Inside Marketing: 4 social media channels to better engage with Gen Zers and millennials

Credit unions have lost a lot of ground with Gen Z and millennials. Why? Mainly because the majority of young adults are not familiar with credit unions. According to a survey of more than 500 college students done by Zogo, 76% of respondents did not know what a credit union was. Those that do know are likely to believe that credit unions are less accessible and more complicated to sign up for than banks.

So the question is, what can credit unions do to appeal to Gen Zers and millennials? I don’t have the magic answer, but my suggestion is to meet them where they are: social media. More specifically, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn, which are some of the most popular social media channels among adults between the ages of 18-29, according to Pew Research Center.

Many credit unions still fail to properly leverage social media, and when they do use it, they don’t always use the right channels to appeal to the younger generations. But social media is an impactful and cost-effective way to educate young people about credit unions and eventually recruit them as members: Research from YPulse shows that 49% of Gen Zers and 50% of millennials got their news from social media in 2020, while Kantar research shows that 44% of Gen Zers made a purchase decision based on a recommendation from social media last year.

 

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