The challenge is justifying the cost and time. With Yak! Tracker, a lead generation application developed by Chatter Yak!, credit unions can create contests in conjunction with social media campaigns.

Yak! Tracker offers a responsive application, one that is intuitive and gets leads to the credit union as fast as possible. Yak! Tracker uses customizable questions to gather contact information and member financial interests. The app can also insert calculators into the process at the appropriate times.

The $303 million, Alpena, Mich.-based Alpena Alcona Area Credit Union adopted Yak! Tracker in March 2015. As a result, the credit union generated nearly 200 new loan leads and, in 2015, closed $2.2 million in loans from Yak! Tracker generated leads.

This year, the $644 million, St. Joseph, Mich.-based Honor Credit Union reportedly produced 840 loan leads in a single campaign in less than a week using Yak! Tracker and analytics. Honor's campaign, launched on March 16, led to 4,412 unique views and 3,075 contest entries.

"That isn't typical for everyone," Roth admitted.

Most credit unions average 1,200 to 2,000 unique views per campaign and about 200 loan leads per month. Through its data analytics, Honor has been able to increase contest entries and leads.

"Utilizing Yak! Tracker has allowed Honor to reach literally thousands more members than the traditional social media channels," Honor President/CEO Scott McFarland said.

Regardless of what credit unions use to generate leads, they must implement a follow-up process, Roth explained.

"Social media is more than likes and hearts," he said. "Likes don't keep the lights on – loans and new accounts do."

Social media also helps credit unions market to thousands of people they could not reach otherwise, he said.

"These are the digital natives that are not hearing the radio ads, not seeing commercials and maybe not going into the branch too often," Roth said.

The $258 million Gadsden, Ala.-based Alabama Teachers Credit Union recently stepped up its social media presence, which began in 2009.

"Over the last two and half years, we started to notice the total engagement of society on social media," Marketing Director Emily Mayben said.

That is why Alabama Teachers made social media a major focus.

"This is where our future members are, this is where our existing members are, and we would be remiss not to be here," Mayben said.

The credit union developed a social media policy and plan, and put a marketing liaison team in place with representatives from each branch.

Joe Wood, Alabama Teachers' social media specialist, said the credit union's greatest emphasis is Facebook because it has received useful feedback through Facebook's Insights, an analytics app and Pages Manager, which helps monitor activity. This allowed the organization to engage members and observe member interaction more distinctly than with traditional media.

"Social media is so much clearer because we can see who clicked on our post, who commented, who shared, who liked it and even track click-throughs to our website," Mayben said.

Facebook provides many different demographics, Mayben added. During a spring auto loan special, the credit union was able to determine member interest by zip code or mile radius and target them specifically.

"We can track it and see what we are getting out of our dollars," Mayben said.

Alabama Teachers also began using YouTube as a channel – for example, it posted a bounce house video to promote its "Credit Union Strong" theme. At a cost of just $100, much less than its traditional advertising costs, it received more than 14,000 views. In an auto loan promotion video, it invested another $100 and received 21,000 views.

"It is just a better way to measure your marketing dollars," Mayben said.

Social media also allowed the financial institution to discontinue paper newsletters.

"We put content in snapshots rather one big newsletter," Wood explained. "We want to make sure our content is not just ads."

Mayben emphasized Alabama Teachers wants organic likes and interactions.

"We want people to interact with us because they need our products and services and are interested in what we have to offer, not just to win a product," he said.

For the $535.6 million, Overland Park, Kan.-based Mazuma Credit Union, social media must revolve around content as well.

"We are Kansas City based and we live and breathe Kansas City, just as the Mazuma members do," Vice President of Growth and Brand Mark Thompson said. "All of our content is geared toward being engaging, interesting and local."

Thompson explained, "We know through studies and A/B testing that social media is primarily a long-term content lead. We want to get people interested in Mazuma so they have a long-term affinity for the brand."

Mazuma worked with the Lenexa, Kan.-based marketing CUSO BYM Agency to structure its social media efforts. CU Holding, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mazuma Credit Union, oversees the BYM Agency in addition to other entities.

"One of the overarching mission statements that Mazuma had with BYM was to make Kansas City a better place to live, work and bank," Thompson said. "That's our mission statement here."

Mazuma's social presence consists of a Facebook page, Twitter account, blog and a fictitious character named Mazuma Mike, who is also on Facebook.

"Each one of those social presences has a different tone and objective," BYM Creative Director and Social Marketing Specialist Jeff Birnbaum explained.

Mazuma Mike's presence leads to engagement, followers and interactions, plus educates users about Mazuma.

"He gives a human element to the financial institution," Birnbaum said.

BYM uses Facebook and Google analytics to determine social traffic patterns. It also utilizes executive reports and social forums each month to evaluate channel performance and content recommendations.