or lack thereof online for everyone to read? I doubt it. Credit unions need to get smart and savvy and pay attention to the new Web reality. Here's a quote from the cover article from last's month's issue of Wired Magazine.

Get naked and rule the world

Smart companies are sharing secrets with rivals, blogging about products in their pipeline, even admitting to their failures. The name of this new game is RADICAL TRANSPARENCY, and it's sweeping boardrooms across the nation. Even those Office drones at Dunder Mifflin get it. So strip down and learn how to have it all by baring it all.

Here are some examples of credit unions opening up

+ Vancity's Change Everything site and CEO blog

This is a phenomenal social network site with absolutely no marketing speak. All credit unions should be studying this example—it is truly authentic and perfectly aligned with Vancity's brand. This is the model of the future.

The link given is CEO Dave Mowat's blog. With Dave's recent announcement that he is leaving for ATB in Alberta, this was a great forum to allow his members to speak out about his decision. From what I can tell, this appears to be the only CEO blog in the Canadian credit union system. If I am wrong, please leave a comment with a link to others. I feel other CEOs need to be consistently blogging.

+ Aware Teens by Forum Credit Union

Forum Credit Union, located in Indianapolis, IN has set up an interesting forum for teens. They ask a question each month like, "what summer job would you like to have?" and "what is your favourite winter activity?"

Today's youth are so savvy with computers and technology; they are tapped into MySpace, Facebook, Digg and other social networks. Kids' expectations of blogs, forums and social networks is extremely high, so if you do try to engage them, you better not go only half way.

The Forum Aware Teen blog is fairly new and a little light and fluffy which might explain why the questions get less than 10 answers each, but it's a start.

I believe that all credit unions need to be talking to the up-and-coming youth. Their bank competitors definitely are.

+ Verity Credit Union

Verity Credit Union, headquartered in Seattle, WA totally gets it. A dozen staff members contribute regularly and the topics are fresh and well-written.

They engage members and are really trying to improve communication by talking about tough topics. You can tell that this blog is not going through multiple edits and public relations polish. It is active and there is great dialogue gong on.

This is a great example to follow. It is what a credit union blog should look and feel like. The grammar experts out there might find the occasional typo that I spotted offensive, but I think it actually adds to the authenticity.

Well done Verity!

+ Service One Credit Union Brown Knows CU Blog

I am not sure if the name of this blog was intentionally meant to be funny or not, but the name of Valerie Brown's CEO blog has a double meaning that she might not be aware of! Growing up, I knew a different definition for brown nose! (click here).

Joking aside, this is a good example of a CEO regularly writing to members. However it's disappointing that you cannot leave comments. To her defense there is an e-mail option.

There is an expectation in the blogosphere (here's another Wikipedia definition for you) that a blog should be a two-way conversation. When a blog doesn't have a comment mechanism that posts automatically, it makes you feel like the author is afraid of what might be said.

A closing word from the wise

Ron Shevlin, a VP from Epsilon, a leading interactive marketing firm in the US has a clever blog that often touches on the banking and credit union world. Here is a wonderful diagram of how your credit union should be communicating online!

What are you waiting for? Open and start engaging your members and potential members online!

Tim