Posted by Christopher Stevenson
When I first joined Twitter a couple years ago, there were only a handful of active users in the credit union space. Many of these same users also wrote prominent credit union blogs. Twitter conversations didn't just focus on CUs; they covered current events, politics (perhaps to our detriment), and personal news. When someone posted something to Twitter, someone else responded. Full-blown group discussions would occasionally sprout up and sometimes participants would take those conversations off line and finish them up with a phone call.
Today, there are hundreds of credit unions and credit union advocates on Twitter and I follow many of them, but the dynamic of the credit union Twitter space seems to have changed. Consider how often credit unions post rates or "Try the credit union difference" messages vs. responding to other people's tweets, answering questions, or even adding links to local community events. Even when I scan the Twitter feeds of some of the most notable CUs on Twitter, I see primarily a push of information rather than dialog. In addition, when I consider the click-through rates on links on sites like LinkedIn compared to Twitter, it seems there is a relative lack of engagement on Twitter.
Ask any credit union why they're on Twitter and I'd bet that the response you'll receive is something like, "We're seeking new ways to engage our membership," or "We want to be where our members are." If that is indeed the truth, then why is there so little energy expended on having conversations?
Here's my theory. (Feel free to argue if you disagree.)
Businesses on Twitter, not just credit unions, have made a follower-grab in their efforts to adopt the growing technology. The problem is, humans can only absorb so much information, and I'd argue that following more than about 100 people on Twitter causes information overload. We have to filter out the noise in order to make sense of the information that's most important to us. At a party, we do that by socializing with the people who are nearest to us and ignoring most of the other party-goers. On Twitter, it means paying closest attention to those we know or that we find most interesting and skimming everyone else's tweets. The result? Drive-by tweeting. We stop by Twitter, send out a quick tweet, and then move on to the next task on our to-do list. We have a virtual monologue, pushing our products, instead of engaging members as we'd hoped.
Why does it matter?
First off, if all we're doing is telling people how great we are, we're not going to attract the people we want. Oh, they may be following us, but they're not listening. We become one of those tweeters that gets skipped over as the reader quickly scans for important or interesting information. The audience most likely to read our tweets will be other credit union folk, and it's tough to argue that the credit union echo chamber will help us achieve our strategic goals.
Second, and more importantly, by forcing ourselves to filter out the noise, we inevitably miss the important tweets that we should respond to. For instance, did one of our followers mention that he or she is seeking a new provider of financial services? If we're drive-by tweeting, we are bound to miss an opportunity to show the value of our services.That's no good.
This is not to say that tweeting about rates and the benefits of credit unions is necessarily a bad thing, but if your intention is to build stronger member relationships, you may be missing the mark.
