Banking 2.0: 10 "good" reasons not to embrace social media

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!

10 "good" reasons not to embrace social media now
1. We have already tried!
2. UGC is too risky
3. No clear ROI
4. Limited Marketing budget, limited resources
5. Only good for small financial institutions and direct banks
6. The mighty Press Office and L&C departments
7. Personal branding & external blogging: loosing our best people
8. Wait! Our new online channel will deliver everything... eventually
9. Intranet 2.0 & Enteprise Search: confidential documents made visible
10. Focus on the basics: investment portfolio, single view of the customer...

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.

Banking 2.0 V-News on Dailymotion

Related articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Video - Focus on Wells Fargo 2.0
* Video - The 4 kinds of social media projects
* Christophe Langlois, Founder of Visible-Banking.com

Comments

[Morriss Partee]

Hear, hear! Social media is as revolutionary to marketing as television advertising was in the 60s. The conversation is happening outside your web site/business walls whether you like it, or know about it, or not. Instead of ignoring it, embrace it for the font of customer knowledge that it is.

[Sam Howard]

Christophe, your approach will really help us encourage those companies that are still thinking, 'perhaps if i ignore it, it will just go away'. I work with financial tech vendors, selling into every type of bank and financial institution. The most common resistance I hear is, 'our clients are very conservative and pay no heed to social media...' We need to be able to demonstrate that social media is not the new elephant in the room but the most exciting opportunity that has come our way in a long time and as such we need to be bold, be brave, and be a part of it. I look forward to seeing the video.

[Katherine Coombs]

Hi Christophe!

Following on from a particular meeting that we had last week, I'd love to hear your response to those who say that a bank's current focus should be almost exclusively on cost reduction and risk avoidance, given the current climate, and initiatives focussing on networking and Web 2.0 technologies will and should be shelved.

Given that a lot of the work that I/we do is based on a Cost-Benefit-Analysis, I wonder how these types of propositions should be framed when being forward for consideration by the business? Because there are some analysts who say that social networking isn't, actually, important and that many companies such as LTSB are still in a strong position both financially and with respect to brand despite this?

I should point out that I don't necessarily share the above views (especially since I have both an internal and external blog myself!), but am simply passing on the question.

Merci!
Katherine

[ViSalus]

The most common resistance I hear is, 'our clients are very conservative and pay no heed to social media.