Credit unions should have it made. As cooperatives with defined fields of membership and members with common experiences, social media should be a natural extension of built-in affinity, according to the Filene Research Institute.
The Madison, Wis.-based think tank says that theory is nice, but its latest report on social media expands on what many credit unions are discovering: deep member engagement with social media comes only after a lot of work.
And, there's still a lot of work to do, Filene discovered. Nearly 40% of the credit unions studied are "Prospectors" who stake a social media claim but never do much with it; more than half are "Flirts" who approach social media sporadically. Only 10% are "Settlers" who stick around to finish what they started.
Filene Research Fellow and University of Arizona Professor Hope Jensen Schau used surveys and online content analysis of 157 credit unions, and qualitative interviews with leaders from many of them to describe and help to solve two pressing credit union challenges:
- Integrating legacy marketing/member service relationships with social media.
- Addressing the often missed credit union opportunity of data gathering and analysis.
Read more on how credit unions are addressing these challenges in the Filene report, "From Presence to Purpose: Developing Social Media Strategies and Metrics for Credit Unions."
The report is the latest in a series of exclusive content from Filene available to Credit Union Times.
Also, check out these earlier Filene reports:
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
