Is your marketing department spending all of its social media energy trying to increase the number of "likes" on your Facebook page? How much time goes into coming up with the next clever tweet for Twitter. If you think social media begins and ends with Facebook and Twitter, you're ignoring the social media sites that can actually have a significant impact on your business.
The social media sites in question are peer review sites—sites where consumers can go to post their reviews and share the experiences they've had with local businesses. A growing number of people, especially those belonging to the mobile generation, automatically check these sites first before engaging with any new business.
With a global reach, Yelp is the most popular among these sites. Here users can say as much or as little as they want about a local business, and also provide a rating of one to five stars. Although Yelp is used most commonly as a restaurant guide, it does have a Banks & Credit Unions category.
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In one locality, Credit Union A (the name changed to protect the guilty) had an average rating of two and a half stars (that's not very good) on 43 reviews. One person called it "the worst credit union I've ever been a customer of." Alternatively, another credit union in the area got four and a half stars on 18 reviews. Not bad.
The good news is that Yelp gives the business an opportunity to respond to each review, good or bad. Be careful, though. The point here isn't to argue a bad reviewer. Instead, attempt to engage the reviewer and see if you can resolve the issue to their liking. Even if you can't, don't get defensive. Take whatever critique you get to heart.
Your members may not be the only ones talking about you online. Your employees may be getting in on the action, too. A growing number of employer review sites like Glassdoor give past and present employees the opportunity to post anonymous reviews of the companies for which they've worked. Prospective employees can then get the seemingly real scoop on what it's like to work for your credit union before they accept an offer.
Of course, no matter how wonderful your workplace environment, there will always be one or two disgruntled employees. And they'll be the most anxious to run home and post an unflattering Glassdoor review. Prospective employees – at least the smart ones – know this and won't be scared off by one or two negative reviews.
If, however, you receive a string of negative reviews that carry a common theme, you should pay close attention, because there's probably something that needs fixing. This is a situation to take seriously, and to move on proactively.
Once you've addressed the situation, there's nothing wrong with asking some of your more loyal employees to post their honest reviews. Since these reviews are newer, they'll carry more weight than the older, negative reviews.
And you thought it was all about Facebook and Twitter.
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