My goal is to convince my peers that banks must embrace social media and web 2.0 now.
It gives us a unique opportunity to connect not only with our clients, but the whole market. It gives us the opportunity to show we listen and we care. It will help us drive customer advocacy.
I will publish a video response for every single reason I listed. Today, I will share my views on external blogging and personal branding.
Nowadays, I believe it is critical for any ambitious managers to "manage your brand": increase your visiblity online, your credibility and be recognized in the industry. It opens up a whole new world of opportunities.
Not only it is valuable to your career, but it makes you a great asset to your company. It is a win-win situation: the more visible, well-known and influential you are, the better your company reputation.
And yes, it is true: the more visible, the more likely to be headhunted. But I wonder why your company would see that as a risk? At the end of the day, if they do a good job managing talents, they shouldn't be worried... or should they?
Personal Branding & External Blogging: an asset to the bank, not a threat
Contribute... and challenge me! What do you think a my video (content, format)? I created the initial post to start a discussion. An interactive online discussion. Please don't hesitate to leave a comment and add a new reason to the list: challenge me! I will post a video response for every single additional reason. (please note it may take me a few weeks to respond)
My goal is to convince my peers that banks must embrace social media and web 2.0 now.
It gives us a unique opportunity to connect not only with our clients, but the whole market. It gives us the opportunity to show we listen and we care. It will help us drive customer advocacy.
I will publish a video response for every single reason I listed. Please find below my response to the question large, well established, banks ask themselves: "why should we embrace Social Media?"
Should a well established bank embrace Social Media?
Contribute... and challenge me! What do you think a my video (content, format)? I created the initial post to start a discussion. An interactive online discussion. Please don't hesitate to leave a comment and add a new reason to the list: challenge me! I will post a video response for every single additional reason.
My goal is to convince my peers that banks must embrace social media and web 2.0 now.
It gives us a unique opportunity to connect not only with our clients, but the whole market. It gives us the opportunity to show we listen and we care. It will help us drive customer advocacy.
I will publish a video response for every single reason I listed. Please find below my response to the reason around the limited budget and limited resources from the Marketing department.
Limited budget, limited resources
Contribute... and challenge me!
What do you think a my video (content, format)? I created the initial post to start a discussion. An interactive online discussion. Please don't hesitate to leave a comment and add a new reason to the list: challenge me! I will post a video response for every single additional reason.
My goal is to convince my peers that banks must embrace social media and web 2.0 now.
It gives us a unique opportunity to connect not only with our clients, but the whole market. It gives us the opportunity to show we listen and we care. It will help us drive customer advocacy.
I will publish a video response for every single reason I listed. Please find below my response to the reason around the ROI for social media projects.
No clear ROI
Contribute... and challenge me! What do you think a my video (content, format)? I created the initial post to start a discussion. An interactive online discussion. Please don't hesitate to leave a comment and add a new reason to the list: challenge me! I will post a video response for every single additional reason.
My goal is to convince my peers that banks must embrace social media and web 2.0 now.
It gives us a unique opportunity to connect not only with our clients, but the whole market. It gives us the opportunity to show we listen and we care. It will help us drive customer advocacy.
I will publish a video response for every single reason I listed. Please find below my response to one of my favourite reasons: "we have already tried... It doesn't work!".
We have already tried
Contribute... and challenge me! What do you think a my video (content, format)? I created the initial post to start a discussion. An interactive online discussion. Please don't hesitate to leave a comment and add a new reason to the list: challenge me! I will post a video response for every single additional reason.
In the last 15 months, I had the opportunity to participate to many industry leading conferences in the US and in Europe. I am always delighted to share my vision and my passion for social media with my peers.
Fact is there are still too few bankers who get social media and web 2.0. And there are still too few social media champions and evangelists in the banking industry.
Social media is not a big threat to the banks, it is a Great opportunity to connect with people and show we care. During my presentations, I use the same words over and over again: customer advocacy, transparency, honesty, engagement, Reward.
But is it enough to convince the whole industry? Probably not. I decided to adopt a different approach. I plan to identify all the reasons not to embrace social media. I identified 10 "good" reasons so far, but it is just a start.
I invite you to contribute: please feel free to leave a comment and flag any additional reasons!
Video reponse I plan to shoot a short video for every single "good" reason listed in this post (including the ones you flagged in your comments).
My goal is to challenge all of them, and demonstrate we don't have a choice anymore: social media must be part of your digital media / online marketing strategy.
I have always been reluctant to use Facebook for a business purpose. Mainly because I was concerned with the concept of "friends" and the limited privacy options. But I must admit that it is a great tool to keep in touch with people, from close friends to business contacts, and I am sure that at least 90 million of people would agree with me.
And at the end of the day, you decide what you want to share on your profile. Be smart!
Provide some exclusive content & give more exposure to my fans When I decided to create a page for Visible Banking, I had a goal, a purpose: I want to demonstrate what you should do on Facebook. I saw too many companies "on Facebook" or claiming to be on Facebook. Again, like any other social media project, what is your goal? Does it make sens? And if you do it, do it right or at least try your best, connect with people.
Another issue on Facebook is "the brand ownership" or the alteration/dilution of your brand. Anybody can create a page, a product, or a service using your company name. Mark, could you ask one of your colleagues to comment this post and tell us how you plan to address this issue?
I don't want the Visible Banking Page to be a mere copy and paste of Visible-Banking.com..
As far as I am concerned, there is no point creating and maintaining your own page if nobody but you contribute!
My goals: Reward my Fans & Create some Buzz I was touched that after less than 48h, and just a few invitations sent, 12 people became fans of my page. For the soft launch of the page, I contacted a small group of people made of fellow bankers, industry experts and prominent bloggers.
I believe the success of any Social Media initiative is linked with your ability to engage with your community and urge them to contribute. It is critical to REWARD your members, your fans. Rewarding could mean many things such as producing exclusive content, or giving visibiliy / exposure to your contributors. I intend to do both on the Visible Banking Page.
Please find below the names and a short description of my first 10 "Founding Fans" sorted by chronological order: 1.Chris Skinner, Owner at Balatro (UK): Chris is one of the most famous "banking technologists" in the uk. Chris is extremely well connected, respected and disruptive. I invite you to check the Facebook Group he created to market its successful Financial Services Club. Chris is an active blogger on several websites such as finextra and swfitcommunity. I invite you to check my video interview with him.
4.Allese Thomson, Marketing Coordinator at Wesabe (USA): Allese works with Debbie and Gabe in the dynamic Marketing team at Wesabe. Allese has a lot of excellent ideas, and I am confident she will be instrumental in the next (expected) redesign of Wesabe's interface. I am so pleased she started blogging too. Congrats!
5.Morriss Partee, Chief Experience Officer at EverythingCU.com (USA): Morriss contacted me almost a year ago, after watching the video I shot with William Azaroff. Morriss created one of the most active forums for the exchange of ideas in the Credit Union arena.
Posted items I will use this application to flag the most interesting news in the online finance space. This will be exclusive to the Facebook Page. Bloggers, please do not hesitate to add a link to your posts related to the topics I cover on Visible-Banking.com.
Reviews I would really appreciate if you could spend two or three minutes to leave a comment/review about the page. The idea is to explain how useful the Visible Banking Page is for you.
Please note that I am not expecting a Linkedin like type of endorsement. Endorsements are more than welcome though: please visit my Linkedin profile.
Discussion Board Most of the Facebook pages I visited which have a discussion board hardly have any activities from the readers/fans. I don't want to start dozens of discussions if nobody participates. I would rather keep the list of topics short, and see some regular activity. Please express yourself! And if you fee like starting a discussion on the page, please follow up and invite any of your contacts which may want to participate.
Tim (Tim Collins, SVP Experential Marketing at Wells Fargo), what a pleasure to have you as first contributor. It demonstrates again your proactivity, your understanding of Social Media, and it means a lot to me. Thanks.
Notes I plan to use the Notes application to add the rss feed to my blog. I have a question for the Facebook Team: would it be possible to use a rss feed from the Page wall or the Posted items application. For the moment, I believe the Notes application is the only application which offers you to subscribe to its feed... Am I correct?
Events I would like to flag all the most valuable and innovative online finance events worldwide. I won't succeed all by myself, your help will be precious. I am particularly interested in your contributions in the Middle East and the Asia Pacific region.
Please flag any events, register your interest, share your comments, or capture the questions you would like to ask to the speakers or the exhibitors. Moreover, If you know anyone interested to attend, sponsor, participate or cover the events, please direct them to the page!
Videos For a start, I uploaded a sample of my best videos. In the future, I plan to upload some exclusive videos.
Please share any video of innovative online services, any interviews with an entrepreneur or a banker who is a champion for social media. I would like to make a statement witht this page: "You want to find out more about social media in banking, check Visible-Banking.com and the Visible Banking Page on Facebook".
Photos Same idea. I really urge you to add any pictures related to web 2.0, social media in banking, and online finance. Bankers: add a logo / some screenshots of your PFM tool or any of your innovative online services. Entrepreneurs: add a logo of your company.
From my opinion, Wells Fargo is "The" perfect example of how a bank should leverage the web 2.0. Tim Collins, SVP Experiential Marketing, and Ed Terpening, VP Social Media, surely have two of the most exciting jobs in the banking industry!
Back in 2005, Wells Fargo became one of the most innovative banks online when they became the first major bank to have a presence on Second Life.
vSafe: online storage facility Last week, Wells Fargo announced the launch of v-Safe, another innovative service available online.
The service will allow customers to securely store documents such as financial statements, loan and tax documents, wills, passports and birth, marriage and death certificates in an electronically secure centralised location.
In the UK, BT successfully launched its BT Digital Vault service. And O2 is currently extensively promoting its O2 Bluebook service. WF's goal is surely to increase stickiness, customer retention. Will they also manage to somehow increase the share of wallet of their users?
According to you, is it the role of telcos or banks to help us store our valuable documents?
According to me, there are 4 kinds of social media projects in the banking industry:
1. Behind The Firewall (BTF) Intranet 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 projects: internal wikis, blogs, social network and search. 2. Internet Banking Accessible from your clients only, in the secure internet banking via a platform provided by a third party. Providing customer reviews on your website (.com and IB) is a good example. 3. B-to-B Your target: any SME or Entrepreneur. Time is money, those members need to be convinced. It is not in their interest to trash your brand. And they also want to be visible. 4. B-to-C Your target: anybody / mass market. This is the most challenging kind of projects of all. It is more tricky to reward your members. You may have to deal with malicious activities. But you can always address those challenges with the right moderation process.
Related articles on Visible-Banking.com Please note that the list is not exhaustive.
I launched Visible Banking back in March 2007... already a year ago.
In the last 12 months, I have been invited to speak at many conferences in the US and in Europe, I have interviewed many passionate entrepreneurs, I have met with the hottest startups. I have met great people all over the world. What a rewarding experience!
Thanks everybody for your comments and your support.
I am pleased to launch today a new series of video news, "Banking 2.0 V-News" (V for Visible). As you know, I am a huge fan of video interviews and videocasts.
I invite you to give me your feedback. Please do not hesitate to leave your comments!
“Christophe is extremely well informed about the banking and financial services industries. He's at all the right conferences, and digs deep with his interviews of all the influencers and innovators. He's also a tremendously nice guy :-)” Aaron Patzer, Founder & CEO at Mint Software
“Christophe seems to have his finger on the pulse of the financial services industry. Visible Banking has become "the" source of information for innovations in the financial services industry.” Tim Collins, SVP-Experiential Marketing at Wells Fargo
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