Posted by Lisa Hochgraf
I got really excited about Facebook when I first got a profile a month back. So excited I thought maybe Facebook could be my one-stop home for everything, credit union account access included.
After I posted "Greet Gen Y With Account Access on Facebook," Brent Dixon gently reminded me in a post to OpenSourceCU (Social Networks are/Social Networks are not ) that companies and Facebook don't necessarily go hand in hand.
This week I had an experience that underscored that idea. A company invited me to be "friends" on Facebook. I serve credit unions, so if it had been an invitation from a credit union, I likely would have accepted and never looked back.
But this invitation was from a company that markets to credit unions. And I'm supposedly an "independent" editor. Would being friends constitute an endorsement? I've worked on developing articles with executives from this company and they're great--if they personally had invited me to be friends, I would have accepted without batting an eye.
How would I feel if my credit union asked me to be "friends"? After digging through its online banking system for a few numbers as I filled out my taxes last night, I'm just not sure. On the other hand, I'd love to be friends with the guy who guided my morgage process a few years back. I know and trust him.
I very much respect credit unions trying out a presence on Facebook and other social networking sites (and I read with interest Mike Templeton's post about how to make the most of it).
But I hope CUs on Facebook also read the discussion on Brent's post, which clearly pointed to the idea that people go to these social networking sites to--well--network, and be part of a community, not necessarily to do business. The comments include specific ideas on how credit unions might use their Facebook pages for community building, not just sales or transactions.
