Credit union boards love social media

Recently I was asked to present on several social media topics during the CU Conferences Social Media Conference in Seattle. When I learned that the attendee list included a large number of credit union board members rather than credit union marketers and communicators, I looked at my topics with a new lens. What do credit union board members care about the speed of growth and exciting new features and trends we’re seeing with LinkedIn this year? Why would they want to participate in a hands-on workshop to learn and practice how to build an effective social media strategy?

I came to the realization that board members are exactly the ones that need to understand these topics. I’m a board member too, so I understand the role a board plays in the governance and direction of an organization.  I also realized the opportunity I had to show these board members why they should care about what their credit union is doing with social media regardless of the fact that they are not the ones executing the social media strategy at their credit union.

The key to unlocking the social media love was turned when I explained social media is simply a means to an end– a tool for successful execution of strategy—and the better the credit union’s leaders understood the potential and power of these tools, the better they could steer and direct their credit union toward successfully achieving their ends.

At the highest level, whether a credit union’s ends are to serve members better, serve more members, or something else entirely, the leadership’s knowledge of these mainstream, popular tools makes them more informed and effective leaders. I saw the social media love in the room grow as I explained that as a board member armed with this information, one can more effectively communicate with a credit union’s operations team when providing direction toward achieving ends, and can ask more informed questions around the credit union’s decision to have or not to have a social media presence. It also enables board members to ask for better metrics and reporting on how social media efforts contribute to the end goal of {insert your credit union’s strategic objective here}.

By the end of the conference, it was clear there was a lot of love in the room for social media. I’m grateful to my co-presenters that joined me in helping to build that awareness. Many of the attendees stated they would be heading back to their credit unions to ask for more details on their social media strategy, with intention to recommend creating one if such didn’t yet exist.

I now see the relevance and importance for credit union boards to understand and love social media like never before and I imagine the impact it could have on the industry if more credit union leaders would also learn to love social media.

So in order to help spread the love, I’m hoping to get answers from you on a couple questions. Leave a comment below with your thoughts:

• If you are a CU board member – do you understand social media, want to know more about social media, hate social media, love social media or something else social media?
• If you’re a CU industry employee, do you see value in having your board / leadership better understand social media?