When strategizing around how you add value, build relationships and establish trust with your members, a large part of that involves content that you share or messaging you push out. The key is making sure you balance the promotional messaging and content with valuable educational content, both original and from trusted third-parties. It’s what people have come to expect from brands they engage with and how they become loyal members.

Valuable relevant content form third-parties

There are a few important reasons to share relevant content from other sources with your members: 1.) There is no way you can create all the content you share and keep up a steady source of valuable insight. 2.) If everything you share only comes from you, it could be perceived that your credit union has just one purpose – to sell, minimizing trust. 3.) Sharing other relevant content from third-parties shows you are monitoring the current landscape and looking out for your members by delivering top-notch, up-to-date information on the topics you know they care about, even if it’s not from you. Plus, you can’t be the expert in everything. Let the other experts deliver quality content for you to share with your members and potential members. Social media is great channel for this – in fact, experts suggest 60% of your social media content be from trusted third-parties.

Original content from your credit union

This is where your expertise can shine. Offer educational, relevant content to your members and potential members. This is often content you’re already creating in other avenues that can either simply be shared or repurposed. For example, rewriting a recent press release in a conversational tone for a blog post; putting some FAQ or brochure information into a slide presentation or infographic; or recording your latest first-time homebuyer workshop in a podcast or video. You create a lot of content already that can be repurposed, so this is not a big of a lift as it may first sound.

Promotional content

Let’s not forget your bottom line and the great offers credit unions inherently have. You still need to share that promotional content. Just keep in mind that no one wants to be constantly sold to and your credit union has much more to offer than the latest loan rates. Making sure you mix in content that is educational in nature will help lend credibility to your organization and then the promotional content won’t be as intrusive or too salesy for your audience (and will ultimately be more successful).

As with everything in marketing, striking the right balance of content comes with testing. If you’re only doing a little or no sharing of educational content, do a little more and see what results. In general, I would shoot for no more than 50% promotion and go from there.