Protecting your credit union’s reputation – A User’s Guide
So, after my ever-so-embarrassing foray into breaking up with a blog feed – I decided to figure out how a credit union could take measures to protect itself.
#1 Google Alerts- See I use Google as my source of all things Internet. My homepage is a 5 tabbed page of probably over 150 feeds from everything from credit union blogs like OpenSourceCU.com to my Google Calendar widget or local newspaperfeed. But one of the most watched tools are my Google Alerts. Here I can plug in search terms that when they show up in Google, I get an immediate email letting me know. Why is this important to you? I am glad you asked. You can monitor whenever your credit union shows up in the news, a personal blog or whatever. If it is about you, and on the Internet – you will know. The best way to use this tool is by using quotation marks. If I do a search for Tony Mannor – I will get pages about guys named Tony who live in Oakridge Mannor. If I have my alert set for “Tony Mannor” then only pages about me will get alerts – this works unless your name is John Smith. Sorry John. But if you are a credit union, this is an incredibly powerful way to track the media on your website and another way to monitor your online marketing efforts. It is like having a spy on the Internet working for you.
#2. Blogjacking – as you may know, I have coined the term blogjacking. It is when someone else sets up a blog in your name to “fluff up” their search engine rankings by linking to a site that they need to be more prominent in the search engine rankings. A way to protect yourself here is by first setting up your Google Alerts, but then backing that up with searching other blog indexing sites like:
- Technorati
- Google Blog Search
- Yahoo! Blog search
- MSN Live Spaces
- Bloogz
- Ask.com Blog Search
- Feedster
- Bloglines
Check these sites from time to time and search for your credit union. Don’t forget to use quotation marks. Those are important!
#3. If you are going to run your own blog, watch it. Keep an eye on who is visiting your blog. If you see traffic from outside of the state or outside of the country – be on alert! Your site may have been downloaded and your information may be posted on a site in Russia or Nigeria. You may just have a member overseas checking their account, but it pays to be cautious. Your web hosting provider may provide tracking software to monitor your site. If not then you may use Google Analytics for free and the information that Google provides is incredible.
#4. Crooks are lazy. That’s why they are crooks. If stealing was harder than working – we would have 0% unemployment and the cops could work 8 hour days. But the good thing is that they usually dont change file names. What this means is, on your website, name your logo graphic a funky file name like “culogo_12345_ha_ha_sucker.jpg”. What does this do for you? Add the file name culogo_12345_ha_ha_sucker.jpg to your google alerts. That way if any new website pops up with your logo, you will be alerted. Pretty sneaky eh?
#5. Keep the lines of communication open with your members! Make contacting a REAL person easy to do. I had an issue with what I thought was a credit unions blog. I went to their site to notify them and it turns out that they required me to enter my membership number into the contact form. But I am not a member. They have since removed that restriction. You and your members are supposed to be a team. They are not customers, they are partners. You never know who is on the other side of the teller window or the telephone. Today’s irritated member is tomorrow’s board member.
Well now, that’s a lot to chew all at once. I hope this helps! I will continue on with some other tips and tricks.
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