Ideas For Credit Unions Reaching Youth

http://www.yescucommunity.com/video/living-young-free-show-002

The Young & Free program was first launched with a credit union in canada. Now credit unions in the USA can use syndicated programing and a customizable integrated marketing strategy to attract younger audiences to the credit unoin movement.

I've been watching this program and blogging about it for over a year. I think this is a great business idea and I've enjoyed watching it grow.

Twitter 101

Today I was reviewing http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/. The site provides tips, case studies, and lingo for businesses who are looking to use Twitter. I've heard some great stories, but I remain a skeptic somewhat. . .

How does Twitter stack up to other social media outlets? Will it last? Is Twitter hype just a result of a good PR and Marketing strategy?

Social Media – The Digital Manifestation of Word-of-Mouth

Social Media – the digital manifestation of Word-of-Mouth

Today, 7-23-09, I was reading in the New York Times about Curtiss Kimball. Kimball owns a crème brulee cart in San Francisco. His business has been so successful that he quit his day job as a carpenter to keep up with demand. He attributes much of his success to Twitter, on which he has about 5,400 followers. Customers apparently wait for his tweets about where his cart is going to be and what the flavors of the day are!

I think it is great to see technology like this helping small business owners. And the best part, this advertising is free!

One thing to keep in mind about social media for marketing use is that a business must have something buzz worthy or truly compelling in order to get” tweeted” about. In Kimball’s case, his cart offers great tasting desserts. If his desserts tasted like diesel fuel – he may get a lot of people tweeting about him but for the wrong reasons – “Don’t ever buy from this dessert cart guy, his crème brulee made me puke!”.

But bravo to Mr. Kimball and other small business owners who have stumbled into positive cyber word of mouth and used it to their advantage. Social media is the digital manifestation of word of mouth and the beauty of it is this, it has the power to spread like wild fire.

Location for the article in the New York Times:
http://tinyurl.com/lbcf6o
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/business/smallbusiness/23twitter.html?th&emc=th