When it comes to effective social media strategies, there's one rule to follow: Find out what's unique about you as a person or brand, and share your story.

For the $1.5 billion Royal Credit Union in Eau Claire, Wis., social media is viewed as a member service channel. Andrea Finn, digital marketing specialist, said that channel ties back to the credit union's core purpose of making a positive impact on the lives touched by RCU.

“Credit unions should be rock stars on social media because of their amazing stories,” said Finn, who has a retail background and joined the credit union industry in 2012. “I worked for a shoe company that had this huge engagement and following for shoes. I looked at our credit union, which has these incredible daily stories of making a difference in members' lives and the communities we serve, so why not get the same growth by sharing them?”

RCU monitors everything on social media, including engagement, following, growth, the types of questions being asked across various channels, timeframes to respond and resolve member issues, and what members do once they go to the RCU website. The insights gathered are then shared in a monthly meeting with the executive team and top level leaders as a way to better understand members' needs and wants. Finn credits an ability to take risks by getting out into the communities the credit union serves and leveraging those experiences to draw members into conversations using unique content, as key to RCU's social media success. In addition, embedded within every piece of content is RCU's purpose and strategy.

One great example is The Power of an Hour initiative, where RCU staffers put 60 minutes into 19 service projects that would benefit some 30 non-profit organizations within its field of membership. In addition to chipping in funds and donating items, staffers demonstrated what could be accomplished in just an hour, from assembling toiletry baskets for homeless shelters, to making fleece tie dog beds for humane associations, to creating thank-you cards for active duty military members and packaging craft kits for after-school programs.

RCU documented and shared the process via social media on its Facebook, Twitter and Google+ channels in addition to the social media platforms of the organizations they helped. This not only garnered local media coverage, but helped foster relationships in the community and resulted in content that Finn and the RCU team can continue to leverage and share. Finn said she does her best to create content that members like enough to share with their friends and family members on their own personal pages.

“It's okay to try new things,” she said. “Some will work, and some won't — that's how we learn.”

Finn said to never underestimate the value of timing and relevance, and added that when it comes to social media giveaways, sometimes the perfect $20 gift is better than a $500 item. This past December, RCU ran a Christmas giveaway targeting members who might be last-minute shoppers and/or wrappers with a gift basket of wrapping paper, tissue, bows and gift tags. Within hours, that giveaway post reached 14,000 people and received 330 likes, 256 comments and 162 shares.

A small business profile series on Facebook has been a boon for Valley First Credit Union, a division of the $10 billion First West Credit Union in Penticton, B.C.

Recognizing that the majority of small business owners don't have the resources, expertise or time to launch a marketing or social media strategy, the credit union took the opportunity to create a mutually beneficial partnership to better connect its business bankers, local businesses and the community.

“Before we launched our Facebook small business profile series, we'd post our business member profiles to our website and then link to those stories through Facebook posts and tweets,” David Kropp, communications business partner at Valley First CU, said. “Reach using this type of approach was almost nonexistent.”

As shown to the left, Valley First Credit Union's business banking unit staffers provided helping hands at local small businesses as part of the credit union's small business profile series.

With the new member profile approach, which showcased its business bankers' expertise and business members, Valley First CU has consistently achieved organic reach of 2.5 to four times its page likes. And on Twitter, the credit union directed traffic to the small business member profiles with @mentions and appropriate hashtags. For example, when First Valley CU profiled new brewery Bad Tattoo Brewing, tweets included the #craftbeerbc and #craftbeer hashtags as well as mentioned the regional tourism office and hospitality association.

Kropp said the series was created in response to small business owners' cries for advice, support and help in broadening their networks and exposure. And rather than just create content in a silo, the marketing team worked with the business banking team, going onsite with them for small business member visits.

“We focus on content that is visually appealing, new or newsworthy, and relevant to our audience and the season,” he said. “It's about the people, advice and stories rather than trying to sell a product or service.”

It's been a win-win for both the business' profiled and the credit union's presence in its communities, and has increased organic reach without the use of Facebook's paid post boosts. The first post of the series in December reached 1,400 people—three times the credit union's following in November—and brought page likes from 700 to 1,800. Research revealed that the organic reach boost was tied to content that was shared by the business' profiled and their fans, locals and employees, in addition to the credit union.

“Our organization is different as we have a parent company, First West Credit Union, and four distinct regional brands, “ he said. “If something works in one region, we share that experience with other regional brands. It's an interactive process that's improved our overall and individual social media strategy.”