The Visible Banking Page on Facebook: New Fans (11 - 20) & Recent Activity

The Visible Banking Page on Facebook
I was touched that after less than 48h, and just a few invitations sent, 12 people became fans of my page. Now, 10 days later, the page already has 39 fans.

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 Fans number 11 to 20 (sorted by chronological order):
11. Eric Girard, Business Internet Services Manager at KeyBank (US): Eric is one of Thom Hofer's ex colleagues. .

12. Matthew Aman, ex CTO at Yodlee (US): it looks like Matt is well connected in the Valley. Matt is an ex-colleague of Peter Hazlehurst and he is friend (on Facebook at least) with Aaron Patzer of Mint. Matt worked on Yodlee's next-generation Payments and Aggregation platforms.

13. Amit Shaked, Vice President, Products and Web at WeFi (Israel): I met Amit at the European TechTour last year. I invite you to watch my video interview with Amit. And please check my recent "Posted Item" on WeFi.

14. Alec Dubois, Project Manager at Capgemini (France): Alec is one of my best friends. He is also one of the most professional persons I know, and he a passionate CRM expert.

15. William Azaroff, Director, online banking & engagement at Vancity (Canada): and now, let me introduce William... But where shall I start?! William is one of the most knowledgeable and passionate few social media evangelists in the banking industry. He's been a blogger for years on azaroff.com. William pioneered the innovative online community launched by Vancity, ChangeEverything.ca.
I invite you to watch my video interview with William, shot after Finovate 2007 in NYC.

16. Nancy Zimmerman, Bank Evangelist at Citizens Bank of Canada (Canada): Nancy is one of William's contacts. She is a "Bank Evangelist", I love those titles. I invite you to check Nancy's blog.

17. David Gerbino, AVP, Research and Database Marketing Manager at Provident New York Bancorp (US): Glad to have another fan in the US. David and I share a few contacts with online finance experts like Jim Bruene (NetBanker) and William Azaroff. I invite you to check David's blog.

18. John Sharp, Co-founder & Chairman at Authentium, Inc. (US): I have know John for more than a year now. We met a few times in London. I invite you to check my interview with John, and my interview with Doug Brunt, President & CEO (shot at FinovateStartup 2008 in San Francisco) 

19. Franck Vitasse, Web Marketing Projects Manager at ING Direct (France): I am connected with Franck since August last year. I contacted Franck to invite him to check my review of ING's pickuradvisor.com. Please check Franck's blog, "KultureWeb".

20. Olga Gil, Product Development Specialist at Nordea Bank Finland Plc Estonia Branch (Estonia): I imagine that I am talking of the right Olga!
 
Posted items
I posted 8 items so far. please find below the latest 3 items:
* B2B Spending On Social Networks Could Put Facebook Ahead of LinkedIn
* Office of National Statistics: half of UK now banks online | The Industry Standard
* Civic Banking: Pioneers in Banking 2.0

Don't hesitate to leave a comment.
 
Reviews
There is still no review. Could you please take a few minutes to review my Facebook Page?

Discussion Board
I added one new topic:
*  Business Networking: Is Facebook really threatening up Linkedin?
(1 post)

I invite you to share your views on Facebook, and contribute to the first two topics:
* How important is it for a bank to be on Facebook? (5 posts)
* What would you like to find on the Visible Banking page? (1 post)

Thanks to Tim, Thirugnanasambandan and Ben for their contribution!

Related articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Launch of the Visible Banking Page on Facebook
* Video - the 4 kinds of Social Media projects

Launch of the Visible Banking Page on Facebook

I am pleased to announce the creation of the Visible Banking Page on Facebook.
 
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.

2. Rob Findlay, Customer Experience Manager at NAB (Australia): Chris is passionate about Customer Experience. If you are interested in this important topic in online banking, I highly recommend to subscribe to his blog, the Bank Channel.

3. Mike O'Hara, Co-Founder & COO at Voices in Business  (UK): Mike is one of the most passionate business podcasters out there. I am a fan of the Banking 2.0 Podcast and The Virtual Worlds BusinessCast. I invite you to check his Facebook Group, Voices in Business.

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.

6. Daniel Astaire, Cabinet Member for Customer & Community Services at Westminster City Council (UK): Daniel is a friend from the Harbour Club. Daniel is incredibly busy: he is a Media & Entertainment Litigator, a local politician in London, and he organizes charity events for children in need.

7. David Strachan, Senior Managing Director at DRS Advisors LLC (USA): David is one of Chris Skinner's contacts. His firm is a boutique advisory specializing in emerging financial technology.
 
8. Rafael Tobar, (USA): Rafael is a contact of Chris Skinner and Tim Collins.

9. Thomas Hofer, previously E-Commerce Development Manager at KeyBank (USA): I met Thom at the event I chaired in NYC in May 2008, the Online Retail Banking Services 2008. Thom is an experienced e-Commerce professional. I believe Thom is still looking for his next challenge: please do not hesitate to contact him directly on Linkedin.
 
10. Tim Collins, SVP Experiential Marketing at Wells Fargo (USA): Tim is a visionnary. He heads up WF's Experiential Marketing team and with Ed Terpening they made of WF the most innovative bank in the Social Media space. They are not scared of experimenting any new ways to better interact with their customers. I invite you to check my video on Wells Fargo 2.0, and the page they recently launched on Facebook to support their Stagecoach Island Virtual World initiative.

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.
 
I created two discussions so far:
* How important is it for a bank to be on Facebook?
* What would you like to find on the Visible Banking page?

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.
 
Related articles on Visible-Banking.com
* The Visible Banking Page - Update: New Fans (21 - 30) & Recent Activity
* The Visible Banking Page - Update: New Fans (11 - 20) & Recent Activity
* Video - the 4 kinds of Social Media projects

Interviews 2.0

Banking 2.0 V-News: Focus on Wells Fargo

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?

I welcome another innovative initiative from Wells Fargo, but shouldn't banks focus first on increasing the level of security of online banking? Many customers are still not comfortable with banking online... Are they ready to trust their bank and store non-financial documents online? Won't they see that as another way for banks to profile them?
 
Related articles on Visible Banking
* Wells Fargo 2.0
* Wells Fargo co-Founds "the Blog Council"
* Interview Erik Hauser, Creative Director @ Swivel Media
* CenterStage: Wells Fargo First Consumer-Generated Marketing Program

News on finextra: Wells Fargo's online initiatives
Please note that the list is not exhaustive.

* Wells Fargo unveils online storage service - 20/03/08
* The Blog Council is born with Wells Fargo as co-founder - 10/12/07
* Wells Fargo introduces online workstation for commercial customers - 18/10/07
* Why Wells Fargo left Second Life - 13/06/07
* Wells' Web makeover woos punters and analysts- 25/05/07
* Wells Fargo introduces Webcast series for small businesses - 26/04/07
* Wells Fargo: Adventures in the blogosphere - 30/03/07

Christophe Langlois to live blog at FinovateStartup

Last October, I traveled to New York to cover the excellent first Finovate event organized by Jim Bruene from NetBanker and the Online Banking Report.
 
Jim and his team did an excellent job: twenty of the most innovative startups in the online finance space were presenting. I had a great day. I was extremely busy networking with the presenters and the attendees  as well as shooting 10 interviews with Mint, Prosper, LendingClub, Vancity, Yodlee, CheckFree, Huntington, Billeo, Jwaala and Geezeo.

In 2008, Jim and his team will organize 2 events: FinovateStartup on April 29th in San Francisco, and Finovate 2008 on October 9th in New York.

Live blogging from San Francisco
Jim and I kept in touch, and I am proud to announce that he invited me to be the guest blogger at FinovateStartup!
I will travel to San Francisco from the uk to blog live on NetBanker.

It is a unique opportunity to take part of one of the most exciting online finance conferences of the year. 

Special discount for the Visible Banking readers
I am glad to be able to offer you a special discount worth $100. Please note that this special offer is reserved to the first 5 readers to use the discount code "visiblebanking" during the registration process.

Come and meet with 40 of the most promising startups in online finance
Jim announced the final demo line up last week. The format of Jim's event is sharp and works very well: each company has only 5mn to demo its flagship product. Usually, the Founders of the companies themselves are on stage. They are passionate people, and I strongly recommend to attend the event if you have the chance.

 
Here’s the complete lineup by company type: 

• Checking/savings: Andera, First ROI, SmartyPig, 
• Financial shopping/comparison: Credit Karma, FindABetterBank, SmartHippo 
• Investing/asset management: Boulevard R., Cake Financial,
  CAPS (Motley Fool), SocialPicks, TradeKing, VaultStreet, Vestopia, Zecco 
• Lending/credit: Lending Club, Loanio, Prosper, SimpleTuition, Wonga 
• Mobile banking/payments: Aradiom, ClairMail, Diversinet, Tyfone 
• Personal financial management: Buxfer, Expensr, Jwaala, Mint, Wesabe 
• Security: Authentium, Guard ID, Guardian Analytics, TrustedID, Vidoop 
• Other: IP Commerce, Unified Money, WorkLight and four stealth startups 

It will give me the opportunity to catch up with the Founders I have interviewed last time, as well as a few companies I met in London: Authentium, Wonga and WorkLight.
 
I will stay in San Francisco from Saturday 26th April to Friday 2nd May. My goal is to meet as many innovative companies as possible and shoot short and insightful video interviews.

If you are a startup, a bank, or a major vendor in the online finance space, please do not hesitate to send me an email (cm_langlois[AT]yahoo[DOT]co[DOT]uk) to organize a meeting!
 
Related articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Coverage of Finovate 2007
* Interview John Sharp, CEO of Authentium

Another web 2.0 initiative "behind the firewall": Scotiabank launches a social network for staff

Most large organizations, banks included, struggle to share information and leverage the breadth of knowledge available internally. Most of them still work in silos.

Expensive Knowledge Management or Human Capital Management systems are available, but now I am glad to see more and more banks leveraging web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis and social networks.

Yesterday, Canada's Scotiabank announced the launch of their internal web 2.0 platform. The "social networking" platform is based on Microsoft's Office SharePoint Server 2007.

MS SharePoint is an excellent collaborative platform, but I wouldn't describe its out-of-the-box version as "a social networking" platform. Yes, You can create your profile on your MySite section. But the bank still has a lot of customization to do such as adding new "lists" (fields) and improving the layout...

I have spotted an interesting fact in the article: "As part of the programme, the bank is creating online user profiles for staff members."

Does it simply mean that the bank will create their employees MySite on their behalf? Or are they going to pre-fill the profiles with basic information only or extra info available on their cvs?

Every social network's top 2 challenges are to increase its member base, and the quality of their profiles. There is no point having a profile on Linkedin if people can't find you!

Whatever the platform, engaging with your employees is the real challenge
With "behind the firewall" projects, I believe the challenge lies in educating people, convincing them, urging them to contribute. The platform needs to be simple to use and intuitive, period.

You can roll out "the best" social networking platform, but the success of your initiative will mainly rely on the quality of profiles, the adoption of the platform from your employees, and their (valuable) contribution.

Related articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Banking 2.0 V-News: the 4 kinds of social media projects
* Wetpac Enterprise 2.0: unleash the potential of web 2.0 "behind the firewall"

Wells Fargo co-founds "the Blog Council"

I found about this interesting news last week on Chris Skinner's blog.
 

Well Fargo 2.0

As far as I am concerned, Wells Fargo is the best example of how to leverage social media/web 2.0 in the banking industry. I invite you to check:

* my post "Wells Fargo 2.0", and

* my two slides on Wells Fargo during my recent speaking engagement in Barcelona.

   
Wells Fargo even have a team dedicated to experiential marketing and social media. Earlier this year I met Tim Collins, SVP Experiential Marketing, in London at a financial services club event, and I communicate regularly with their VP Social Media (how cool is that!), Ed Terpening.

 
Recently, they launched the upgraded version of their successful initiative in virtual worlds, StageCoach Island (initially launched on Second Life, back in 2005).

They launched their first blog back in March 2006. Now they have 4 corporate blogs, the Student LoanDown being extremely popular in the student community.
 

The Blog Council

Last week, Wells Fargo confirmed their involvment in web 2.0 and especially corporate blogging. Indeed, they are one of the co-founders of "the Blog Council". Well Fargo is the only institution representing the banking industry.
 

I welcome this initiative which, I hope, will urge more banks to launch a blog, hence improve the way we communicate and engage with our customers. This initiative is a step in the right direction, but it is very much US centric, and I look forward to seeing the same kind of initiative in Europe soon.

Please find below the mission statement of the Blog Council:

"The Blog Council is a community for official corporate blogs and bloggers that represent major global corporations.

Our mission is to address the unique needs of blogging in a corporate environment.

The Blog Council exists as a forum for executives to meet, share tactics and advice, and develop best practices. The organization teaches responsible, ethics-based corporate blogging."

They will organize their first event in the US in January 2008, "the Blog Council Member Off-Site and Unconference #1".

VB Interview #31 - Matt Colebourne, CEO at cocomment (Tech Tour 07)

I met Matt Colebourne at the European Tech Tour Web and Communities Summit in November 07. His company, cocomment, was one of the 25 finalists.

Interview with Matt Colebourne

 

VB interview #18 - Chris Skinner, Founder at Balatro

I initially came across Chris Skinner four years ago, when I was working in the payment and the anti-money laundering industries. Chris is well-known in the UK banking industry.

Chris is a busy man: he owns Balatro, his own consultancy firm, he is the Chairman of the financial services club in London, an active blogger on finextra, as well as the author of several books...

Chris is passionate about new/emerging technologies and their impact on the banking industry. Chris is a regular on the speaking circuit and he travels the world to share his vision on the future of banking, the convergence of media, and topics such as Social Networking, Virtual Worlds, Social Media and Web 2.0.

Yesterday, I spent an hour with Chris at the Institute of Insurers in London. During the interview, we talked about the future of banking, social media in the uk banking market and Chris's workshops at the BAI Retail Delivery Conference in Las Vegas in November 2007.

Interview with Chris Skinner

 

VB Interview #16 - William Azaroff, Interactive Marketing & Channel Manager at Vancity (Finovate 07)

I first got in touch with William Azaroff a few months ago, via our blogs azaroff.com/blog and visible-banking.

William is the interactive marketing manager at Vancity, Canada's largest credit union. William has been blogging for over 4 years now. He is also a guest blogger on Jim Bruene's NetBanker.
 
I was extremely pleased to meet him at Finovate in New York. William covered the event in real time on NetBanker. I invite you to check William's posts on NetBanker.

William is very knowledgeable and passionate about Social Media, Online Communities and Web 2.0. He pioneered ChangeEverything.ca, the groundbreaking change-themed online community, which was named as an Offical Honoree at this year's Webby Awards

During our interview, we talked about blogging, user generated content, social networtking and the challenges faced by a bank or a credit union.

Interview with William Azaroff

 

VB Interview #14 - Brandon McGee, VP & Senior Product Manager Mobile Banking at Huntington (Finovate 07)

Brandon first contacted me back in July 20007, when he started blogging about Mobile Banking. Brandon's blog is a great resource and if you share an interest in Mobile Banking I highly recommend you subscribe to his feed.

Brandon McGee is VP and Senior Product Manager at Huntington. He is also a guest blogger on Jim Bruene's Mobile Money & Banking.

Brandon covered the Finovate event on Jim's blog. After the conference, we spent a couple of minutes together. During the interview, Brandon shared his expertise and his vision on the US Mobile Banking market.

Interview with Brandon McGee