Randi Zuckerberg interviewed about Social Media and Banking

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

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 Product Development & 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.

Doonesbury, Gen Y'ers and Banking

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?

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

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

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

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?

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.

Banking Executives- listen up

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.

A Social Media discussion from Net.Finance

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

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.

Social Media Marketing Tactics Going Mainstream?

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

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.