BENCHMARKING SOCIAL MEDIA - VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER - CROWDSOURCING - WORD OF MOUTH IN BANKING, FINANCIAL SERVICES, INSURANCE (B2C - B2B - B2B2C - WORLDWIDE)
The Visible Banking Page on Facebook I am delighted to announce that The VB page counts 256 fans to date. The page has now enough fans to create some solid conversation. Thank you all for spreading the word.
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.
My goal is to better understand your behaviour and your expectations from a social network provided by a financial institution. Thanks for spending just a couple of minutes of your precious time to fill the questionnaire, and for spreading the word around you.
Posted items - industry news There are now 76 posted items. Please find below the latest topics covered: * Vancity's podcasts to help choose their new Board of Directors * Aaron Patzer @ Mint.com and Michael Ferrari @ Smartypig views on Social Banking * List of Banks and Credit Unions on Twitter New Fans Please find below the names and a short description of my Fans number 161 to 170 (sorted by chronological order):
161. Stephann Lue Sue (): Stephann, could you please leave a comment to introduce yourself and confirm your company and job title? 162. Adelina Ambarchyan, R&D Systems Administrator at Lockheed Federal Credit Union
(US): 163. David Barbin, Senior Interaction Designer at Wachovia Corporation () 164. Boris Janek, Online Marketing Manager at VR-NetWorld GmbH
(Germany): 165.Omnia ShaheenSenior Programmer at Camiant (Egypt)
166.Pierre ULMER, e-business consultant at Cortal Consors (France)
Discussion Board I invite you to participate to the four discussions available so far: * Promote your favourite blog on Banking 2.0 / Online Finance! (9 posts) * How important is it for a bank to be on Facebook? (7 posts) * Business Networking: Is Facebook threatening up Linkedin? (4 posts) * What would you like to find on the Visible Banking page? (3 posts)
Reviews So far, there is only one review from Aden.
The event had speaker panels and interactive sessions to
facilitate exchanges of information and ideas between a strictly
limited audience of senior European banking executives from over 10 countries.
An encounter of 'the Gigabit' type Jean-Michel Billaut, Founder of the Networking Company, is one of the first people I met at the EFMA event in Paris last week. We shook hands and introduced ourselves just to find out that we had both been following each other's blog for quite sometime!
We ended up sitting next to each other and sharing our views on social media for most of the day.
We even talked about the 'Social Media & Finance' Workshop I
organize in San Francisco on April 29th (on Jean-Michel's birthday! What a coincidence...), and Jean-Michel was able to
give me a few key contacts in the San Francisco Bay. Thanks again
Jean-Michel!
I want to mention that Jean Michel has been promoted « Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur » (the high french distinction) by President Chirac for the promotion of the Internet in France.
Jean-Michel wasn't one of the speakers, but he was invited by one of the connections we have in common, Patrick Desmares, EFMA's Executive Director. Interview with Jean-Michel (Paris, 19-Mar-09)
The event had speaker panels and interactive sessions to
facilitate exchanges of information and ideas between a strictly
limited audience of senior European banking executives from over 10 countries.
I contacted Daan on Linkedin last year to invite him to speak at one of our internal innovation dinners at Lloyds TSB.
Daan
presented three social media initiatives he helped ABN AMRO launch in
the last couple of years to: capture customer feedback - blackboard (launched in Q4 2007) -, support the SME market with an online community - flametree -, and provide an entertaining experience on second life.
ABN AMRO created flametree to help entrepreneurs to network, share their knowledge and trade. By the way, Daan's team will launch flametree phase 2 later this week. The interface will be totally different, stay tuned!
I loved this quote from Daan's presentation, 'Being transparent requires more guts than talking about transparency.'
The event had speaker panels and interactive sessions to
facilitate exchanges of information and ideas between a strictly
limited audience of senior European banking executives from over 10 countries.
Pol and I share a similar passion for social media. We are both active
users of social media sites like facebook, linkedin or twitter. If you are passionate about innovation, I highly recommend you to follow Pol on Twitter.
During his presentation, Pol insisted on the importance of being transparent, honest, and managing your community.
They also have a link to their rss feed on their homepage. Unfortunately the Banco Sabadell Labs, their JV with IBM to tap social media, has gone quiet since the announcement back in June 2007.
A few comments: * Overall, Banco Sabadell is one of the most experimental banks in Europe which reinforces the importance of having a Director or an Executive who is happy to champion social media: Wells Fargo has Tim Collins, Ed Terpening and its CMO, SEB has Lars Milleberg, Raboplus has Greg McAweeney... * I love the power of blogging and social media: my coverage of the EFMA event on social media appears on the first page on Google with the key words 'Banco Sabadell Social Media' * On Twitter, BancoSabadell is only following two of their employees (@Pol and @Xavier, both from the Innovation team). I would be delighted for @VisibleBanking to join this exclusive club too! ;)
Interview with Pol (Paris, 19-Mar-09) I invite you to watch my interview with Pol.
The event had speaker panels and interactive sessions to
facilitate exchanges of information and ideas between a strictly
limited audience of senior European banking executives from over 10 countries.
I really enjoyed Matthias presentation. I found it inspiring and
refreshing too. Matthias came to present the new social media
initiative they launched a week ago to better connect with the market
and engage with their clients: Fidor Community Banking. Their tagline: "we are strong together!".
They also provide an online tool for Personal Financial Management, gemege.de,
and an idea generation platform to invite people to contribute to the
design of fidor's new products (and be rewarded for their contribution).
Fidor's approach in social media is good to some extent that they are trying to reach and engage with people where it makes sens online.
The fidor team is experimenting, which is critical in social media, and they still have to reach a critical mass of users on their various pages and groups to start proper conversations, better engage with their members, and urge them to contribute and collaborate. Good start, well done Matthias!
Interview with Matthias (Paris, 19-Mar-09) I invite you to watch my interview with Matthias, a passionate entrepreneur who starterd his career in the hospitality business.
Matthias was one of the investors in Xing, one of the leading online business networks in Europe, he really gets social media and he really wants to involve people and reward them. A must see.
The event had speaker panels and interactive sessions to
facilitate exchanges of information and ideas between a strictly
limited audience of senior European banking executives.
Participants and Speakers from over 10 countries It was an informative, insightful, day on social media in banking and financial services. Shame the current challenging times made it difficult for bankers to travel and attend the conference.
Nevertheless, we were around 30 people in total, speakers included, from the following companies: ABN AMRO, e-laCaixa, capco, ASN Bank, Bank Hapoalim, Banco Sabadell, Banque Cantonale Vaudoise - BCV, Cardif, Cercle des Investisseurs Prives, CheBanca!, fidor ag, Fortis Bank, GIE BNP, Paribas Assurance, Google, Gras Savoye, LCL, Mapa UK, Orange Business Services, Quintess, Rabobank, Raiffeisen Bank (Serbia), Raiffeisen International Bank, Serveis Informatics La Caixa, The Networking Company, Visible Media Ltd.
It was great to catch up with Catherine Ossemerct (congratulations Catherine for the good news!), Pol Navarro (glad we had the chance to have dinner together), Joep Paemen (thanks Joep for recommending me), Mark Pavan, and the EFMA team.
I was delighted to sit next to Jean-Michel Billaut for most of the day, meet with Daan Josephus Jitta at last and meet with one of my readers from Spain, Xavier Bermudez (thanks Xavier for your kind words on Visible Banking).
Wrap up - People First!
Please find below my initial comments on the day and most of the presentations.
More or less all the speakers insisted on the importance of educating people (internally and externally), being transparent, and starting to experiment now.
But if you ask me, I have heard the word "scared" too many time when they were referring to responding to user-generated-content. Also, I was hoping more speakers would underline the importance of monitoring online discussions.
Thumbs up * Catherine who fought until the end for her award winning initiative in the social network space and who reminded the importance of having an Executive sponsor and involving the Business, * Pol who demonstrated the higher ROI for social media marketing campaigns due to some excellent profiling hence better targeting, * Daan who plans to fully maximize their investment in social networking and use their platform internally too, * Matthias who aims to reward his users for their contribution like very few company ever did before, and * Casper from Rabobank who came up with a methodology to measure social media, and emphasized the importance to monitor online discussions.
Presentations * Fidor - 'Retail Banking 2.0': I really enjoyed Matthias presentation. I found it inspiring and refreshing too. Matthias came to present the new social media initiative they launched a week ago to better connect with the market and engage with their clients: Fidor Community Banking. Their tagline: "we are strong together!".
They also provide an online tool for Personal Financial Management, gemege.de, and an idea generation platform to invite people to contribute to the design of fidor's new products (and be rewarded for their contribution). More next week in my video interview with Matthias.
* ABN AMRO - 'Experimenting with social media: vision, learnings and insights': I contacted Daan on Linkedin last year to invite him to speak at one of our internal innovation dinners at Lloyds TSB. Daan presented three social media initiatives he helped ABN AMRO launch in the last couple of years to: capture customer feedback - blackboard -, support the SME market with an online community - flametree -, and provide an entertaining experience on second life.
By the way, Daan's team will launch flametree phase 2 next week. The interface will be totally different, stay tuned!
I loved this quote from Daan's presentation, 'Being transparent requires more guts than talking about transparency.' More next week in my video interview with Daan.
* Rabobank - 'Virtual communities and the Rabobank: evolution, not revolution!': it is obvious Casper is passionate about social media and he spent a lot of time experimenting online. Even though I would tweak it a bit, I enjoy Casper's methodology to classify virtual communities and assess the level and type of engagement from the bank.
Rabobank is one of the most active European financial institutions in social media: not only they have a dedicated 'webcare team' to monitor online discussions and respond, but their direct banks in Belgium, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand implemented blogging, customer reviews, and podcasts. I invite you to watch the video interview I shot in Singapore last year with Casper's colleague, Edwin Van Raalte, Senior Manager Business Development.
Last year, Rabobank launched RaboSport an online tv channel dedicated to the sporting teams and events they sponsor like "le tour de France". Unlike Nykredit and Jyske Bank which also allocated a sizable budget to launch their own TV channels, Rabobank also have a YouTube channel with the same video hosted on the popular service. I asked a question to Casper about their presence on YouTube, and I enjoyed his answer: 'we created the YouTube channel because the videos ended up on Youtube anyway!'
* Fortis Bank - 'Engaging the European Entrepreneur': it was great to catch up with Catherine. She launched Join2Grow.biz, the first ever online community for European Entrepreneur launched by a major bank back in February 2007 (in just 6 months). Fortis won 6 award and experienced an excellent, global, press coverage in 2007.
I was disappointed to find out in February that Fortis Bank decided to stop this innovative social media experiment. On the other hand, I wasn't too surprised because the current situation is pretty tough for the Belgium bank and the Executive sponsor has moved on.
I agree with Catherine on budget and timeline: it takes time to build a trusted online community and you need a minimum of three years to draw the appropriate conclusions.
* Banco Sabadell - 'How the social media is impacting marketing communication and the next marketing wave': Pol and I share a similar passion for social media. We are both active users of social media sites like facebook, linkedin or twitter. I invite you to check Pol's presentation on slideshare. Pol insisted on the importance of being transparent, honest, and managing your community.
He also introduced the audience to Banco Sabadell's mashup with google calendar, their page on facebook, their YouTube channel and their Twitter feed. 'Loyalty = Economy of emotion'. More next week in my video interview with Pol.
Interview During the 1-day event, I managed to interview three of the key speakers and one of the most famous French bloggers. Please note that the interview with Jean-Michel is only my second interview in French (the first one was with Pierre Chappaz, Kelkoo's Founder, shot in Switzerland back in November 2007)
The Visible Banking Page on Facebook I am delighted to announce that The VB page counts 253 fans to date. The page has now enough fans to create some solid conversation. Thank you all for spreading the word.
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.
My goal is to better understand your behaviour and your expectations from a social network provided by a financial institution. Thanks for spending just a couple of minutes of your precious time to fill the questionnaire, and for spreading the word around you.
Posted items - industry news There are now 73 posted items. Please find below the latest topics covered: * Mint goes to the White House * Banks and Credit Unions on Twitter New Fans Please find below the names and a short description of my Fans number 151 to 160 (sorted by chronological order):
152.Manuel Cantalapiedra (Spain): Manuel, could you please leave a comment to introduce yourself and confirm your company and job title? 153.Christophe Houzé, Senior Internet Manager at MMA (France): Christophe and I were both speaking at the EFMA "Internet et Mobile" event in Paris in December 2008. Christophe delivered a good presentation on his recent initiative online, MonMobileAdore.com.
154.Maria Tsantarolaki, ATM Team Supervisor- Remote Channels at Bank Millennium(Greece):
158.Anna Codina, Business Development Manager at Strands (Spain): Strands is the company which designed BBVA's online community "tu cuentas". I invite you to check my social media directory.
159.Emily Wong (UK): Emily, could you please leave a comment to introduce yourself and confirm your company and job title? 160.Gaetan Moreau-Tenaud (France): Gaetan, could you please leave a comment to introduce yourself and confirm your company and job title?
Discussion Board I invite you to participate to the four discussions available so far: * Promote your favourite blog on Banking 2.0 / Online Finance! (9 posts) * How important is it for a bank to be on Facebook? (7 posts) * Business Networking: Is Facebook threatening up Linkedin? (4 posts) * What would you like to find on the Visible Banking page? (3 posts)
Reviews So far, there is only one review from Aden.
Here I am, blogging, in Paris, in the reception of the hotel after a short night sleep. Before heading off to the EFMA event on Social Media, I wanted to make sure to relay a couple of news and mention my excellent dinner yesterday.
Innovation dinner Yesterday, I had a great time catching up with a few fellow innovators in banking and online finance.
We shared our views on many topics such as innovation (disruptive vs incremental), social media (education, key challenges, success criteria, engagement model, tactical vs strategic), twitter, facebook, personal finance management, social lending, and mobile banking.
Wesabe launches personal finance platform for credit unions and banks Source:Debbie Pfeifer @ Wesabe
Social personal finance website Wesabe today announced the launch of
Wesabe SpringBoardTM, a web-services-based version of its award-winning
money management tools and community features for banks and credit
unions.
Marc Hedlund, CEO of Wesabe: "With the recent upheaval in the banking industry and
the economy, we've been hearing from more and more financial
institutions who want to better connect with their members and help
them through these uncertain times". SpringBoard quickly arms financial institutions with our proven
personal finance tools, the latest community features, and a vast
database of collective consumer wisdom. In addition to enhancing
existing customer relationships, SpringBoard also helps credit unions
and banks attract and service new members, including disenfranchised
customers who don't feel secure in their current institution, as well
as a new generation of web-savvy users."
This move had to be expected. Now Wesabe positions itself more as an enabler than a disruptor. (we talked about this common dilemna for startups in the online finance space quite extensively last night before dinner with Frederic and Jean-Christophe)
I have mixed feelings about this move though. I personnally believe that Wesabe's strategy and USP are not clear anymore. Now, they are kind of competing directly with the likes of Yodlee and Jwaala. And I am sure everybody is expecting a response from Mint.com soon.
Entropia Universe gets real world banking licence Source:finextra.co.uk
'The company behind Entropia Universe - an online role-playing game that has a cash economy - has been granted a real world banking licence by Swedish regulators, enabling it to set up a virtual central bank.'
I am starting a new series of short posts entitled "Social Media in Banking - Smart Marketing".
My goal is to understand how financial institutions market their social media initiatives, and identify the best practices. Let's find out if the most experimental financial institutions in social media really do a great job marketing their initiatives on their own website!
In my posts, I will focus on the public website of the banks and
financial institutions active in social media: I will check the amount
of exposure on the homepage or the category pages, the format of the
marketing message (text or banner) and the landing pages.
It is challenging enough to convince your senior management of the value of social media and find a budget to start leveraging this increasingly popular new media channel, so don't make the most common mistake which is to spend too much money on advertising, too soon. As a matter of fact, you shouldn't have to spend any money at all to promote your social media initiatives if you managed to connect with your members. Remember, PEOPLE First! Let your members, the prominent bloggers, the journalists, your clients, and (don't forget them!) your employees spread the word.
Start promoting your social media initiatives on your intranet, on your online banking, and on your public website. Your goal must be to quickly reach a critical mass of members to give a reason to your online community to visit your site, (ideally) contribute on regular basis, and promote your initiative.
Banks in Scandinavia: Jyske Bank, Nykredit and SEB Today, I will focus on three Scandinavia banks sorted by alphabetical order: Jyske Bank, Nykredit and SEB.
Jyske Bank: video & online TV At the top of Jyske Bank's main homepage (Danish and English), you will find the four latest videos from jyskebank.tv.
The frequency of posting is impressive, the bank clearly believes in online video and they allocated a sizable budget to produce quality clips with their leading experts. Jyske Bank wants to compete directly against the news channels and media broadcasters in Denmark.
On Nykredit's homepage, you can find a banner which launches the webdesk client and a text link which directs to their blogs.
SEB: social networking with theBenche.com
On SEB's Corporate and Institutions category page, you can find a sizable banner which points to the Benche, the online community for Trade Finance professionals launched by SEB last year.
Since I started blogging on Visible-Banking.com back in February 2007, I have developed excellent relationships not only with my peers in banking and financial services, digital marketers from various industries, but also with the founders and CEOs of some of the most innovative startups in the online finance space.
Like my fellow prominent industry bloggers such as Jim Bruene (netbanker.com), Chris Skinner (thefinanser.co.uk), or William Azaroff (azaroff.com), I receive a fair bit of correspondence from the PR firms representing those startups, banks, and credit unions.
Social Networking and blogging made it easier for PR professionals to identify the sources which matter, and prioritize their effort and time to focus on building trusted relationships subject matter experts. But based on my experience most PR firms still don't get it.
The most common mistake is to send a generic email to offer to introduce me to the CEO, even though I have already shot a couple of video interviews with him... They should also stop sending pdf files in favour of a link to a blog post for instance. Not only it is easier to share on the Visible Banking Page on facebook or link from Visible-Banking.com, but it is a great way to drive traffic to their client website.
Please find below the points I made at the event. I believe most bloggers will share my views.
Dos * Familiarize yourself with my blog first and check any previous references of your client * Reference one of my latest posts in your email * Make it easy for me to relay the info, stop sending pdfs! * Give me something special: embargoed press releases, exclusive statistics, access to the Founder, CEO, or a key user
Don'ts * Don't send me a generic email which doesn't acknowledge my knowledge of the company and the relationship I already have with the Senior Management. * Don't send a press release in pdf format
Social Media is all about being transparent and honest to drive advocacy... isnt' it? Please find below an extract of the email (without the name of the financial institution mentioned) I received last week from "a Top Interactive Agency" in the US.
"I am writing you on behalf of Bank XYZ. We
noticed that you write about internet banking and social media on
“Visible Banking”. We feel your blog is an excellent resource for
financial professionals looking for uncensored advice on how to market
their company. Your unique business experiences make your blog an
exceptional resource for the online banking industry.
Since
your blog provides an outstanding service to online banks, we feel your
site is the perfect vehicle for spreading the word about our business
banking products. We would like to offer you the opportunity to publish
unique articles and resources written by our team of writers
exclusively for your Visible Banking blog. If there are any specific
topics you would like to feature, please let us know and we will work
with you to create a tailored message. The only condition being that
you will agree to include 2-3 references to Bank XYZ banking products."
What can I say? I must admit that I wasn't expecting such a message from a well-known agency, it goes against all the best practices in blogging...
Any thoughts? I invite you to share your feedback and anecdotes from previous exchanges with PR firms.
“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
So far, there is only one review from Aden.
Recent Comments