If a Member Comments via Social Media and Your CU is not Around to Hear It….

The sheer ability of these social media phenomenon to make their way into mainstream media coverage is enough for many credit union execs to swear off social media campaigns forever.

By Chris Tissue

Does it still make noise?

The Dominoes employee who set the social media world ablaze by tampering with food then posting a video of it on YouTube made some noise. Patrons berating small business owners on Yelp! make noise.The ability of social media phenomenon to make their way into mainstream media coverage is enough for many credit union execs to swear off social media campaigns forever. But abstinence won't work.

If your credit union doesn't have a Facebook or Twitter account, that doesn't mean that conversations about your organization aren't taking place on social networks. What's worse, these conversations are often initiated by the outliers of your brand experience – those who are disgruntled because of a bad experience or misinformed about why they were treated a certain way. Having a formal system in place for tracking conversations about your credit union, and others in your area, will help you proactively manage your online identity.

Here is a checklist for setting up a social media line of defense:

Allow one employee to take ownership over the process and put it into their formal job description. Counting on many people who are already overwhelmed with work will result in sporadic, shoddy monitoring. After establishing a baseline and tracking standards, consider incentivizing the employee for locating relevant comments and responding effectively. This is what social media is all about, the power to turn a negative experience into a positive one. In fact, many disgruntled social media users are looking for exactly that, a response.
Set up guidelines for responding to comments. Not all comments warrant responses. In some cases, engaging in a social media battle can spur more negative commentary. Define the line between someone looking to pick a fight and someone blowing off steam. Unfortunately these guidelines may come as a result of trial and error.
Empower employees with the right tools for monitoring social media. In this CUtv clip Matt Hand discusses new (free!) technology organizations can use to monitor their brand.