Banking on Social Media

A Plumbing Project, Home Depot, and Banking

2012-02-01T12:40:00.004-05:00

I spent this past Sunday working on a typical plumbing project; lots of self-inflicted issues (like cutting a pipe that I shouldn't have) resulting in multiple trips to Home Depot, and lots of purchases and returns.

It was on my third trip to Home Depot (and to be honest, I went to a different one then my first two visits to avoid additional embarrassment) that I talked to Frank, the plumbing guy who finally helped me to get to a solution and end the madness. So what does this have to do with banking?

As I discussed in my previous post, community banks struggle with the balance of technology and people. Home Depot, like many other retailers, seems to understand the balance. I used the self service checkout to make my purchases each time. But when I had a question or, by the end, a major problem, it was Frank's help that added value in the interaction.

To me, that highlights the inherent synergy between self and full service. In addition to Home Depot, I've gotten used to pumping my own gas, purchasing items at Ikea, or making purchases online. However, when I have a problem or a more complex transaction, I want to work with a person. either by phone or in person.

Banking is really no different. With all the self service tools available, many customers never have to deal directly with a bank employee. How can bank employees add value in this era of self service? What about helping out the consumers who are struggling to get out of debt or recover from financial issues by partnering with a credit counseling service? Being problem solvers will add value and create some loyalty from your customers. This should, in turn, provide the opportunity to offer more products and services.

Banking has become an industry of scale, much like the "big box" retailers. For community banks to survive and thrive, they truly need to re-invent themselves. Sticking with the status quo by competing with the big banks just won't cut it.

Some observations as I leave community banking

2011-12-27T16:02:00.006-05:00

It's been almost two months since I last posted anything. Since then, I've left my previous employer and joined a financial services consulting firm and have just completed my first month. I'm going to focus this post on some final thoughts as I leave the community banking space. So here goes:

- The regulatory environment is making it almost impossible for community banks to survive. In a recent article in The Baltimore Sun, Anita Newcomb, a noted community bank consultant, notes that regulatory changes may make it impossible for banks of less than $500 million in assets to survive. In my opinion, this is too low. I think banks need to be of a sufficient size, at least $1 billion in assets, to have the scale to compete and comply with the requirements.
- The primary competitors for many community banks, credit unions, have an unfair advantage. It used to be that credit unions served very specific groups of constituents, like a single employer for example, providing savings and loan products exclusively to them and enjoying the status of non-profits. Now, many CU's have no such restrictions and yet continue to pay no taxes and a much less stringent regulatory environment.
- I believe one of the biggest challenges they face is one of identity. What does a community bank mean, anyway? For customers, their local branch is their community bank. Just like the local Home Depot. Sure, the name over the door has changed a number of times, but many of the people who've waited on you are still there. And now, with all the electronic delivery options, how many people really need a local branch at all? Open your account, get your direct deposit set up and you are good to go.

With all that said, I do think there is a need for community banks. They need to focus on the value they bring to the community. During the recent financial crisis, many small businesses found themselves scrambling for financing when the large banks abruptly pulled their credit lines. A local banker, with roots in the community, is more inclined to work with these customers because they understand the market and know their customer. It's where having local decision makers can really make a big difference. So let's not write the obituary for the community bank just yet.

Debit Card Fees and the Social Media Backlash

2011-11-01T11:38:00.002-04:00

As I discussed in my last post, debit card fees have been a hot topic the last 60 days especially for the big banks. Now we see many of these same banks, including SunTrust and Regions Bank, discontinuing their monthly fees and refunding those customers who had paid in previous months. Today, Bank of America finally conceded and are cancelling their plan for the $5 fee scheduled to start in 2012.

What is so fascinating is how much of an impact social media had on these decisions. For example, there was a young woman in D.C. who started a petition on a website, change.org, to "Tell Bank of America: No $5 Debit Card Fees." She's gathered over 300,000 signatures supporting her cause.

There have been thousands of Twitter comments and blog posts expressing outrage over the proposed fee from BOA. One recent post is a pretty good example (with a Halloween theme): ShooterOneSix "What's difference between a vampire & Bank of America? The vampire is only after your blood while BoA wants to suck your CASH too!#ows #p2." It has even spawned a Bank Transfer Day on November 5th when big bank customers are encouraged to move their accounts to a local credit union. Again, this has been spread through social media channels with incredible velocity.

So what's the lesson here? There are many, of course. One that immediately comes to mind is think before you act. While it may sound good sitting around a boardroom and crunching the numbers, this plan should never had made the light of day. If these banks had engaged their customers in a dialogue beforehand, I'm quite sure they would have seen the negative impact immediately. Remember, social media is a two way street. Now they have yet another publicity nightmare to clean up.

Durbin's (over)reaction to the Bank of America Debit Card fee

2011-10-05T13:17:00.004-04:00

So Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is back at it again. As if he hasn't wreaked enough havoc on the banking industry, he's now telling customers to "vote with your feet. Get yourself out of that bank". He is, of course, talking about Bank of America (BOA) and their recent decision to begin charging $5 per month when a customer uses their debit card. The fee goes into effect in 2012.

It was his legislation (the Durbin Amendment) capping the interchange fees on these transactions that started this whole mess in the first place. The legislation was, ostensibly, aimed at helping the consumer. Not quite. What it has done is lowerer what the retailers are paying and reduced the interchange income to the banks. I think it is safe to say that retailers are not going to pass on these savings to consumers. So, do you see any benefit to the consumer? I don't.

Now, according to Durbin, Bank of America is going to "push people away from debit cards into credit cards, which are not regulated..." to increase their interchange rate. What Durbin seems to dismiss is an alternative: using cash for their retail purchases. You see, if you are a BOA debit card holder, there is no monthly charge for using a BOA ATM machine. But that doesn't get mentioned in his grandstanding on the Senate floor.

So here's my personal message to Sen. Durbin. Consumers will make their own decisions about how to deal with this. Believe me, BOA is taking plenty of heat for this from their customers. Maybe, instead of the government getting more involved in everyday banking, they should focus on governing. Seems to be a pretty strong need for that these days.

Randi Zuckerberg interviewed about Social Media and Banking

2011-09-19T12:39:00.005-04:00

Randi Zuckerberg, the former marketing exec at FaceBook (and still the sister of Mark), will be one of the keynote speakers at BAI's Retail Delivery Conference in Chicago. She recently sat down with Kenneth Cline, the managing editor of BAI Banking Strategies, and provided a few key takeaways for banks using social media.

Be creative. Banking isn't the most engaging subject so look to reward customers for their engagement.

Be willing to let go of some control. Your ability, as an organization, to control the message is limited. Be prepared to respond to both the good and the bad.

To read the complete interview, you can find it at BAI Banking Strategies. More information on the event can be found on the BAI Retail Delivery Conference website.

Getting Started on Twitter

2011-08-23T11:03:00.008-04:00

I've had the opportunity to speak at numerous banking conferences on the topic of social media. In fact, I'll be attending the upcoming BAI Retail Delivery Conference in October. I am part of a panel discussion on "How Banks Are Using Social Media Analytics to Drive Produ ct Developmen t & Marketing" along with Aaron Chestnut from First Tennessee and Penny Crossman, Editor in Chief of Bank Technology News. If you happen to attend this event, please stop by and introduce yourself.

Anyway, on of the most common questions (usually after "How did you ever get Legal and Compliance to agree to this?") is how to get started, especially on Twitter. My usual response is that the person try it out individually first, then determine if it made sense for the organization. Unfortunately, that was about as far as my advice went, until now. I recently came across a site, twiends, that provides a an easy to follow process to get started on Twitter. If you are looking to take that first step, check it out. Good luck and feel free to follow me on Twitter: @kplynch.

Borders Closing and Banking: What's the connection?

2011-07-19T09:51:00.005-04:00

As many people have heard by now, Borders, a 40 year old retailer of books and music, is closing it's remaining 399 after a last minute attempt to sell itself. It's demise is blamed, in part, on management's strategy to continue building Superstores as people started shopping for books and music online.

So what's this have to do with banking? Borders made the fatal mistake of sticking with it's strategy to expand through physical locations while ignoring the behavior of it's current (and future) customers. They ended up too late to the marketplace and were saddled with large retail locations and no customers.

Over the last couple of years, I've participated in a number of industry events, as either a speaker or panelist, on numerous topics including social media and mobile banking. I find it increasingly apparent that many of the community bankers I talk to are still in the "Borders" mode. While they see traffic declining at the branches, they are unsure if they should get involved in social media or provide a mobile banking solution. They are ignoring the societal trends and taking a "wait and see" attitude. Given the speed at which consumers adopt new technology (how many people even heard of Twitter in 2009?), bankers today won't survive with that attitude.

So here's a message to all my fellow community bankers: I encourage you to take some risks, try new things and stay relevant so you don't become the "Borders" of the banking industry. Your community and, most importantly, your customers, need you.

What happens to Social Media sites when you're no longer around

2011-06-20T16:04:00.005-04:00

A friend of mine recently died after a long, close to three year struggle with Ewing's Sarcoma. She was a very brave and inspirational woman and will be missed by many close friends and family.

In addition to knowing her personally, I was friends with her on FaceBook. Which brings me to the title of this post. We continue to be "friends" on FaceBook even though she is no longer here. People continue to post remembrance's on her passing and tag her in pictures. In other instances, I've heard about people who go back to their friends page on the anniversary of their passing. It's a very interesting phenomena. It's almost a living memorial.

Suppose, however, you didn't want to live on forever on FaceBook or LinkedIn. As I think about this, I'm not sure I know what I'd want to do when I'm gone. Is it better, for those around you, to have a place that keeps your memory alive for them? Would you prefer to have it all wiped clean and let the memories fade away? Just another unintended consequence of this thing we call Social Media. Frankly, it makes my head hurt thinking about it.

Mobile Channel Focus Day at Net.Finance Conference

2011-06-07T13:04:00.010-04:00

As I'm watching the tweets from the Mobile Banking and Emerging Applications Summit in New Orleans this week, it prompted me to highlight some of my impressions from the Mobile Channel Focus Day at Net.Finance back in May. Here are a few of the highlights:

Jeff Dennes, SVP Chief Digital Officer of Huntington National Bank (and formerly with USAA), gave the Keynote address. His presentation was full of interesting observations including:

The economics of Mobile are compelling. Mobile transactions cost $.08 per transaction versus a branch cost of $4.00 per transaction.

The expansion of the 4G network over the next 2 years will increase bandwidth equal to a cable modem at home.

Mobility is driving convergence. The gap between the traditional web and related services is closing, with the increase in smart phones and the movement of the Gen Y's into the workforce.

Secil Tabli Watson, SVP of Internet and Mobile Banking from Wells Fargo discussed using ethnographic data to determine how and when customers are using their mobile services.The results will identified "convenience" as the driver of adoption and use. This will ultimately help them focus future enhancements around this approach.

Jennifer Wilson, SVP Internet Channel Director, BBVA Compass shared her experience with the introduction of ZashPay, a Person to Person payments service from Fiserv. From an adoption perspective, they found that building a web page with a simple enrollment process was key. When they looked at the user base, they found a surprising number of small business customers who were using as an alternative to more expensive ACH services. Given these pilot results, they may develop a mobile invoicing service for their business customers.

Mobile continues to be a hot topic among financial services providers and may prove to be the most signficant game changer in the next couple of years.

Notes from Net.Finance- Personal Financial Management (PFM)

2011-05-25T10:20:00.005-04:00

I recently had the opportunity to attend the Net.Finance Conference in Chicago. It is, by far, one of the best conferences for those of us focused on the digital channels of financial services. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be writing about some of the main themes from the conference.
When I was there, I was fortunate enough to be part of a panel discussion on Personal Financial Management (PFM) along with Patrick Smith of Wells Fargo, Eric Connors of Yodlee, and Edward Chang of Strands.
We had a lively discussion about the benefits of PFM for our customers, the challenges of getting people to use it, and the pros and con's of aggregation services. While the benefits are pretty clear (better financial management) the biggest challenge, as noted by Patrick, is inertia. Managing your finances is certainly important, but not critical. Setting up goals and budgets falls somewhere around cleaning out the gutters on the "to do" list. The key, perhaps, is to help educate the consumers about the benefits to make it move up that list.
One of the classic differences between my organization, a smaller community bank, and Wells is the approach to aggregation. Wells provides tools that help manage those accounts that are with Wells while we offer a service to add all your accounts, even from other institutions. Perhaps this highlights the major difference between big and small banks. We see this as a service that is the right thing for the customer, while they look at it from an internal perspective of what is right for the organization. We (of course) think ours is the better approach.

Mobile Banking and Customer Behavior

2011-05-13T14:48:00.004-04:00

There have been a number of recent articles and studies focusing on customer behavior and mobile banking. The most recent was in the American Banker entitled"Tech-Savvy Crowd Demands More Personal Service from Banks, Not Less". (By the way, you've gotta love any article that uses the term Luddite)It suggests that increased mobile use by customers may not translate into decreased branch traffic and less phone calls. My question is: Who said it would?

As my friend Ron Shevlin noted on his blog, Marketing Tea Party, the mobile channel is so new, "it doesn't exist for the vast majority of customers." Given the limited adoption (much less banks offering the service), how can anyone make any inferences about how it will impact FI's and their customers?

Our organization rolled out a mobile about eight months ago. It wasn't in the hope that it would offset any costs by reducing interactions in other channels. It's about customer convenience and acknowledging the ubiquitous nature of mobile devices across all generations. Perhaps some services will, in fact, reduce bank visits. The depositing of checks through your mobile device would certainly qualify as one example. Until there is mass adoption of the technology, mobile is just another channel for our customers to use. No more, no less.

Eight Tracks, The Dead, Banking, and Technology

2011-04-22T10:35:00.008-04:00

As I sit here listening to a streaming audio of the soundboard recording of a Grateful Dead concert I attended in high school, it reminds me of how much technology has changed since then. I first heard the song "Mexicali Blues" on my Eight Track Player in my room. Remember those things? Eventually, if you played the tape enough (which I usually did), you'd start hearing other tracks bleeding into the song you were listening to. Pretty lousy technology, in retrospect.

Okay, so what does that have in common with banking? I've just spent twelve days over the last four weeks with a team of folks looking at bank technology vendors. So technology and the progress we've made as an industry is front and center. While we've made tremendous strides since our bank last looked at a new core provider over 11 years ago, we are still living with many systems that were built during the height of the Eight Track era. Now it isn't only the core data that's critical (just like the music), it's how it is delivered to the end customer (streaming on demand versus an Eight Track Cassette).

I think I like the current "on demand" era better, but it sure does make it a more difficult decision. Frankly, we have to evaluate our partners even more closely to see if they are thinking about the next, new thing that will replace the current channels. Because the technology today, like the Eight Track Cassette, may not be the long term solution tomorrow.

Customers demand more real time banking, Banks face more risks

2011-04-15T12:51:00.009-04:00

As our organization looks at a new core banking solution, it's more and more apparent that the days of stand alone solutions are over. From the beginning, when we started with self service channels like ATM's and Telephone Banking, to the current mobile banking offerings, the landscape has changed forever. We've gone from providing customers with monthly data (paper statements), to day old information (online banking) to instantaneous capture of a debit transaction so it's available through any channel, including mobile. We can even proactively alert you when something happens on your account.

The difficulty this presents, as any bank technology guy will tell you, is that we are living in a real time world when our core systems are still built for a one time, batch processing environment. Customers, for example, no longer accept that deposits can only be credited to their account before two every afternoon. So the systems that support the banks, whether in-house or outsourced, have to adapt to this new paradigm. It's one of the reasons we are looking at other solutions (besides the fact that our current provider is sunsetting our core).

As we move to a more real time environment, we also open ourselves up to more transactional risk and fraud. Evaluating these risks in real time will be challenging and lead to even more automated systems to identify these individual items. It will prove to be a major challenge for banks over the next few years.

My, How Times have Changed

2011-03-25T13:09:00.005-04:00

This has been one long, but very good, week. We just finished the first of four, two- day demonstrations from Core Banking systems vendors. As an organization, we last went through this process in 2000. What's interesting is the types of things we are looking for from a vendor today compared to then. Here's a highlight of just a few:

Online Banking and Bill Pay- This customer facing service was still in it's infancy in 2000 while limited bill pay services were only offered through the largest financial institutions. Today, that is a standard requirement for any bank, large or small.
Online Account Opening- All deposit or loan accounts were opened through a traditional channel, a branch or perhaps a call center. Now, in addition to supporting these channels, an online application is required and, oh yeah, you better support it with a online chat feature so they can chat with you from your website.
Mobile Banking- The most recent entry to the self service channel is now a requirement as well. With the proliferation of smart phones and other devices, customers expect to have access to their banking services anytime and anywhere.

As we meet with these vendors, it is no longer acceptable to provide functional systems. We are looking for partners who are following trends in the industry and spending money on new technologies, anticipating the next customer need. With the speed of change, we can't go it alone.

Some Random Social Media items

2011-03-10T13:30:00.004-05:00

Here are a few random items that I came across over the last week. Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone!

From The Financial Brand, an article outlining the results of a the Edelman survey on Trust in US Financial Services. Not surprisingly, consumers still showed little faith in their financial institutions. For those of you in social media, the good news is that consumers value "honest communication" and "open and transparent" as the most important factors affecting reputation. Isn't that what social media is really all about?

On a related note, one of my co-workers shared an article on Financial Planning.com about the limited adoption of social media in financial services. There is one particular quote that was spot on, "The downside for many is compliance. 'It takes five minutes to sign up for Facebook, but three to four months to make a social media plan that makes your legal and compliance departments satisfied,' said Hadley Stern of Fidelity Investments." Sound all too familiar? I think this is one of the biggest hurdles many organizations face as they consider engaging in these channels.

From the "How not to use Social Media in B2B Sales", I recently received a tweet from some random guy asking me if I wanted to see a demo of his company's "Actionable Alert" product. I had no idea who he is, where he's from, or even how he found me. This kind of approach is like asking a girl out on a first date when you haven't even been introduced. The least he could have done was provide some context for why I would even be interested. Not cool. He should talk to @Clagett from Geezeo about how to use social media to engage prospects.

The real story behind the Merrill Lynch,Bank of America merger

2011-03-02T11:34:00.007-05:00

On a rather long, often delayed trip to the West Coast, I had the opportunity to read Crash of the Titans: Greed, Hubris, the Fall of Merrill Lynch, and the Near-Collapse of Bank of America by Greg Farrell. While it is a fascinating tale of the clash of two very different organizations, one about to fail and another on life support, it was of particular interest to me as a former BofA employee. The descriptions of the culture of the bank and in Charlotte was spot on.

I became an employee through the merger of a bank in Baltimore to NationsBank in 1993 , the predecessor of BofA. I remember the teams pouring in from Charlotte to help us "learn" the bank's way of doing things. Even then, it was clear that we were the acquired and they were in charge. It was described as a meritocracy and it was; if you hailed from Charlotte. Based on this story, that appears to still be the case today.

With even a slight understanding of the history of Merrill Lynch, you can only imagine the conflict. This is a great read and gives a good behind the scenes look at the near collapse of the financial system.

Commonwealth Bank and the social media policy debacle

2011-02-08T14:50:00.003-05:00

If you are involved in social media, you've probably heard about the recent blow up on Commonwealth Bank of Australia's social media policy. A copy was obtained by a news organization and published last week.

As noted in the article, most of the policy is pretty benign. Where they got in hot water was the reference to "Inappropriate or disparaging content and information stored or posted by others..." and then specifically gave the example of a friend posting an inappropriate comment about the bank on a FaceBook page. In that event, it is incumbent on the employee to notify others in the bank or face the possibility of disciplinary action.

Our organization has a social media policy. Every organization should have one. However, it is a huge leap from managing employees and their social media presence to the actions of their "friends". I use the quotes intentionally because many "friends" in social media would not be considered friends in the true sense of the word. In this case, the organization has set unrealistic expectations and, quite frankly, an extremely difficult policy to monitor.

Doonesbury, Gen Y'ers and Banking

2011-02-02T14:43:00.012-05:00

I've really been enjoying the recent Doonesbury comic strip this week. For those of you who don't follow it, here's the one for today.

The basic premise is two twenty-somethings meet for lunch and spend the entire time on their mobile devices. Anyone who has kids or young adults knows that this isn't that far fetched.

So what does that have to do with banking? These are the current/future banking customer's of today. How can you hope to engage them in something as mundane as banking if you aren't meeting them in the social media space? Let's face it: if they aren't talking to each other face to face, how will you ever get them to talk to you?

Ravens Football and Social Media

2011-01-19T14:21:00.012-05:00

This past weekend marked the end of the 2010 football season for me. My local team, the Baltimore Ravens couldn't get past their rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers, in the 2nd round of the AFC Playoffs. I still feel an emptiness.

As I reflected on the season, I realized how much social media played into it. In addition to generating my own tweets from our tailgate or during the game, I had just as much fun following other Twitter users. Whether it was other local fans, local sports writers like @mattvensel, @jamisonhensley, or @wbalpete, or even Ravens players like @rayrice27 and @WillisMcGahee. I even had the chance to interact with out of state friends as our teams clashed on the gridiron. It truly made it a more rich and enjoyable experience. Now if we had only beaten the damn Steelers......

Banning Social Media in the Workplace

2010-12-08T16:10:00.006-05:00

I recently came across an interesting and disturbing statistic the other day. According to a Robert Half Technology CIO survey released earlier this year, over 55% of the 1,400 CIO's surveyed ban the use of social networking sites in the workplace. I really found that quite disturbing.

If the concern is productivity, individual employees in their 20's are as likely to be engaged via their smart phone as they are through their work pc. So they will find a way to engage their friends through these social outlets even when they are banned. It seems a strong stance to take in this day and age.

For corporate marketing, this may be the biggest constraint that individual marketers will face in using these tools. How can you build any type of meaningful social media engagement if your company bans it in the workplace? The better answer, in my opinion, is to build a social media policy that addresses these issues and draws the line between personal and corporate involvement. I addressed this in an earlier post this year. There is also an online database of other social media policies you may want to explore as well.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Social Media- Part 2

2010-11-16T12:46:00.005-05:00

And the fun continues. It's been over a month since we experienced the influx of online account applications and we are still reeling from the effects. With all the attention we received from these rather angry individuals (think Tea Party angry), we've had to respond to numerous formal complaints. As with any event where other agencies are involved, it takes as much time and energy to respond as it did to create the issue. And there is always more information needed, no matter how trivial and difficult. I can't wait for this to end so we can start focusing on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2011. (insert sarcastic comment here!)

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Social Media

2010-10-27T16:33:00.005-04:00

With apologies to Clint Eastwood, I recently experienced all three. Actually, it began the same day I posted my last blog entry. Our bank had an offer that provided a bonus if you opened a checking account and met certain criteria. The promotion began in July and most of the accounts were opened locally, through our branch system. Everything changed when, on October 7th, a blogger on the site DepositAccounts.com found the offer and posted on his site. Within minutes, we began receiving phone calls, online chats, and applications from all over the country asking about the offer. In a little over two weeks, we processed as many applications as we had for the first six months of the year. It was insane.

The Ugly- As Murphy's Law states, anything that could go wrong, did. We declined many of these accounts because they didn't meet our approval criteria. Unfortunately, we had issues refunding their money in a timely way. We received some pretty nasty feedback from these folks.

The Bad- Our intent was never to run this as a nationwide campaign. It was designed to help us grow our local customer base and build relationships. It is unlikely that many of the accounts we opened from outside our footprint are going to be long term customers.

The Good- As these prospects visited our site, they found our promotional CD offering a very competitive rate. We generated a good number of these accounts that will help our core deposit base. Let's face it, CD's are far less risky than a checking account.

We learned a very powerful (and sometimes painful) lesson about the impact of these social media groups. This will certainly change the way we position our promotions on the web. Hopefully,we can figure out how to more effectively manage these groups in the future.

Bank's among Top 3 of Most Social Industries

2010-10-07T12:26:00.003-04:00

NetProspex, a sales and marketing leads generation company, recently released their Fall, 2010 Social Business Report. It uses the NetProspex Social Index (NPSI) to score and rank social networking activity by mining their large database of contacts. It's a fascinating report.
In the report, they rank the top 50 most social industries and, to my surprise, Banking ranked 3rd, behind Search Engines-Portals and Advertising & Marketing. Why was I surprised? Because, in the numerous banking conferences I attend, there seems to be few of them who are actively using social media, either personally or as a company. Recently, for example, I was a presenter at the Fiserv PIP Conference on Social Media in Banking. This was a followup to the morning session when Fiserv CMO Don MacDonald spent an hour talking about this very subject. When I asked how many of the 30 or so people who attended my session used Twitter, for example, only 2 attendees raised their hand. And yet, according to this report, Banking also ranks number 3 in the use of Twitter.
So why the disconnect? Perhaps it's because the people who attend these sessions at conferences are looking for help and the active users are back at the office, tweeting away like madmen. Anyone else have a theory on this? I'd love to hear from you.

Boomers and Engagement Banking- two trends converging?

2010-09-13T15:00:00.006-04:00

A couple of recent posts last week caught my attention.
The first was a MarketingProfs post. They, along with many others social media sites, highlighted a Pew Research study that found the fastest growing demographics among social media users is adults age 50+. In one year, use of social media by these online users doubled to 46%.
The second was the launch of a new site called Banking on the Future jointly by Sapient Nitro, Geezeo, and Brett King. The premise is that we (bankers) are entering a new era they call Engagement Banking. This will go well beyond the traditional branch relationships by using Technology to engage customers in many different ways.
While separate items, they appear to be the converging of two very similar trends. Boomers are moving to the social media space in droves, embracing this "new" way to engage their friends, family, and merchants. Bankers, or at least the one's looking to engage their customers, are adding services like Personal Financial Management tools and mobile banking. Interestingly, the focus for engaging customers, whether through social media or new financial management tools, has traditionally been aimed at the younger generation. Given the recent trends, that may not be true for long.

Cogster helping local businesses

2010-08-20T10:59:00.006-04:00

I'm definitely a "locals" kind of guy. I live in the city and love to support local businesses, whether it's a restaurant, a hardware store or car repair shop. That's why the whole concept behind Cogster really caught my attention. They were recently highlighted in the American Banker. Basically, they are a combination micro-lender and promoter of local businesses.

Local companies identify financial goals they want to achieve, say raising $10,000, and consumers "lend" them the money in return for gift certificates or discounts equal to the amount they contribute. People can donate as little as $10. What I like about this is the promotional aspect of it. Consumers have a real stake in seeing local businesses thrive and there's the social effect as well. If your neighbor is supporting the local merchant, shouldn't you think about it too? The service is currently available in several towns in and around the State College, PA area.

Walking the Walk

2010-08-06T13:35:00.004-04:00

Thanks to Jacob Jegher, a Senior Analyst at Celent, I was turned on to the blog, eat sleep social. It's a pretty well written with some good, insight into social media. His latest post, "If you work in social media you need to be active in social media" really resonated with me.
There are too many, well documented stories about social media "experts" or "consultants" who rarely participate in the space. As noted in the post, if you are going to advise people to blog as a business strategy, then you better be blogging about it. A good example are Mike Sweeney and Will Davis of a local marketing firm here in Baltimore, Right Source Marketing. They recommend blogging as a key component of content marketing for their business clients. As marketers themselves, they are "walking the walk" by blogging about their own experiences in their Marketing Trenches blog. It's refreshing to see consistency between the message and the messenger.

It isn't Rocket Science

2010-08-05T14:43:00.005-04:00

A tweet came across yesterday from @r2integrated, a digital marketing firm we've worked with for years. The post, entitled "Social Media is Measured by the Sum of its Parts" was from @briansolis, a "prominent thought leader in new media". OK, got it.

He was writing about a recent study by Digital Brand Expressions that found that "52% of social marketers are running social media programs without a defined "game plan". Not surprising, given that many people are trying to figure out if there is any value to it for their organization. Kind of a "try it before you buy it" approach. That's pretty much how we got into it.

He goes on to say, in the next paragraph, to say that "The study found that logistics contributed to visibility, but insight was absent from investing in presence." Huh? I have to admit, I don't have a clue what that means. The rest of the post supports (?) this premise.

This post was re-tweeted 568 times (and counting) since it was published last week. I wonder how many of those people actually read it. If they did, and they see this post, perhaps they can explain it to me. Because all I see is someone making social media seem way more complex that it really is. I mean, c'mon, it isn't rocket science!

Regulators Gone Wild!

2010-07-30T10:49:00.004-04:00

Maybe it's because it's Friday, but I had to post a comment on a recent memo I received. It really hit home just how out of touch with reality the current banking regulatory environment has become. As a result of a recent Compliance exam finding, we just issued a Corporate-wide Policy on.......drum roll please...... Policies and Procedures. So what's next? A Policy on the Policy about Policies and Procedures? Will the madness never end?

Banking Executives- listen up

2010-07-22T10:23:00.004-04:00

I recently came across an article on the Huffington Post by Brett King, consultant and author of the book, Bank 2.0: How Customer Behavior and Technology Will Change the Future of Financial Services. Entitled "The 5 stages of social media grief", he describes the process that many executives go through as they deal (or don't, in many cases) with social media in financial services. I recommend you read it, whether you see the value in social media or not. It's as much about dealing with innovation as it is about social media.

Social media, and the impact on relationships with your customers, is not a fad. It is (as I've said before) just another extension of the Internet channel. As he concludes, start with the customer in mind and the rest will fall into place. It's pretty sound advice.

Some random thoughts and comments

2010-07-16T12:15:00.006-04:00

Some random thoughts and comments on a hot and muggy day in Baltimore.............

Recently had a conversation with an industry analyst about social media. She commented that many banks have avoided social media activity until they have an exit strategy. Huh? Did you have an exit strategy when you started your corporate website or built online banking? Social media is an extension of, not separate from, your activities through the web. No more, no less.

I've been really impressed with the way Jesse Torres, CEO of Pan American Bank uses social media. Their Facebook page provides lots of information about their activities in and around their community. He isn't afraid of getting involved in controversy either, as you can see from this post on the blog LA Eastside.

I came across a blog post focusing on a Twitter marketing strategy to bankers. I've found Twitter to be a great way to connect with others in the industry, stay up to date on trends, and generally stay informed. The people/brands I follow offer relevant information from both themselves and others. If all I see is a constant stream of self serving tweets, I' m not following you.

Speaking of people in the industry, Ron Shevlin of the Aite Group is one worth following. He has some terrific insights and perspectives (and the occasional rant) on his blog Marketing Tea Party. Plus, he's attended over 75 Dead concerts over the years, which makes him a rock star in my book.

Bridging the Generation Gap (one message at a time)

2010-06-25T14:31:00.004-04:00

So my daughter and son just celebrated their 27th and 24th birthdays this past week. (full disclosure: I was 12 when she was born. okay, okay not really.) Normally, I'd give them a call (on their mobile phone, of course) and wish them a happy birthday. Not this year.

This year, I left my son a birthday greeting on his Facebook page since he's at home (temporarily). For my daughter, who is out on her own (thank goodness) and has a steady job, I sent a text message since she communicates most regularly with her friends that way. The funny thing is, she thought it was kind of cute that her Dad was communicating that way and she actually called me to tell me. My son, of course, said nothing about it. But hey, that's just the way boys are so I'd expect nothing less.

Getting ready for e-Finance next week

2010-06-18T12:07:00.005-04:00

I'll be co-presenting at the e-Finance Marketing & Innovation Conference in New York next week. Our session is entitled Social Media in Action: Turning Customers into Lifers. We are focusing on some very specific examples of our social media interactions and avoiding the theoretical discussions that seem to dominate so many of these events. If you are attending, please say hello. I'd love to meet some of my "virtual" readers in person.

As we were prepping for the event, it gave me a chance to reflect on the growth of my own engagement with others through the social media outlets. From my first tweet in October, 2008 to today, when I'm checking in via FourSquare, writing both a personal and company blog, on Facebook, and, of course, tweeting on a regular basis. It's been an interesting journey that doesn't look to end soon. Wonder what's next......

FI's and Personal Financial Management

2010-06-02T17:09:00.004-04:00

After a very enjoyable Memorial Day weekend, I wanted to complete my post about the Panel discussion at Net.Finance. After our social media discussion, the second topic we covered was around Personal Financial Management (PFM) tools. Mark Schwanhausser of Javelin Strategy has been a huge proponent of PFM's. In fact, Javelin research has found that of consumers who are looking for money management help, 63% want to see all their accounts and transactions in one place.

Both Stu Fisher and I are introducing PFM solutions at our organizations later this year. Addison Avenue is working with Jwaala while we are working with Geezeo. Our solution, called Mariner360, is going through Beta testing right now. Unlike Addison Avenue, our solution will not be integrated into our Online Banking platform. This is for two reasons. One, the time frame to integrate the two platforms would have been prohibitive. Two, we actually think each solution addresses different and distinct needs. Online Banking is a tool for performing tasks, like checking a balance, transferring funds, or paying a bill. Mariner360 will provide our customers a more holistic view of their assets and liabilities to manage their whole financial life. Providing a place to set budgets, goals, and manage their financial life is what we should be doing for our customers. Our Mariner360 platform will help us meet that role.

A Social Media discussion from Net.Finance

2010-05-20T08:55:00.007-04:00

As mentioned in a previous post, I attended the Net.Finance Conference in Chicago last week. It was a very nice turnout of financial institutions, investment firms, insurance companies, and vendors. One of the personal highlights was watching a Cubs game from the Wrigley Field Rooftop Club as a guest of Rosetta, one of the long time sponsors of the event. I had the pleasure of being part of a panel discussion called Prioritizing Technology Initiatives to Gain Competitive Advantage along with Stu Fisher, SVP of Addison Avenue FCU and Mark Schwanhausser, a Research Analyst with Javelin. Social Media and Personal Financial Manager (PFM) solutions were the two primary topics. Today's post will focus on social media.

Both of our companies have been early adopters of social media including Twitter, FaceBook, and Blogs. Addison Avenue recently added some community groups and hired a social media manager to add focus to their efforts. We will be adding a Community component to our site in June. There are some compelling reasons for participating in social media. Javelin's research indicates that over 52% of all consumers are active in social networking, with the 35-44 year-old's the fastest growing segment.

While our organizations are very different, we did agree on one key point. Social media should be an extension of, and not separate from, your overall web strategy. Let's face it, bank web sites can be somewhat boring with product descriptions and (lots) of regulatory disclosures. Our goal has been to connect with customers and prospects, build the brand, and have some fun in a less formal environment. How you use it, or whether you even participate or not, depends on your overall strategy.

Next post will be on the Personal Financial Management discussion from Net. Finance.

Follow Up on the Social Media Policy

2010-05-07T12:42:00.005-04:00

I had an opportunity to reach out to a number of local Technology people about their social media policies, including Steve Kozak of the Greater Baltimore Technology Council and Larry Fiorino, the CEO of G.1440. Here's what I've found:

A few companies have one. There is even a site that publishes corporate policies if you want to see some samples. http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php
Other companies simply block access to the sites for all employees with no exceptions.
Most other companies simply don't have a policy and don't seem concerned about it.

We finalized ours this week and it is a pretty good combination of suggested behaviors (Netiguette) while addressing the compliance and legal concerns. We'll be sharing this with our employees shortly and making it part of our Employee Handbook as well. In a highly regulated industry, we think it is important.

Developing a Social Media Policy

2010-04-30T12:07:00.006-04:00

We've been grappling with a social media policy for the last couple of months. It's been an interesting process. Much of the content has been gleaned from other larger corporations who publish their policies. Our goal is to provide guidance to "official" bank social media participants as well as other employees as they engage in their social networks. Very challenging.

Let's face it. The line between business and personal is so blurred when you add in the social media component. Some of the questions we are dealing with are, for example, do you prohibit or simply discourage the use of social media sites during the work day? If so, how do you monitor this and what are the consequences if you are caught? These are just two examples of the challenges facing us in this highly regulated environment. I'd love to hear from others on how they are addressing these issues.

Upcoming Social Media Conferences

2010-04-21T15:46:00.016-04:00

I'll be participating in two conferences in the next couple of months that I thought I'd mention to the readers of my blog.

One that I'm attending for the third year is the Net.Finance 2010- Marketing for Banks "Improving Your Online And Mobile Channel Performance To Deliver A Differentiated Customer Experience", May-11-12th in Chicago. I'll be part of a panel discussion "Prioritizing Technology Investments to Gain Competitive Advantage". Also on the panel will be Mark Schwanhausser of Javelin Strategy & Research and Stu Fisher of Addison Avenue Federal Credit Union. This is always an excellent conference with great networking opportunities.

The other one is a new event from the World Research Group called "The e-Finance Marketing & Innovation Conference", June 22-23rd in New York City. I'll be joined by my colleague, Steve Kruskamp, and our topic will be "Social Media in Action: Turning Customers into Lifers". We'll have some real world examples from our experiences in the social media trenches. It looks to be a pretty good lineup of speakers including William Azaroff from Vancity Credit Union and Shari Storm of Verity Credit Union.

If you are looking for opportunities to connect with others in the financial services ecommerce area, these look to be two pretty good events to consider. Hope to see you there.

Is it time for Mobile Banking?

2010-04-16T16:11:00.005-04:00

Mobile Banking seems ready to explode. Javelin Strategy & Research forecasts that over 191 million U.S. Consumers will have cell phones by 2012. According to the Online Banking Report, mobile banking has "reached the point where online banking was a decade ago". And, as Net Banker reported this week, Bank of America is rolling out their Text Banking service after supporting mobile (WAP and downloadable apps) for over three years.
One of the key questions is how will this new service mesh with the current online offerings. Many are suggesting that this will appeal to a different market than the current online banking customers. The Gen Y's, for example, have grown up tethered to their cell phones. Then there are the Underbanked who use mobile devices. They have found other ways to manage their personal finances without using the typical services of banks but might be open to a mobile option.
We will be introducing a mobile solution later this year. We are pretty excited about the offering and think it will help us attract and retain the younger consumers. If you are an FI with mobile banking, I'd love to hear what your experience has been.

Ally Bank Redux

2010-04-09T09:51:00.006-04:00

Back in February, during the worst winter storms we've seen in decades, I went on a bit of a "rant" abut the Ally Bank commercials. Basically, the message seemed somewhat hypocritical from a bank run by former "Big Bank" executives and supported by the U.S. Government (read: taxpayers).

So it is with a sense of irony that I received a solicitation in the mail from Ally Bank to open an interest checking account. No, they aren't stalking (mocking?) me. You see my mortgage is held by GMAC Mortgage and this offer came through them. The product itself is compelling: interest checking with no minimum balance, no ATM charges, and no monthly fees. Sounds like a pretty good deal just not sure how they can make any money on the account. But I guess they don't have to worry about that.....

Content + Visibilty + Promotion= Increased Readership

2010-04-01T09:39:00.007-04:00

At our financial institution, we've had a Blog for over two years. Frankly, it was buried in our About Us section with little traffic to it. Recently, however, we've seen some significant increases due to two significant events. First, we posted an article discussing the Reg E changes coming up this summer and designed a banner on the home page to promote it. In a little over two weeks, this post alone has generated 601 page views and 6 comments from customers. Second, we brought the Blog "front and center" to a more prominent spot on our Home Page. Given the traffic on our home page, we think this will dramatically increase our page views and comments. We are really excited about the initial results!
And, of course, we continue to use social media tools like Twitter and Facebook to make our extended networks aware of the new posts. Let's face it, content and visibility without promotion is like a tree falling in the forest; does anybody really hear it?

Social Media Marketing Tactics Going Mainstream?

2010-03-19T11:42:00.007-04:00

According to recent research from Unica, via the eMarketer website, social marketing has become a "must have" in organizations. That said, the integration of these sites varies significantly by tactic. Many of the tools continue to be used for discrete events not directly connected to the overall marketing campaigns.
We've seen the same challenge in our institution. How do these statistics compare to your experience with social media marketing in your organization? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Bankers Take Note: Facebook Market Share Surpasses Google

2010-03-17T08:44:00.008-04:00

As noted in a recent Socialnomics blog post, Hitwise has documented that Facebook now exceeds Google in weekly market share. Traffic increased 185% from the same time last year versus a 9% increase for Google.

So what, you ask? Well, for those bankers who have chosen to sit on the sideline and avoid the social media, the "Tipping Point"is here. While you depend on the traditional Internet marketing efforts using Google search terms and SEO strategies, your customers (and prospects) are flocking to social media sites like Facebook. It may be time to rethink your strategy. Many of your competitors already have.

Bank of America makes the first move

2010-03-11T09:43:00.007-05:00

As everyone in the financial services industry, and many consumers are now aware, Bank of America announced they are ending overdraft fees on Debit Card transactions beginning this summer. You know it's a big deal when the story makes it to the Today Show. This is their answer to the recent Regulation E changes enacted by the Federal Reserve that take place later this year.

On the surface, this appears to be a consumer friendly solution from a bank that has been battered in the public relations arena. They've taken a lot of heat (often unfairly) for the bank bailout and the mortgage crisis. They really need something to repair their image.

Our bank, on the other hand, is taking a different approach. We see this as an opportunity to both educate consumers and allow them to make the decision, not us. For more information, take a look at this post on our bank's web site. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

If Girl Scouts of America Can Do It .....

2010-03-05T11:59:00.011-05:00

As most people know, January through April are the primary selling months for Girl Scout Cookies. Girl Scouts all around the country go door to door selling their cookies, the major fundraiser for theses local groups since 1917. The selling process has remained pretty much the same since it's inception. Until now.

Last night, on the National Public Radio (NPR) program "All Things Considered", there was a story about a troop outside of San Francisco that is using online appeals through various channels, including social media outlets like Facebook. It is fantastic to see these young entrepreneurs using today's technology to market their products, in addition to the more traditional sales approach. There is a lesson to be learned for those of you who aren't sure about the value of social media. These Girl Scouts and their leadership certainly get it.

How Not to Lose a Customer

2010-02-24T15:46:00.013-05:00

Reg E changes. The term sends shivers down the backs of bankers all over the country. For those who aren't familiar with the changes, effective August 15, the Federal Reserve revised Regulation E to address checking account overdraft fees on certain consumer transactions. The final rule limits the ability of financial institutions to assess an overdraft fee unless a customer agrees, in writing, to the overdraft service. The consumer will be asked to either "opt in" or "opt out" of the service. If they don't respond by the effective date, they will automatically be opted out.

While this seems like a very consumer friendly act, it could very easily turn into a major issue for our customers. Many banks provided customers with a form of overdraft courtesy, essentially allowing customers to overdraw their account, pay the transaction, and charge a fee. While it is often abused by some, it can also prevent those occasions, like at the grocery store, where having your purchase declined would be really embarrassing. It's going to be pretty difficult to explain to a customer as they are closing their account because you "did this to them".

So it is incumbent on us to educate our customers before this goes into effect. But there's the real challenge. How do you explain the impact when they weren't even aware of this unadvertised, behind the scenes service? Bottom line is, for the sake of our customer's, we better figure it out.

Too Much Snow and TV

2010-02-18T13:20:00.010-05:00

After spending way too much time snowed in and watching a lot of television in the last couple of weeks, I felt it was time to get something off my chest. I am really put off by the Ally Bank commercials.

You know the ones, where, for example, the girl is offered a ride on a bike then told she can't ride outside of the box without a penalty. The implication being that their competitors are too restrictive. On their web site, they highlight their high deposit rates, low overhead, and their well capitalized status, exceeding the guidelines of the FDIC.

Hey, as a consumer, I'm all for competitive rates and a great customer experience. And a lot of banks, especially big ones, made some really bad decisions over the last few years. What really bothers me is this company, with this management team, is leading this charge. Here are some facts:

Ally Bank is the former GMAC Bank started in 2001 and re-branded in May, 2009. It is a unit of GMAC Financial Services, an organization that, since December of 2008, has received $16 billion in TARP Funds.

The senior management team is run by former executives of some of the largest (and most troubled) banks including Bank of America and Citigroup.

So basically, we have an organization that is run by the same people who built these "traditional banks" that they say don't meet the needs of their customers. And their capital comes from the Federal Government, which stepped in and saved the failing parent. Interesting.

For those of us out here in the "real world" of financial services, who didn't get TARP funds, don't have the luxury of a new start, and struggle with a myriad of confusing regulations, give us a break. We really are trying to do the right things for our customers.

Wow, glad I got that off my chest. Now if this damn snow would just go away......

Social Networking Systems in Japan

2010-02-09T12:12:00.007-05:00

Despite the challenging travel conditions around Baltimore yesterday, we had the pleasure of meeting with Daisuke Ishii and Yukihisa Hode, two Senior Researchers from The Center for Financial Industry Information Systems (Japan). The FISC is a Japanese nonprofit research organization founded in 1984 and supported by some 700 Japanese financial services organizations and vendors marketing to that industry. The meeting was coordinated by Michael Parentice, an independent consultant based in the United States.
FISC's current research project relates to new media and social networking in Japan's financial services industry. As input, they are seeking best practice examples from leading U.S. financial institutions that are leaders in the use of social media. Based on Mr. Prentice's research, he felt that 1st Mariner Bank was one of the organizations that they should meet. This was the first visit on their five day trip across the country that includes meetings with Bank of America, Umpqua Bank, and Wells Fargo. We are honored to be included in this short list of U.S. financial institutions.
There are over 700 banks and credit unions in Japan, ranging from four mega-banks to over 600 smaller community institutions under $2 billion. Adoption rates have lagged behind other industries, where 10.5% of all businesses are active in social networks while FI's are at 6.9%. Mixi, the largest social network in Japan, has over 17.9 million users, so there is plenty of opportunity to connect with these consumers.

As we discussed the evolution of our efforts, it became clear that there are significant challenges to their FI's involvement in social networks. Here are just a few of the points articulated by our guests:

Given the conservative nature of the banking industry in Japan, it has been very difficult to get consensus across the organization to engage their customers through the social networks.

The Japanese culture is one of collaboration. So many of the initial social media efforts have focused on internal corporate use for information sharing and communication.

Selecting and agreeing on the target markets. Again, by working through a consensus management style, it takes time to make these decisions and take action.

The challenge they face is that social media is messy, always changing, and an uncontrollable space. Sometimes you just have to have an initial plan, make the leap, and learn on the fly.

Every 9 seconds a kid drops out of school

2010-02-02T15:39:00.006-05:00

I've been a supporter and volunteer for a great organization called the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). Founded in New York in 1987, NFTE's mission is to " provide entrepreneurship education programs to young people from low-income communities." The goal is to encourage entrepreneurship, increase financial literacy, and provide participants a reason to stay in school and continue their education. The Baltimore NFTE office works with over 200 middle and high school students through teachers certified to teach the NFTE curriculum. Throughout the year, the students identify a business idea, build a business plan and, if possible, establish a business. They work with mentors from the private sector to refine their business plans and develop their businesses. To encourage these young entrepreneurs, there are numerous local and regional business plan competitions, where they compete against students from other schools for cash prizes.

For those who are good enough to win these local competitions, there is the opportunity to be nominated and compete in the national business plan competition in New York, for $10,000. Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon , from award-winning filmmaker Mary Mazzio, follows these students as they prepare for and compete in this very intense competition. As a NFTE volunteer at Patterson High School in East Baltimore, I am the mentor for two students, William Mack and Ja'Mal Wills (pictured above), who are featured in this film. Their company, J & W Sensations, produces an all natural skin lotion. As a mentor and friend of these guys, I am incredibly proud of them and all they have accomplished. The film was released nationally in November and will debut on BET this Sunday, February 7th at 12 noon. I encourage everyone to watch this powerful and moving story about these young entrepreneurs from around the country.

Big week for Social Media

2010-01-29T16:10:00.005-05:00

Well, It's been a pretty interesting week around here. This morning, an article about our use of Twitter was released in the Baltimore Business Journal. A small excerpt can be seen here. We were pretty excited to be recognized for these efforts.

Later in the afternoon, we participated in Digital Insight's 2nd Twitter Town Hall with the topic of "Financial Fitness for Financial Institutions". The discussion (which can be see at #ditownhall) focused on FI's 2010 plans to address the financial needs of the consumer. It was a very interesting dialogue with a lot of participation from individuals and institutions around the country. We really appreciated the opportunity to participate.

One interesting point. There appear to be few of our peers in the banking industry who actively participate in this channel. The Journal article specifically mentions other, local FI's who aren't even exploring social media. In the Town Hall, many of the participants were from credit unions or the credit union industry. They really get it. We were really the "token" bank involved in the discussion. Seems like many other banks are missing a huge opportunity to connect with their communities via these other channels.

Some takeaways from the GBTC Digital Media event

2010-01-21T14:13:00.006-05:00

I just participated in a Greater Baltimore Technology Council event entitled "Digital Media in Action: Engaging, Implementing & Creating Tangible Outcomes". My associate, Steve Kruskamp, and I shared with the group the evolution of social media in our organization.
I also had the chance to attend a couple of other sessions as well. Here are some takeaways.

Todd Marks and Vince Buscemi of Mindgrub Technologies talked specifically about a recent project for Voice of America in China and the ROI of that effort. What I really liked, and want to explore in 2010, is the use of widgets to engage our customers. We are rolling out a new PFM application this year and a widget that could logically make a connection with the new service could be a good fit. We'll have to look into it.

Will Davis and Mike Sweeney of RightSource Marketing talked about the blog as the hub of your social media efforts. From their perspective, it is especially critical in the B2B space. It can replace the "first meeting" and provide an opportunity for prospects to see how you think, not just visit your website to see what you do. I think that is some great advice.

A Friendly Wager With Geezeo

2010-01-15T11:52:00.013-05:00

So Sunday I'm getting ready for the Ravens-Patriots playoff game, picking up some steamed shrimp, when I get a tweet from @pglyman from Geezeo. He and @shawnward are Pats fans and they want to place a friendly wager on the game. Sounds good. To hear (and see) the rest of the story, check out this video we made about the outcome. Hope you enjoy it!

Snow?! In Baltimore?! This weekend?!

2010-01-08T12:40:00.006-05:00

On December 4th, we posted the following on Twitter: "1stMarinerBank: Snow?! In Baltimore?! This weekend?!"

In less than 5 minutes, we received the following message back: "@1stMarinerBank Snow in Baltimore? Not ready for that yet. Heading there next week and would love to meet you."

It was from a company called Geezeo, a provider of an online Personal Financial Management (PFM) product that they sell to financial institutions. Unbeknown to them (I think), we were ready to commit to this service with another, well established vendor in a matter of days. In fact, the contract was in our Legal area for review. The offering is considered to be the "Best in Class" in the industry, but it wasn't exactly what we wanted. So, while it didn't seem necessary, as a courtesy we agreed to meet since they had reached out to us through Twitter.

We met in our offices on December 10th. We were blown away. It was like they had designed exactly what we wanted- at a pricing model that made sense for us. By December 14th we received a proposal, negotiated a few terms, and had the final agreement from them on December 17th. Wow! Now that is the speed and power of social media.

What not to say on Twitter

2010-01-05T13:20:00.004-05:00

The Financial Brand, one of my favorite banking sites, recently published it's top ten most popular stories during the year. One, in particular, caught my attention: "10 tweets you shouldn't send (and why)" from June, 2009. For the details, I suggest that you check out the actual post. Here, though, are the primary lessons I took from it.

Focus on quality not quantity. People can tell the difference.

If you have an offer, make it compelling. If you are sharing information, make it relevant and interesting.

If it seems boring and mundane to you, it probably is. Don't send it.

Final Post of 2009

2009-12-23T13:41:00.006-05:00

As we ease into the holiday season, it is a good time to reflect on 2009 and look forward to 2010. (Not to digress, but do you say it is going to be "twenty ten" or "two thousand ten"? I use them both interchangeably.) This past year has been incredibly challenging for many of us. We've seen friends/colleagues (or even ourselves) let go, the economy tank and begin a "jobless" recovery, and the failure of over 140 banks and financial institutions in the country.

On the other hand, there have been some really good things as well. Social media has gone mainstream as organizations began (or continued) to use these tools to connect with customers and prospects. Customers have benefited through a more transparent relationship with their providers. Consumers have begun focusing on financial management tools to reduce debt and save money, often using their community to help in this effort.

What does the next year hold in store for us? I'm not a very good predictor of the future. At this juncture, there are probably more questions than answers. How will Twitter evolve next year? Will it be replaced by some other technology or continue to grow into a mature social media channel? What about Facebook? Will the growth of the boomers in the space force the next generation of twenty somethings into another social network solution? We'll just have to see how this all plays out.

Happy Holidays to you and yours. Bring on 2010!

Social Media Musings before the "Big Snow of '09"

2009-12-18T14:41:00.009-05:00

As Baltimore prepares for a snow storm over the weekend (which means all the milk and bread will fly off the grocery store shelves), I thought I'd share my own experience with the social media space. Having participated in most of these areas (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) for a while now, it is always interesting to me how the online and offline worlds collide.

On Twitter, for example, I personally follow over 300 people and am followed by about the same number. Some of these people are friends/business associates, but the majority of them I've never met face to face. So last night, as I attended the Blue Sky Factory holiday party, my two worlds briefly came together. I got a chance to talk with Mario Armstrong, a tech entrepreneur in Baltimore and a guy I've heard on NPR and other local stations over the years. He often focuses on new technologies and manages to make some very complex subjects easy to understand. While I've enjoyed following him on Twitter, it was really nice to actually talk with him in person. And,we already had some connection.

So, what's the point? I guess it's that social media tools like Twitter really can help facilitate all kinds of conversations and relationships, both online and offline. Pretty neat when it all comes together that way.

Social Media Levels the Playing Field

2009-12-16T12:47:00.005-05:00

Last week, there was an interesting article in the American Banker about the use of social media. It focused on both large and small banks and their integration of these tools into their companies.

Bank of America, for example, uses Twitter to monitor complaints and respond to customers. They have six people who are dedicated to staffing the Twitter account @BofA_Help and monitoring conversations on Twitter. A smaller, regional bank in Wisconsin, North Shore Bank, uses Facebook as a way to connect with customers, provide photos and videos, and conduct contests.

Since we began, we've used these tools in much the same way with very encouraging results. Given our size, we don't have anywhere near the same number of resources working on our Twitter accounts (@1stMarinerBank and @FMBCustServ), much less full time. The beauty of social media, and the applications available to monitor activity, is that you don't need to have a lot of resources. It provides a more level playing field where size and scale are no longer issues. In fact, I would contend that we can actually respond more quickly and in a more personal way than our larger competitors. And in this industry, like many others, the only way to differentiate ourselves is through a positive customer experience.

Governor O'Malley and Social Media

2009-12-09T15:50:00.004-05:00

I just finished watching a small business town hall online with Governor Martin O'Malley (D., MD). It was broadcast on blue sky factory TV, a media outlet for Blue Sky Factory, a leading provider of email marketing tools and services, based in Baltimore. It was hosted by Mario Armstrong, a nationally known commentator on technology and Greg Cangliosi, the CEO of Blue Sky Factory.

It was pretty impressive to see a Governor use a combination of visual online media while fielding questions from the audience via a hash tag(#BSFTV) on Twitter. In this fairly tech savvy area, this is great way to connect with that constituency. With the technology incubator spaces in the state, including the Emerging Technology Centers in Baltimore, the technology area has been growing even as other industries struggle.

Kudos to Governor O'Malley for using social media to reach out to the citizens of Maryland. It's a pretty good indication that social media is reaching a critical mass and going mainstream.

The Evolution of Social Media

2009-12-04T15:36:00.014-05:00

An associate and I were just talking about the evolution of our social media efforts. We've been invited to present in a social media event by the Greater Baltimore Technology Council (GBTC) in January. We are very excited (and honored) to be included in this impressive group of technology professionals.

As we started brainstorming the topic, we decided to focus on the evolution of our social media journey. Rather than talk theory, we are going to review our strategic approach and focus on specific examples from that experience. We think this will be more useful for the audience.

Our first foray into the social media world was when we established a Group page (remember them?) on Facebook.

Our goal was (and still is) to demonstrate our involvement in the community and to "humanize" the brand by including company events as well. As Facebook has evolved, so have we. We've since added a "Fan of" page, been actively updating content, and conducted contests to add followers and have some fun. We now have over 900 fans and continue to grow. Feel free to become one yourself!

When did closing a branch become newsworthy?

2009-12-01T13:22:00.013-05:00

Late last week, right before the Thanksgiving holiday, we announced the future closing of one of our branches. As anyone in banking (or any other retailer, for that matter) knows, evaluating locations on business needs such as profitability, market share, etc. is a fairly regular exercise. We've closed numerous branches over the the years with little or no fanfare. Not this time.

In a little more than two days, there were no less than twelve local and national posts from various blogs and on Twitter. We even had a local reporter contacting us through Twitter to confirm the news and get a comment. So why such a strong reaction to what, in the past, was a non-event?

Besides the current economic environment, where the slightest corporate change is considered bad news, the web and the social media tools have changed the rules of the game. This is just one example of the ways that basic business activities are interpreted and reported. The days of corporations controlling the message is over. Now, individuals have as powerful a means of communicating across a broad audience as the traditional advertising and media outlets did in the past. Now, we have to adjust to this new reality and learn how to manage our side of the conversation. Not an easy task, is it?

Pan American Bank and the Cruelty of Social Media

2009-11-25T14:48:00.004-05:00

Okay, I have to admit that I might have contributed to the frenzy that surrounded this announcement. Yesterday morning, a press release came across my screen announcing the roll out of Pan American Bank's social media strategy including a blog, Twitter, and Facebook page. I re-tweeted that I found it interesting that they used this traditional, press release model to kick it off when social media should be, well, social and viral.
This lead some followers to go to their blog and discover that, lo and behold, their site was displaying Google ads. Certainly an unusual approach for most banks. But the real uproar was the fact that there were ads for other banks, including Bank of America, Susquehanna Bank and TD Bank, to name a few. As he noted, our @1stMarinerBank twitter account was part of the conversation as well.
To his credit, Jesse Torres, the CEO and resident blogger, quickly posted a response to the "hubbub", explaining his rationale for the Google ads and acknowledging the need to more closely restrict the types of ads to display. I don't necessarily agree with the concept of ads on a blog. However, he certainly impressed me with his transparency and honesty. Now, isn't that what social media is really all about?

The ROI of Social Media

2009-11-23T12:43:00.017-05:00

I had an opportunity to talk to Larry De Palma of TDG-Phenix, a banking and payments consulting company, about our social media efforts. According to Larry, many of the bankers he encounters aren't seeing the value of a social strategy. They seem content to keep building branches and maintaining a "business as usual" approach. Even those who do understand and get it usually lead into the next, more challenging question of, "what's the ROI of social media?"

I have to admit that we don't calculate the ROI for our organization. But I think that is okay for us. We see it as a necessary part of our overall strategy to interact with customers and prospects and build our brand. However, there are certainly others who do. To highlight some of these, I invite you to take a look at the following video from Socialnomics, a social media blog. In a very entertaining way, it provides examples from various industries that might help you determine your companies own ROI. Included in the video is a reference to Gary Vaynerchuck, a recent speaker at the GBTC Tech Nite here in Baltimore. I hope you enjoy it.

'Leveraging Social Media in Finance'

2009-11-19T15:25:00.006-05:00

Delphine Vantomme of InSites Consulting authored a review of the recent SOMESSO conference in Zurich on 'Leveraging Social Media in the Finance Sector'. I urge you to take a look at the post for her perspective on the highlights of the conference.
The commoon thread I see from the presenters reinforces my previous post from the Harvard Business School newsletter. The emphasis throughout is using social media as a part of an enterprise strategy for your brand. Whether it be in customer service, human resources activities, or public relations efforts, it has to be part of a plan.
We are currently working with our mortgage business partners on re-building one of our mortgage web properties. This site has languished in obscurity for some time. While it would be tempting to jump right into a social media effort, it isn't the right time now. We have a lot of work to do before we are ready to take that on.

Social Media versus Social Strategy

2009-11-16T12:01:00.007-05:00

In a Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Newsletter, the studies of Professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski and users of social networks are discussed. The article opens with a quote from the Professor, "Online social networks are most useful when they address real failures in the operation of offline networks". Keeping up with friends, establishing new relationships, and sharing photos are primary uses of these social networks. No real surprises there.
Which can lead to the question that confounds many a corporate marketing leader. How do you play in this new world of social networks? According to Professor Piskorski, " To be successful, you need to shift your thinking from social media to social strategy". Simply looking at the social networks as another marketing channel, to generate leads and click through's for your website, is inconsistent with the spirit and use of these networks. He suggests that products and services need to be changed to incorporate social networking components, i.e. make them "more social".
Certainly an interesting perspective and worth exploring. In the financial services arena, I find it a bit challenging to see a way to make our services more social. We see the current value in sharing information about the company and employees on our Facebook page (with lots of pictures, of course). We use Twitter to have conversations with others that are more immediate, whether it be promoting an event, participating in community activities, or addressing a customer service issue. I think we are evolving into a social strategy through experience.
So what about you? How do you see social media, as just another sales channel or as an overall part of a social strategy?

Research firm jumps on the Social Media Bandwagon

2009-11-12T12:50:00.005-05:00

I recently came across a blog post from Celent, a research and advisory firm for Financial Institutions. Jacob Jegher, a Senior Analyst, recently released a report entitled "Demystifying Social Media and Next-Generation Online Banking". While we are not subscribers to Celent research (we work with a very modest publication budget), the extract seems to hit all the points I've found in our social media efforts.
I take it as a good sign that a traditional research firm like Celent is advocating participation in social media for financial institutions. We've embraced it and would encourage others too as well. Unfortunately, since I can't see the content, it is impossible for me to say how they suggest banks get involved. If someone has access to the report and can share that with me, I'd love to hear from you.

"The Internet is Broken"

2009-11-06T12:49:00.006-05:00

I had the pleasure of attending TEDxMidAtlantic yesterday. For those of you not familiar with this effort, TED (Technology,Entertainment, Design) is a " small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading". TEDxMidAtlantic is an independently organized TED event featuring speakers and performers from a wide range of fields. It was a terrific event and I would highly recommend you attend. One particular speaker, Mark Walsh, really caught my attention.
In his discussion, he declares that the Internet is broken relative to the original intent of the early Internet developers. He feels that the Internet is "filled with junk" and "promotes [a] false sense of conviviality but generates isolationism". He goes on to outline his proposal for fixing it.
I certainly understand his concern. With the overwhelming growth of Internet usage over the last 25 years, there were bound to be abuses. However, I would contend that the Internet can promote real connectivity between people, especially in the B2C arena. If managed properly, true transparency is possible. We are in the service business. In order to service our customers, we have to connect with them. This medium allows us to connect like no other. He may consider the Internet broken, but I think we are just starting to figure out how we can really use it. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Personal Finances and Social Media

2009-11-04T15:28:00.005-05:00

As we all know, social media has been the norm for most young adults for much of their lives. This audience seems comfortable sharing deeply personal information across networks in a way previous generations never did. Nothing apears to be out of bounds.

Which is what makes a recent study sponsored by AARP so interesting. It is entitled "Personal Finances: The Final Frontier for Social Media". It is available on AARP's LifeTuner website, which they describe as "an online personal finance community site born out of a growing recognition that young adults need to take a much more active role than previous generations in planning and preparing for their own financial security."

If you are in the financial services industry, it is well worth your time to read. It says a lot about how this demographic, the 18-34 year olds, feel about personal finances. Their two top priorities are managing day to day expenses and putting money into savings. However, they are more likely to turn to their parents or friends for advice than to use their expanded social networks.

I think the implications are pretty clear. We can't just assume that by entering the social media channels we will gain their trust. They aren't necessarily looking for financial advice through this avenue. We should, however, provide tools to help them more effectively manage their finances. That could (and should) make us more relevant in their lives.

Success Story from the Social Media Trenches

2009-11-03T15:24:00.008-05:00

I've been following a very knowledgeable expert in Social Media for Financial Services, Christopher Langlois, of Visible Banking. He recently posted a presentation for SOMESSO Zurich 2009, a social media conference. It's a really good, comprehensive overview of the current state of social media in financial services around the world.

While we are mentioned as one of the active financial institutions in the US, he specifically highlights a servicing effort that resulted in a very good experience for one of our customers. Aaron Brazell, the lead editor of Technosailor.com, was the customer and wrote an excellent account of the whole experience entitled "First Mariner Bank: A New Shining Star in Social Media PR" . In his own words, he describes how these online tools and offline efforts can work together to service customers in a more integrated way. It isn't always easy since we build a lot of barriers into our servicing channels. If you want to see just how this can work, you need to read his post.

More about Consumer Demand

2009-10-30T11:05:00.004-04:00

Ironically, soon after my last post, I came across an article in eMarketer entitled "Consumers Demand Brand Interaction". This research really supports, statistically, what I wrote about as well. After interacting through these channels, consumers felt that they:

had a more positive impression of the brand
felt a stronger connection to the company
believed they had a better service experience

These positive impressions were felt by seven out of ten respondents, a pretty strong endorsement. If you aren't already in the social media space, think about the implications for you. How do you think these consumers, when faced with an organization that isn't engaged, feel about that brand? Probably the way the frustrated Florida banking customer felt.

Why Banks need Social Media

2009-10-29T09:05:00.003-04:00

I recently came across a blog post titled Who needs Social Media? My Banks! The writer complains about trying to reach his local branch of a large bank in Florida. He finds it quite difficult to get a phone number let alone reaching out to his bank through other channels (ie Twitter). He is now considering switching banks.
It highlights the basic challenge we face as bankers. As he notes, we often talk about banking as a relationship between us and our customers. If so, how can you not get involved in social media? The ability to reach out, in real time, is one of the key attributes of these channels. For both parties. And isn't that really what customer service and relationships are all about?
FYI- if you are a bank with a location in Boca Raton, FL and are using social media, you may want to reach out to him. Sounds like a good prospect!

Incoprorating social media in (any) business

2009-10-27T12:44:00.006-04:00

While the goal of this site is to focus on banking, there are a lot of really good experts out there talking about social media. I recently came across a blog post on the Web Worker Daily site called "Tips from the Trenches: Using Social Media in Business". The themes are pretty consistent with our experience:
1) Jump in and try it first.
2) Listen and learn.
3) Be authentic.
Once you are in the space, then determine if and/or how it will best work for your business objectives. I think the "Ready, Shoot, Aim" approach may summarize it nicely.

2009-10-26T09:47:00.001-04:00

Just added a new post on my blog, Banking on Social Media. http://ping.fm/Vp3dC

What's a picture worth, anyway?

2009-10-26T09:23:00.004-04:00

Social media can take many forms. FaceBook and Twitter are probably the most visible. However, we've been addressing the use of photo's on Flickr recently. As many of us are quick to admit, photo's generate traffic. People love to look at pictures, especially of themselves, their friends and co-workers.
For a brand, adding photo's of employees and events is a good way to connect with your customers. We've been posting pictures from events over the last two months, including an employee event and a grand opening of a local branch. As you begin to share these picture, be aware of the concerns of others. These can include issues of privacy and security, or creating a negative impression of the bank for both customers and employees. Ensure you have a process in place to ensure the integrity of the photo's being displayed. Addressing these concerns up front can prevent issues later on.

Recent CU Times article on social media

2009-10-22T11:18:00.000-04:00

I felt compelled to comment on a recent post in the Credit Union Times about the dangers of social media for financial institutions. It represents the narrow minded approach that many IT and PR/Marketing people take on the new media. It harkens back to a time when organizations could control the message and means of communication. That time is gone.
The traditional media outlets- newspapers, radio, and television are no longer the powers they once were. People are talking about your brand in a very public way-whether they are employees, customers, or just interested observers. Blogs, Tweets, and FaceBook have replaced newspaper articles, advertisements, and news releases. Don't ignore the trend, embrace the opportunity to join in the conversation. You may not always like what you hear, but you'll be glad you did.

Getting Started

2009-10-20T13:06:00.000-04:00

So you are thinking about getting into social media. I mean, come on, everyone is doing it, so why not us? Not so fast. Before you jump in, you reall need to figure out some things. Like, how does this fit into your business model and long term strategy? If your goal is to absolutely dominate the Certificate of Deposit market for seniors, it might not make sense to get in at all.

At 1st Mariner, our strategy is to emphasize our involvement in the local community. We have 24 branches located in and around the Baltimore region, so we are very much a part of this community. Our employees contribute many hours to local, non-profit organizations around the region. We are also focusing on the next generation of bank customers, also known as the Gen Y's. If you intend to reach and engage this audience, it is a requirement to be in these channels.

With this in mind, we went through a complete web site redesign in 2008. As part of the new "look and feel", we added a blog to our About Us section of the site. After defining the parameters of acceptable content with both our Legal and Compliance partners (an absolute necessity), we began posting financial articles and community interest stories from employees. It provides a more dynamic space for us to engage our customers directly.

As with any of this media, there are challenges. In order to keep this content fresh and timely, there should be a number of regular "contributors". We have two or three people who consistently write for the blog, but it can be challenging keeping it updated. There is nothing worse than going to a blog and finding the content is months old. Keep this in mind if you choose to start a company blog.

For those of you who are looking for a more thorough and in depth discussion of branding and the use of social media, I would suggest you check out Jeffry Pilcher of The Financial Brand . He has a presentation called Results 2.0 that addresses these very same questions. It is an excellent primer on getting started.

Some Electronic Banking History

2009-10-18T11:16:00.000-04:00

For those of you who don't know me, perhaps it would be appropriate to give you a little background on me. First, you need to know I love technology. As mentioned earlier, I've been involved in technology work, either as a project manager or senior leader, for over 13 years. I was part of the team that built the online banking platform for NationsBank in 1996. I still have the distinction of being one of the first 15 people to have a user id in the system, which has since evolved into Bank of America's current offering. Even though I've left the bank, I've maintained accounts there to keep this id active.

It was very exciting to be working for one of the biggest banks, with some really smart people, on the premier online banking offering in the country. However, I left the bank in 2006 for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted to spend more time in my hometown and get involved in the community. Second, I was looking for an opportunity to play a greater role in the strategic direction of the ecommerce channel at a financial institution.

Online banking has proven to be a game changer. It gave customers a new, more convenient way to manage their finances. For banks, it provided a less expensive channel then the traditional branch model. However, it also created a dilemma. Between online banking, direct deposit, and ATM's, face-to-face customer contact was becoming a thing of the past. How could we talk to our customers, identify needs and provide them additional products and services when they don't even visit the branch any more?

Social media provides us with a new way to reach and have two way conversations with customers and prospects. Stay tuned.

Social Media in Banking

2009-10-16T14:35:00.000-04:00

As a long time banker who has been involved in banking ecommerce since 1996, it has been very interesting to me to watch the evolution of the industry. We have a tendency to be followers rather than leaders where emerging technologies are concerned. The social media of today is a great example. As a senior leader at a small bank, I've been given (or taken, in some cases) the opportunity to really "play" in the social media area. With the help of my eCommerce team, we've established outlets in all the major social media "channels". It's fun, exciting, and relatively easy to get started. You just have to take the first step.

This is my first post of what, I expect will be, many more. My hope is that I can help some of the hesitant bankers out there give social media a shot. Look for more in the weeks ahead.