LAS VEGAS — Credit unions which are beginning to use social media tools to promote their mortgages and other products and services need be aware of different regulatory and legal requirements that can oversee what is being said on social media.
The meeting is being held at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas through Thursday.
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Kris Kully, counsel at the Washington, D.C., firm of K&L Gates LLP, urged attendees at a breakout session Tuesday at the 16th annual meeting of the American Credit Union Mortgage Association to think imaginatively and creatively about how some long established legal principles can carry over into social media.
For example, Kully told the executives about a client institution which had recently wanted to use Facebook to promote a contest that in turn promoted its mortgage refinance programs.
The credit union had come to the firm for advice after one of the executives wondered if there were any regulatory problems with the effort and, in fact, there could be because of that state's anti-gambling laws that forbid games of chance.
The organization wound up changing the rules of the contest to make sure that the contest did not appear to be a game of chance with a prize.
Other precautions include limiting the number of employees who use social media in the name of the firm and making sure that if an employee writes in favor of the firm's products and services even on his or her personal Facebook page or Twitter account that they disclose they are an employee of the organization, Kully said.
