Posted by Lisa Hochgraf
Credit unions are getting into the blogosphere. Most of the blogs I see in CU land are either 1) written by CU executives for other CU executives and cover credit union management strategies or 2) written by one credit union's executives for their institution's members and cover personal finance and community-related subjects.
But variations on this theme are coming.
I read with interest on Jim Bruene's blog about two credit unions--Midwest Financial Credit Union and its affiliate, University of Michigan Health System Financial--doing "joint blogging." Says Bruene, "Although these two financial institutions are part of the same company, joint blogging efforts across several credit unions in the same geographic area could make a lot of sense."
What? Cooperatives sharing blogs? At first blush, I thought this could be as good as shared branching.
CU blogger and blog builder Trey Reeme of Trabian and Open Source CU said cooperative blogging could have merit:
"I think it could work - but like all social media it has to be done correctly and compellingly," he said.
"It's hard for me to say that, having just built Verity's new blog (of course I think they do it the 'right way'). But I'm even more jazzed about the other two sites they'll be launching -- as mouthpieces for their community, a la Vancity's Change Everything," which is hosted by the credit union, but is written by community members about anything they want to change.
So if your credit union is thinking about blogging, there may be more than one way to enter this space.
