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 my all time favourite reason "UGC is too risky".
Social Media, UGC... It is too risky!
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.
The Visible Banking Page on Facebook
I
am delighted to see such a promising take off of the number of fans. Twenty days after the soft launch, the page now counts 58 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 21 to 30 (sorted by chronological order): 21. Joris Huijbregts, Senior interaction designer at Info.nl (Netherlands): Joris mentioned on his profile that he is currently "working on a project for a major bank in the Netherlands..." I invite you to check Joris' blog.
22.Aliza Mor, Conference Producer at Marcus Evans (USA): I met Aliza at Online Retail Banking Services 2008 in May in New York. I was invited not only to speak but also to the chairman of the two-day conference. Following the success of the event, Aliza invited me to participate to another event in Miami, but I couldn't make it. I believe Aliza is now working on Marcus Evans' Innovative Payment Strategies event.
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.
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.
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.
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?
I hope you have already bought your ticket for Finovate 2008 in NYC on October 14th!
In the meantime, I invite you to check the conference demo lineup announced on NetBanker two days ago. It is another promising line up from Jim and Eric.
* mShift <mshift.com> MShift is the leading provider of Mobile Banking solutions in the US.
It is a competitor of Drew Sievers' mFoundry. mShift is active online too, they help a few Credit Unions to launch a Facebook application such as Keypoint Credit Union (November 2007), and SEFCU Credit Union (July 2008). I hope I will have the pleasure to interview their CEO, Awele Ndili. Coverage on NetBanker
* Inner8 <inner8.com> Discover the power of 8 - 15/09/2008?
* LendingClub <lendingclub.com> LendingClub is one of the most popular social lending sites, with Prosper and Zopa. They did a big marketing coup when they launched the service exclusively on Facebook.
Management team: Renaud LaPlanche - Founder & CEO, Patrick Gannon - SVP Lending. It is not everyday that a Frenchman creates one of the most innovative startups, especially in the booming Social Lending space. Well done Renaud!
* Pertuity Direct <pertuitydirect.com> Pertuity Direct is a financial services company which aims to bring the next generation of social lending to the web. They will launch in September 2008.
* SmartHippo <smarthippo.com> SmartHippo.com is a vertical search engine and comparison shopping service for financial products. We are the first-ever site that uses the power of community to help consumers find the best finance rates and save money.
I am not sure if they are coming, but I look forward to meet with the Senior Management of the company, people like Luke Sontag - Co-Founder & President or Mitchell Savage - EVP (Mitchell presented at FinovateStartup for Confident Technologies).
To find out more about Vidoop, I invite you to check their blog.
* Wesabe<wesabe.com> Wesabe was the first PFM online community ever launched, back in 2006. It is one of the most innovative startups out there. The latest addition to their service was to offer the option to update your Wesabe account in "real-time" via the hugely popular twitter.
Marc Hedlund became CEO after Jason Knight stepped down due to personal reasons (Jason, we all hope August's condition is improving). Just like Jason, Marc makes himself available: you can contact him directly everyday at specific times. As far as I am concerned, they have the best Marketing/Comms team: Debbie, Allese, and Gabe, are doing a great job with the bloggers.
* WeSeed <weseed.com> WeSeed is a free online community for sharing ideas and to figuring out the stock market-without the middle man telling you how to invest.
I have never met them, but it would be a pleasure to interview Jennifer Openshaw - CEO & Co-Founder if she is around. Currently, they have a splage page with several videos from YouTube. I invite you to check their Twitter page (with only 11 followers and 1 update...) They also have a page on Facebook.
* Yodlee <yodlee.com> Yodlee delivers innovative financial applications that make online banking more profitable. Accel and S1 Corporation are two of their investors. Their solutions are focused mainly on three key areas of online banking: Personal Financial Management, Payments and Customer Acquisition.
Yodlee managed to reinvent themselves: they are not the "account aggregation company" anymore. They provide an excellent Personal Finance Management solution for banks as well as individuals. They power the popular PFM service from Bank of America.
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.
I go to many conferences every year, and I have probably seen several hundreds presentations in the last 7 years.
The presentations at the Online Retail Banking Services 2008 stand out in terms of both content and delivery. And the format of the conference is perfect for networking.
I will post my video interviews, and my wrap-ups for day 1 and day 2 in the next few days.
While I was in San Francisco to cover FinovateStartup
live on NetBanker, I managed to meet with one of the leading providers of social media platforms, Leverage Software.
I covered the first Finovate event organized by Jim Bruene
back in October 2007 (in New York City). The event was such a success
(it sold out in only 6 weeks) that Jim decided to organize two more Finovate events in 2008: FinovateStartup & Finovate 08
.I was delighted when Jim invited me to be the official live blogger on NetBanker at FinovateStartup
in San Francisco. Before the event, I plan to blog about most of the
40 startups which will demo their products. My goal is to give you a
brief overview of those innovative startups.
Expensr, another online community focused on personal finance
I contacted Steve Markovitz, Chairman and CEO, via Linkedin.
With the continued volatility of financial markets, social
networking sites providing investment information such as Covestor and
Cake Financial are showing significant increases in traffic.
Now an evolution of that model has been introduced that holds even
greater potential because of the superior transparency and reliability
it offers. Vestopia, launched in January 08, is allegedly the
first online platform to enable users the ability to monitor the
private portfolios of professional money managers in real time as they
invest their own money. It represents an important option – wisdom of
the pros – to the wisdom of the masses found on social networking sites.
Vestopia, which is backed by LightSpeed Gemini Internet Lab (LGiLab)
and Ofer Hi-Tech.
“Christophe's book is really the must-have synopsis of the current state-of-play in social media in banking. Christophe has taken a deep passion for the topic, and turned it into an account of the landscape valuable to anyone who has social media responsibilities in financial services” James Gardner, General Manager at Spigit
“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
I hope you have already bought your ticket for Finovate 2008 in NYC on October 14th! 
I go to many conferences every year, and I have probably seen several hundreds presentations in the last 7 years.
I covered 
I contacted 
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