Finance & Online Communities - SEB Invites Cash Management Pros to Join TheBenche.com Hoping to Quickly Grow its Member Base

I love seeing financial institutions trying to leverage social media to better engage with their clients or their target markets online. But I must point out straight away that launching an online community from scratch is unarguably the hardest thing to do: not only you have to drive awareness of the platform to increase the number of visits and hopefully registration, then you have to give your members a good reason to come back on a regular basis, and an even better reason to spend some of their precisous time to contribute there instead of more established websites or communities.
 
Building an active online community takes lots of effort, time, budget, and a long-term vision: it would be inappropriate to plug your community off after just 12 months simply because you didn't manage to reach a critical mass of members or a decent level of activity on the platform. More importantly, you have to RESPECT your members for the time they spent on your platform. What if Linkedin was to shut down next week? How would you feel after investing so much time building your online profile? I guaranty you I know how I would feel, and I won't put it into words in this post!
  
In the last 18 months, a few online communities were terminated such as Fortis' innovative network for entrepreneurs, Join2Grow.biz, Advanta's Ideablob, or Capital One's Slingshot. I wish they all had a contingency plan in place, an "exit strategy".

Virtually every company which failed:
* spent too much money upfront on the interface or driving too much traffic to the platform too soon,
* didn't focus on community management,
* didn't fully leverage social media channels like twitter, facebook or linkedin to spread the word,
* didn't manage to articulate the value of their service or REWARD their members for their time and contribution.
 
Having said that, a few financial institutions are doing it right: Bank of America's smallbusiness online community or the OPENForum by American Express.

SEB's TheBenche.com ¦ Your Financial Community (Formerly "Trade Community")
I already covered TheBenche.com on Visible Banking. I invite you to read my post from June 09 Happy Six-Month Anniversary to 'The Benche', SEB's Online Community for Trade Finance Professionals! 1,500 Companies/Members - Visitors from 170 countries. By the way, SEB did a great job responding on their Forum.
 
I still enjoy the very concept of the Benche which is (was?) to create a global commmunity for Trade Finance professionals: give them a platform to find insightful industry related content, network with their peers, share their views, build their profile, and get access to tools to increase their productivity.
 
Two days ago Hakan Aldrin, the Benche's Sheriff (??), reached out to the members to officially welcome the Cash Management professionals to the Benche.
 
a Marketing Coup to Quickly Increase its Member Base?
I am not questionning SEB's motivation, the bank truly wants to create something special and provide a valuable service to one of its target market. Like any other communities, The Benche is surely struggling to grow its member base, let alone the level of activity from the members. Moreover they launched 18 months ago, and it costs a decent amount of money to host such as community, so I expect more and more pressure from the Management to see some results. The size of the community is always one of the key indicators.
 
I believe this announcement is more of a marketing coup than a fundamental change of strategy or redesign exercise. First of all the interface is almost identical for both Trade and Cash but for the colour. Then both business areas are very close. Most of the content so far is flagged for, and presented to, both business areas.
 
I wish SEB the best of luck in this new milestone for the Benche, and I am curious to see the impact on the member base. I also wonder how the existing community will react to this slight change of focus.

Your Focus is your Strenght
The more focused and the more relevant, the better for a community especially in B2B. I am concerned The Benche is now en route to compete against larger, more established, online communities for finance professionals...
 
Let me mention two other interesting topics: REWARDING your contributors and asking for member feedback.
 
More Visibility For the Most Active Members
In case you missed it, on March 19th The Benche introduced a mechanism (stars) to give more visibility to its most active contributors.
I welcome this initiative. Nevertheless, I wonder how much more visibility the best contributors will get on the platform? What is the reward in addition to a couple of stars on your profile? Do they plan to display the most active members on the homepage like BoA does on its award winning community? Also, reaching the 500 comments mark seems out of this world, doesn't it?
 
Excellent idea, but it needs to be a bit more attractive to urge more people to contribute.
 
Member Feedback & Social Media
Hakan is keen to gather member feedback as often as possible, which is a good thing to do as long as you keep your members updated and show them the enhancements to the platform based on their feedback.
  
I still think that SEB is missing out on social media and could make a better use of their twitter page (only 45 followers - 25/03/2010) and facebook page (205 fans - 25/03/2010) to increase the visibility of the Benche and its members.
 
It is also a good opportunity to reward the best ideas / comments, and make the most of your presence on facebook and twitter. For instance, invite your members to leave their suggestions on your facebook page, and have members vote for the best ones. The winners could be featured on the blog or in the search results... Hakan, I invite you to give me a shout! ;-)
 
Related Articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs)

Citibank & Blogging - A Tale of 2 Tales: Citibank Launches a Blog at New.Citi.com But Makes a Faux-Pas at Blog.Fabulis.com

I found out about Citi's new blog launch on Jim Bruene's excellent NetBanker blog, and I recommend you read Jim's take.
 
I don't want to re-invent the wheel, so I won't insist on the design of the blog or the number of comments. Yes I agree with Jim, it is a good idea and definitely a step forward for the bank which is trying to be more transparent.

I decided to write this post because I found a few interesting pieces of news while I was assessing the visibility of the blog on Citi's website and its online coverage.

Search on Google.com - "citi blog"
This is what I found on Google:
The Fabulis Case
The long story short: Citi launched its brand new blog on February 1st. Three weeks later, Jason Goldberg, Founder & CEO of fabulis, published
citibank is so not fabulis on his blog.

Please find below a extract of Jason's post:

Hi everyone.  Jason Goldberg here, founder and ceo of fabulis.

In a bit of strange and disturbing news, fabulis discovered today that someone(s) at Citibank had decided arbitrarily to block fabulis’ bank account due to what was described to us on the phone as “objectionable content” on our blog.  In fact, the account — it turns out — was blocked a few days ago without anyone letting us know about it by phone or email.
(...)

When did Citibank start reviewing blogs to decide who can bank with them?
Calls into Citibank tonight resulted in a temporary lifting of the block while a compliance officer is asked to re-review our website on Thursday. Stay tuned … we’ll update you on this shocker as we learn more. (...)
 
The story was covered by ZDNet.com the following day, and Reuters.com published a comprehensive summary of the whole story on March 5th.
 
Please find below a paragraph from the Reuters article:
Twenty four hours after Goldberg went public, Citi reversed course and Bill Brown, who oversees the bank’s Manhattan branches, issued an email apology to Goldberg, in which he said “statements that were made by any Citi representative related to the content of your website were inappropriate and made in error.”

It reminded me of the Bank of America story from last september and the DEBTORS REVOLT BEGINS NOW! video on YouTube which now counts over 500,000 views and over 6,000 ratings.
 
You will see my point in Ann Minch's video update DEBTORS UPDATE: BANK OF AMERICA RESPONDS!!!.



Search on Citi.com - "blog"
I couldn't find any mention of the blog on Citi's website which didn't really come as a surprise.
 


 
 
New.Citi.com
Now, it is time to share my comments on the blog.
 
Call to Action
The tag line for the New Citi blog is "Citi is Changing and You Can Help". The bank urges people to ask their questions and share their suggestions... in just 200 characters. You have to be pretty concise! ;)
 
First of all, I believe it would be interesting to see the list of suggestions and questions, categorized if possible. Moreover, I am curious to find out how the Citi team identify the most interesting ones, how they plan to respond, and how those questions will impact their editorial line on the blog.

Contributors
Most of the articles were posted by "Citi" i.e. whoever is in charge of producing the content for the blog. This is far too impersonal and doesn't fit the raison d'etre of a blog. To the contrary Citi should take this opportunity to give a voice to its employees and give their audience the opportunity to connect more with the content.
 
Even though it is great to see a post from the CEO himself, Vikram Pandit, How Citi is changing., the message is too polished and comes flat. It could easily have been written by the CEO office.

I would like to clarify straight away that in all fairness you can't really expect to see a CEO of such a sizable banking group commit to produce specific articles on regular basis on a blog. On the other hand, I strongly believe that the video format is a perfect fit for busy Senior Executives. Words often fall flat, and It is important to see the passion, the determination, and the leadership.

If you are looking for best practices from Banking Senior Executives, I would point you to Peter Aceto, President & CEO at ING Direct Canada who brilliantly demonstrates his leadership on twitter @CEO_INGDIRECT, and I would invite you to follow Gerd Schenkel, Managing Director of UBank, on twitter @GerdSchenkel. I have identified 40+ Senior Execs contributing on twitter, blogs, facebook, or YouTube. I invite you to check my list of Senior Executives on twitter.
 
Comments & Conversations
The American Banking News journalist reports that customers use the blog to complain and that some people were suspicious regaring positive comments which "might have been written by Citibank employees".

That is old news. Any financial institution, if not any company from any industry, which launched a blog experienced the same skepticism at first. It is their commitment to post on regular basis and respond to comments which helped them change people's perception.
 
I know it is early stage and Citi will surely learn and improve, but I am a bit concerned with the low number of responses posted on the blog by the Citi team. Let me use the most commented post as example, How Citi is changing.: 60 commments were left including only 3 responses from Citi. It seems a bit low for a blog which aims to create dialogue and a team which promise they're listening, don't you think?
 
Please note that citi forces you to give your email address to leave a comment. Even though I doubt it, it means that the Citi team may respond to the comments directly via email. I still believe they should prove their total commitment by responding to most of the comments on the blog.
 
I wonder who moderate the blog, how often Citi check it for new comments, and what their selection criteria is for deciding on who to respond to.

Even though the Citi team has to do better than that, it is good to see another large financial institution blogging. And I am confident they will improve. After all, the social media motto is "live and learn", isn't it? ;)
 
 
Related Articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Interview with Steve Kietz, CEO at Mobile Money Ventures
* Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs)

Wells Fargo Celebrates its 4 Years of Blogging by Launching its 6th Blog, The Environmental Forum

On Friday, someone started chatting with me on Facebook while I was uploading some of my latest video interviews on the Visible Banking page. I was delighted to find a few words from Ed Terpening, WF's VP Social Media who gave me the heads up on Wells Fargo latest social media initiative, hence this post. Thanks Ed! ;)
   
In the last 5 years, Wells Fargo arguably became one of the most experienced banks worldwide in social media and in dealing with the delicate challenge offered by user-generated content. The bank launched an innovation lab, a few user-generated video contests, and leveraged virtual worlds, twitter, and of course blogs. A couple of years ago, Wells Fargo became one of the founding members of the Social Media Business Council (formerly known as the Blog Council).
I invite you to read some of my previous posts on Visible Banking.
  
Wells Fargo, the Most Experienced Bank in Blogging
Four years and two days after the launch of their very first blog, Guided by History, Wells Fargo launched the Environmental Forum, its 6th blog, 5 publicly available plus the CEO blog for their commercial banking customers.
   
In my video interview with Tim Collins, WF's SVP Experiential Marketing, Tim confirmed that blogging was just an experiment when they launched Guided By History back in March 2006. Very few banks were blogging back then, so the blog was supposed to be temporary and last for roughly three months... In January 2009, they revolutionized the banking world when they launched The Wells Fargo Wachovia Blog to cover the sensitive merger with the two banks... What a journey the Stage Coach has experienced in the past 4 years!
 
Wells Fargo's extensive hands-on experience in blogging is second-to-none in the cautious banking world: I highly recommend you check their social media guidelines and their excellent content strategy (12-month editorial line, dozens of contributors from all across the organization, tone of the articles, and info shared which goes far beyond just sharing some news on the bank). Brilliant.

The Environmental Forum
So far, two posts have been published on the blog and the team identified 4 key categories of articles: Customers, Communities, Team members, Operations. This is a good number. The less, the better.

It looks like Wells Fargo has identified 4 key contributors: Mary Wenzel, the director of Environmental Affairs, Ashley Grosh, Project Manager for Environmental Affairs, Krista Van Tassel, Environmental Affairs team, and Stephanie Rico who is in charge of external communications and marketing for WF's environmental efforts.
 
I enjoy the design of the Wells Fargo blogs, simple with a clear call to action. For the time being, the main call to action on this blog is to visit the bank's environment affairs and green buildings pages on their corporate website, or download a 7-page pdf document. One must say that the landing page is far from being as sleek as the blog they just left: too much text and so many links to choose from... The Green Buildings page is slighty better though.
  
Leveraging social media is a great way to give more visibility to existing content on your site as well as existing initiatives from the bank. It gives you a unique opportunity to support your effort using a different tone of voice, and better connect not only with your clients but the american nation. At the same time, you will urge people to get back to you with their comments, their concerns, their ideas.
 
In the last few years, corporate blogging established itself as one of the most efficient, and cost effective, ways to create conversations and drive brand advocacy.





















The Blog Homepage
Just a few words to tell you how much I like the redesigned homepage for the Wells Fargo blogs. It is sleek, simple, and again there is a clear call to action. You are invited to:
* leave your feedback
* follow the bank on the twitter account dedicated to customer support @Ask_WellsFargo (one of the Top 10 most followed accounts on my Visible Banking Twitter Watch with over 1,000 accounts in 60 countries)
* connect on Facebook and MySpace. Historically, WF has never been very active on those social networking sites. Neither has the bank ever tried to launch its own online community, contrary to Bank of America or American Express.
The team listed all the key social media initiatives from the bank. This is essentially their own social media newsroom.












Good Level of Activity and Traffic
Thanks to their commitment to blogging, Wells Fargo consistantly increased the amount of traffic to blog.wellsfargo.com. A year ago, the blogs enjoyed a cumulative 17,000 unique visitors per months. In October 2009, they reached a peak of over 30,000 unique visitors and now they are back to a good 25,000 monthly unique visitors.
 
Now, I would like to share with you some of the stats from my Visible Banking Blog Watch Series (now I am tracking 199 blogs in 20 countries).
 
Between September 2009 and February 2010 Wells Fargo published an average of 8 posts on all their four public blogs. Nevertheless, the level of activity varies quite a bit from just a modest 1.18 comments per post on average for the Student LoanDown, up to a 11.18 comments per post on average for the Wells Fargo - Wachovia blog which is one of the highest level of engagement in the industry.
 
A few most recent commented posts:
* The Wells Fargo Wachovia blog: 35 comments - A comment on your comments, 18 Feb 2010
* The Wells Fargo Wachovia blog: 61 comments - The Mailbag: Your deposit account numbers and Envelope-FreeSM ATMs, 10 Dec 2009
* Guided By History: 40 comments - Caption needed, 06 Jan 2010
 
Related Articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Interview with Jim Smith, EVP - Head of Internet Services at Wells Fargo
* Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs)

FriendsClear.com - Interview with Jean-Christophe Capelli, Co-Founder & CEO

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I invite you to watch the video I shot last week in Paris with Jean-Christophe Capelli. I met JC for the first time in NYC, the day before the very first Finovate event back in 2007. Time flies... I am glad we finally managed to shoot an interview about the innovative FriendsClear.com, the first P2P Lending marketplace in France.
 
We covered a lot during this session. I asked JC to introduce FriendsClear, talk about the challenges he had to overcome to launch in France, the partnership he managed to put in place with Credit Agricole PG to make the service available to the French SMEs, the successful contest they launched to increase the visibility of the service (with 120 applications from startups and SMEs).
 
Even though Jean-Christophe couldn't share much stats except they are closing on to 500,000 euros of loans, he shared some exclusive info on their international growth strategy... Merci encore JC! ;-)


I will be following FriendsClear closely as there is more to come from the French startup in 2010: the company is recruiting, they will increase the number of partnerships and lead referrals, they plan to launch applications on Facebook, they are thinking of organizing more frequent competitions for entrepreneurs...

I am curious to see how the relationship with Credit Agricole will develop, and if, or how, the other leading French banks will respond. The main remaining question mark is about the potential for P2P Lending in France: it will be interesting to see if the French people are confident enough to lend money to strangers via the platform. From my opinion, the biggest potential lies indeed with startups and SMEs.
Either way, good luck to the dynamic FriendsClear team!
 
Home Page (20 March 2010)


Contest - mon projet pro


Related Articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Interview Doug Dolton, Global CEO at Zopa
* Interview Chris Larsen, Founder & CEO at Prosper.com
* Interview with Tiffany Fox, Communications Director at Prosper.com
* Interview with Patrick Gannon, SVP Loans at Lending Club
* Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs)

Visible Banking Twitter Watch #18: 1,088 Accounts / 60 Countries / 486,147 Followers - Top 10s Banks (Germany & Netherlands)

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In March 2009, I started tracking the financial institutions (FIs) on twitter. From only 54 accounts back then, I am thrilled to announce that I am now tracking over 930 accounts.
  
I believe my initiative is unique, definitely exciting and rewarding, and full of great insights. I aim to share some key stats with you, my blog readers, my twitter followers, and my facebook fans, and provide some second-to-none recommendations to my clients.
     
From now on, I will post regular summaries of the Visible Banking Twitter Watch on my blog. I am aiming for monthly updates. For more regular updates, I invite you to follow me on twitter @Visible_Banking and search twitter for updates with #VBTW.
 
My ambition is to establish my Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Blogs, Facebook and YouTube) as The first point of reference in the Finance industry. I aim to demonstrate that the industry can leverage social media, even though very few FIs do it well mainly due to lack of a subject matter expert. Indeed it is good to know how the likes of Dell, Starbucks and Toyota successfully leverage social media, but the Finance industry is a totally different ball game.

You work for a financial institution? You would like to leverage twitter more efficiently, learn how your peers and competitors are using the popular micro-blogging service, or find out more about the best practices and the most successful initiatives in the finance industry?
I invite you to send me an email or call me on +44 7736 446 357.
 
The Global Picture
Twitter is a great tool for real time market research, the data is constantly changing. It is a work in progress, so please do not hesitate to flag any missing initiatives.
 
Please note I used the data collected on 3rd March 2010. I was then tracking 1,088 accounts in 60 countries.
 
Financial Institutions Must Support Their Customers on Twitter


In case you missed it, I invite you to check my latest presentation on twitter and customer service: Financial Institutions Must Support Their Customers on Twitter.

 


Spamming & Hacking: we all know that twitter is not the most secure social media service out there. Your account has been hacked... so what? Deal with it! Is it such a big issue? Is it a reason not to support your customers on the popular micro-blogging platform? Certainely not! You just have to deal with it. Financial institutions and their customers musn't share any personal information on twitter. And remember... Don't become the spammer!
 
I invite you to check the presentation I mentioned previously and watch two videos I published a few months ago:
* Financial Institutions + Spam + Twitter #1: You've been hacked... So what? Deal With it!
* Financial Institutions + Spam + Twitter #2: Don't Be The Spammer!

Summary - February 2009

Out of the 1,088 accounts, the top 50 accounts produced 21.31% (-0.29) of the new updates, added a sizable 38.38% (-5.80) of all the new followers, and started to follow 37% (-5.7) of the new following overall. 

It is another proof that 1. content is king, 2. posting on regular basis pays off, 3. following people is a winner (but please be cautious with your following strategy).
 
One musn't forget that 1. some of the top accounts are stalling on their following strategy with ratios following / followers superior to 100%, 2. measuring the numbers on twitter is important but you need to assess the quality of your following & follower bases, 3. the way you listen on twitter and engage with your follower base (tone, content, responses) is critical and not entirely reflected in the stats I produce in my VB Twitter Watch Series.
 
Key milestones
Congrats to the following financial institutions for reaching an important milestone in January!
* 5,000: OPENForum (US), StateFarm (US)
* 3,000: CitiGroupJobs (US)
* 2,000: Scottrade (US)
* 1,000: Actibva (Spain), Rabobank (Netherlands), Westpac (Australia), Allianz_de (Germany)
*   500: fabandt (US), COPCU (US), USCCU (US), capitolcu (US), Raboblog (Netherlands), CIBBVA (Spain)
    
Twitter anniversaries
In case you missed my updates on @Visible_Banking, I invite you to check my list of Social Media anniversaries (Twitter, YouTube and Blogs) in February.
Please do not hesitate to leave a comment and flag any missing key news, milestones or anniversaries.
 
Top 10s - Most Followed Banks
Since I started this research, I've received regular requests for twitter statistics from all over the word.
Karl Flinders, Deputy News Editor at ComputerWeekly in the UK, has been ome of the first persons to use my stats. I invite you to check his post Photos: Top 10 Banks on Twitter.
  
My top 10s are based on the total number of followers. Please note that the data used in this report was collected on 2nd March 2010.

Top 10 Banks - Germany
Please find below the top 10 most followed twitter accounts from banks in Germany tracked in my Visible Banking Twitter Watch.
I am currently tracking a total of 75 accounts from bank (87 accounts in total) in Germany.












 
Top 10 Banks - Netherlands
Please find below the top 10 most followed twitter accounts from banks in the Netherlands tracked in my Visible Banking Twitter Watch.
I am currently tracking a total of 27 accounts (31 accounts in total) in the Netherlands.

 
More Twitter Statistics
* Most Followed FIs: 518 (+30) accounts have 200+ followers, of which 237 (+26) have 500+ followers.
* The 1,000+ Followers Club: 94 (+9) accounts have 1,000+ followers.
* Restricted tweets: 22 accounts (-2).
* Inactive accounts: 113 (-1) accounts haven't sent any updates in February 2009.
  
Twitter accounts added to my List in February 2010
In February 2010, I added the following 59 accounts to my list: _laposte, 50prizes50days, Aff_VW_Bank, ApexIB, BaBeeCard, bank_of_japan, banregio, BarclaycardDE, BarclaycardJobs, barclaycardldn, bforbank, blinklife, Buergschaftbank, caixasabadell, citizensbankrb, clearcash, comdirectbank, cortalconsors, DeutscheBank, deutschlandcard, DN_no, dsbbank, dsbbanksport, ecb_europa_eu, Eurocard, EvianMasters_SG, Goldlinkplc, hanseatic_bank, HappyStateBank, IBAOntario, IdahyCU, INGDIRECTHawaii, KTB_Care, MCFoundation, MCPriceless, netbank_AG, OYWbySG, PNCNews, PostFinance, prepaid_card, PSD_Bank_RR, quirinbankAG, raibarankweil, RBS_Economics, ruv_de, ruv24_de, scb_thailand, SCBcreditcard, SCBEasy, scbsonline, scottishlife, ScottishPension, SilverPrepaid, SimplyhealthUK, SkandiaPRs, TheBlueCardLife, ufxbank, webcaredsbbank, WeloveLV.
   
Related Articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Interview - Matthias Kroener, Founder & CEO at Fidor AG
* Interview - Daan Josephus Jitta, SVP Direct Channels & Innovation at ABN AMRO
* Interview - Edwin Van Raalte, Snr Manager Business Development at Rabobank
* Overview Social Media & Banking in Germany
* Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs)

#VBBuzz #1 - Prosper.com, P2PLending, Social Media, #TalkTaboo - Wed 10 Mar @ 6pm GMT

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Since pretty much the launch of my Visible Banking blog, back in February 2007, I started interviewing the thought leaders, the innovators, the social media advocates in the banking and (online) finance industry. I love meeting passionate people, people with a vision, people who wants to change the world and improve other's lives. I invite you to watch my 70+ video interviews available on VB so far.
  
In February 2009, I started using twitter to better understand how to engage on this popular medium, share my insights and views on social media in banking, start conversations, and I met some great people from all over the world. I also wanted to find out how well financial institutions are engaging and supporting their clients. My monthly updates from the Visible Banking Twitter Watch series quickly became one of my most popular posts on my blog. I invite you to follow me @Visible_Banking and look for tweets with #VBTW.
 
The VBBuzz Series: Towards More Interactive Interviews
I am always keen to try something new. From now on, in addition to my video interviews, I will organize and deliver interactive and insightul discussions on twitter. My goal is to find out more on the most innovative social media campaigns and initiatives launched by financial institutions and startups.
 
How it works: I will post an article on the VB Blog to introduce the discussion and the participants and make sure you are aware of the date and time when the conversation takes place. I will invite you to: 1. come back to me with your questions before the event, 2. track / join the conversation on twitter using #VBBuzz.
Following the interview / chat, I will post a transcript on VB with the best tweets and without the noise.
 
VBBuzz #1 - Prosper.com's "Let's Talk About the Taboo!"
It is my great pleasure to kick off this new VBBuzz series with one of the most innovative companies in online finance, Prosper.com, and a brilliant individual, Tiffany Fox, their Communications Director.
 
I am also hoping to have a few other special guests tomorrow evening. Stay tuned!
 
During our chat, I will ask Tiffany to share with us the latest stats and news from prosper.com, and she will answer my questions on their latest campaign Let's Talk About the Taboo.
 
It is an excellent initiative, which has its challenges. Prosper will need to fully leverage social media to capture a decent number of stories in such a short period of time. I invite you to watch my initial comments on video: Prosper.com's Let's Talk About the Taboo: Collecting 100,000 Stories in 5 Weeks? Leave that to Robin Hood! shared on my blog a few days ago.
 
I am particulary interested in finding more on:
* the thinking process behind this campaign,
* Prosper's marketing / social media strategy and expectations
* the opinion from the american people, and the other startups also focused on helping americans achieve financial wellbeingness.
 
I can't wait to get hold of the stats following the end of the campaign to find out what's the proportion of stories from Prosper's own users. One of my key questions, beyond the 5-week campaign, is how the talented Prosper team do plan to use this excellent input to achieve something even greater, and help improve the lives of the 307+ million american people.
    
Tiffany's Bio
Tiffany Fox is V.P. of Communications for Prosper, the world’s largest peer-to-peer lending marketplace with nearly one million members and over $190 million in loans.  A self-proclaimed financial services geek, Tiffany has been working in the industry for over 15 years.  She began her career in private banking at UBS and in 1997 went on to help build the online financial services public relations practice at Niehaus Ryan Wong.  In 1999, she joined her favorite client, E-Loan, as Director of Communications.  Following the 2005 sale of E-Loan to Popular, Inc., she joined Prosper, a model that E-Loan’s co-founder, Chris Larsen, had been thinking about for years prior to its inception as highlighted in a June 2001 issue of BusinessWeek. 
 
I invite you to watch my video interview with Tiffany at Finovate 2009.


Related articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Coverage - Finovate09
* Coverage - Finovate07 & FinovateStartup08
* Visible Banking Services
* Visible Banking Interviews (70+ Videos)
* Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Finance
* Visible Banking Twitter Watch (710 accounts tracked in 38 countries)

Social Media in Banking & Financial Services - News via Twitter: 01-07 March 2010

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In case you missed them, I listed and categorized some of my favourite tweets from last week (01-07 March) including my tweets and the ones I RTed.
 
I invite you to read three of my most recent posts:
* 126 Social Media Initiatives Launched by Financial Institutions in March
* VB Facebook Watch #2: Tracking 340 Accounts in 49 Countries - Top 20 Pages - Top 20 Applications
* Interview with Jose Antonio Gallego, Online Community Manager at BBVA
* Prosper.com's Let's Talk About the Taboo: Collecting 100,000 Stories in 5 Weeks? Leave that to Robin Hood!
And please make sure your social media initiatives are included in my social media directory.
 
Disaster Support
* Obra Social Caja Madrid activa el Plan de emergencias para Chile http://bit.ly/bPJXTB (by @obrasocialCM)
* Earthquake Relief Efforts: Discover & our Cardmembers donate over $4 million since 1/15/10 Details: http://bit.ly/do9vVV (by @Discover)
 
Interviews
* New blog post: CMO 2.0 Conversation with Larry Flanagan, CMO at MasterCard http://bit.ly/cv2Tyu (by @MasterCardNews)
* Watch my interview w/@joseantoniogall  Online Community Mngr at #bbva http://bit.ly/cgvENJ feat @actibva @predicciones @planta29 #socialmedia
 
Social Lending
* Prosper.com's Let's Talk About the Taboo: Collecting 100,000 Stories in 5 Weeks? Leave that to Robin Hood! http://bit.ly/9EkEy0
* Check out @CreditKarma’s post about its sneak peek of Prosper.com’s new Talk Taboo Campaign, http://shar.es/m3oVP #talktaboo (by @ProsperLoans)

PFM
* Geezeo Announces 1st Mariner Bank's, Kevin Lynch as New Member of Product Advisory Committee http://ow.ly/1dbNT (by @1stMarinerBank)
* See ur spending habits by categories & months w Spend Analyzer + get colorful graphs! http://bit.ly/clgbGU (by @Discover)
* Hey! Take a look at what our customer, Michigan First CU is up to. Alerts via twitter. http://tiny.cc/wn5Xj (by @Jwaala)
 
Contests
* Hey Fans, enter to win an iPod Touch with Northeast Bank! Check out notes to learn how! http://bit.ly/bcNA2O (by @Northeast_Bank)
* TexansCU Hey Stars fans! Bone up on your trivia tonight because tomorrow we're giving away a pair of lower level tickets to the game on March 14th.
* Enter to wint #thehappinessproject click on the contest tab at www.facebook.com/livesolid (by @livesolid)
* Thanks to everyone who played our trivia game! The premium we gave was for a $50 deductible which means that we'd... http://bit.ly/9E9PDo (by @Trupanion)
* And the winner is...Diana de la Rosa! Congratulations :D - and thank you to all our fans - we hit 200! http://bit.ly/dfU57l (by @capitolcu)
* PEMCO's "We're A Lot Like You" campaign was featured in a @CommuniquePR blog today. Thanks @JenGehrt. http://ow.ly/1cWUH (via @PEMCO)
 
Video
* New YouTube video from GEICO: We love our customers and are fanatics about service. With special cameo by Warren Buffet http://bit.ly/9OJkVz (by @GEICO)
* PuckettProtects almost 200 views of my first video post (blog to come soon) on my YouTube channel http://bit.ly/VIDEOLifeInsurance in 48 hours. Very cool!

Twitter
* Classement des sites web et comptes Twitter des banques . Société Générale 3ème compte sur twitter mais 1er en RH! http://ow.ly/1d7OP :) (by @CareersSocgen)
   
Blog
* HOW TO: Create a Successful Company Blog http://bit.ly/aIs1az (by @benphoster)
    
Stats
* Small Biz Doubles Social Media Adoption - eMarketer http://bit.ly/cdk8dV
* Hispanics use of social media is rising; in some cases exceeds non-Hispanics. @tamarabarber runs down the highlights http://cot.ag/c3lAQw
* Twitter should reach 10B tweets tomorrow! Real-time counter: http://tr.im/Qw1q If I tweet every second 'til then, think I could be lucky #10B? (via @StateFarm)
* Facebook revenues could hit $2bn in 2010 http://fwd4.me/0k1 (via @BrandRepublic)
* China's Top 3 Social Network Sites ~ http://bit.ly/d1Igp5 (via @belindaang)
     
Related articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Social Media in Banking - News via Twitter: 22-28 Feb 2010
* Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, YouTube)

Prosper.com's Let's Talk About the Taboo: Collecting 100,000 Stories in 5 Weeks? Leave that to Robin Hood!

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Last week, I noticed a tweet from ProsperLoans which pointed out a post on the Credit Karma blog (I invite you to check my interview with CK's Founder). To my surprise, I couldn't find much info on Prosper.com's own online assets like their site or their corporate blog...

 
I think the Let's talk About the taboo is an excellent intitiative, but I must admit that I am concerned with the expectations from the brilliant Prosper team:
"Odds Of Winning: The odds of winning depend upon the number of eligible entries received during the Term, but are anticipated to be 1 chance in 100,000." (source: Sweepstakes Rules)
 
They need to fully leverage social media to maximize the visibility of the campaign, make the content of the website more sharable, and review the REWARD which is not appealing enough.
By the way, a few url links on the microsite are broken.
 
Initial Comments
I invite you to watch my initial comments on the video I shot on Friday 5th March.


Interviews with Chris Larsen @Finovate 07 & Tiffany Fox @Finovate 09
 
Robin Hood Tax

 Related Articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Coverage: Finovate 09
* Coverage: Finovate 07
* Coverage: FinovateStartup 08
* Interview - Ken Lin, Founder at Credit Karma
* Visible Banking Press Articles & Slides
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series
* The Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services

Interview with Jose Antonio Gallego, Online Community Manager at BBVA

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Last November I was deligthed to accept Jesus Perez's invitation to contribute to the second edition of his BarCampBank Madrid.
I had a great time catching up with my readers and fellow supporters of innovation and social media in the banking industry.
 
As I mentioned several times on Visible Banking, today Spanish banks are leading the way in social media in the broadly conservative European banking industry.
I invite you to check my recent posts on BankInter's Innovation Labs to find a list of social media initiatives from financial institutions such as Banco Sabadell, Caja Navarra and of course BBVA. Also, please check my top 10 Spanish banks on twitter. published in the latest edition of my Visible Banking Twitter Watch Series.
 
BBVA, a Leader in Social Media
BBVA is one of the most engaging and innovative financial institutions online with 10+ initiatives in the social media space, and still counting: from their twitter accounts (BBVA , BBVA_Press or Compass just to name a few), their innovation blog planta29, their virtual career fair, their annual Open Talent contest, their strategic investment in Strands one of the leading PFM solution providers, to their own online communities Tu Cuentas and Actibva focused on helping Spanish people to make better financial decisions and better manage their money. 
 
BBVA Hires Experienced Internet Leaders
BBVA understood that it was important to bring new blood to the organization, people with a fresh approach and a deep understanding of the online world. Most banks aim to become online the equivalent of the Amazon or the Apple of the banking industry. But they need help from outside their organization.  In the last couple of years, BBVA recruited a fair number of digital pros from leading online companies such as eBay and Google to join their innovation and online community teams. Brilliant move.
 
At BarCampBank Madrid, I had the pleasure to eventually meet one of my most enthusiastic supporters, Jose Antonio Gallego, a former category then community manager at eBay.es.
  
Jose Antonio Gallego, Online Community Manager at BBVA, and President at AERCO (Asociación Española de Responsables de Comunidades Online). I invite you to connect with JA on Linkedin, visit his blog "comunidad en la red", and follow him on twitter @joseantoniogall.
 
Jose works closely with the Innovation team to identify and deliver new ways to better engage with their community online in order to achieve various goals such as to increase BBVA's share of voice, change brand perception, or drive both customer acquisition and customer retention.
The Senior Management is committed and the Innovation team is influential. Very exciting job.
  
The Actibva Community
Jose is involved on many projects, but especially on Actibva, the award winning online community launched by BBVA in 2008 (powered by Strands), to offer all the relevant information on finance and economics to its users. Please find more info on Actibva at the end of my post.
 
My Interview with Jose Antonio
I invite you to watch one of my very best video interviews so far. Ladies and gentlemen, Jose Antonio Gallego!


Visible Banking Views
I always urge my clients and my readers to start where it makes sense and don't spend a lot of money upfront: leverage free online services like twitter or blogs, tap into existing sizable trusted communities like facebook, start focusing on a soft topic or initiative like charity work or sport sponsoring, or engaging with your clients on twitter. Social Media = Live and learn.
 
BBVA has been one of the most active large banks in social media. Over the last couple of years, they have increased their presence on most of the social media channels and services available out there.

I love the fact that the Senior Management Team understand the importance of social media and see it as strategic: hiring digital pros from eBay and Google, giving Innovation the required budget and level of influence to make things happen, launching online communities focused on finance and budgeting.
This is very uncommon in the banking industry.
  
Launching your own online community is one of the boldest moves in social media. it requires a larger budget (which goes with higher expectations) and more resources. It is challenging to reach a critical mass of registered users, not mentioning active ones.
 
BBVA's approach to online commnunities is spot on:
* Technology: don't reinvent the wheel, white label a platform from a leading solution provider
* Focus on engaging the community - Internal Community Manager: the platform is not important, your ability to convince of the value of the platform and engage with your members is the key to success. Hire a community manager, don't outsource this important function.
* Think LT: it will take a lot of time and effort to build an online community from scratch. You need to be realistic in terms of targets, and give you enough time to succeed.
* Exit Strategy - Respect your members: think about your exit strategy, just in case your community doesn't take off. You must respect the time your members spent contributing and building their network of contacts. Don't do a Join2Grow by Fortis, a Slingshot by Capital One or a Ideablob by Advanta which all got terminated in the last 12 months for different reasons.
    
More on Jose Antonio and Actibva
Actibva on Twitter: on-demand market info + proactive following strategy
On 20th November, I received an email from Jose Antonio informing me of a new application launched by BBVA to provide Spanish investors on twitter with on-demand real-time market information on Spanish stock prices, foreign exchange, commodity prices and the indexes of the most relevant markets in the world.

I invite you to read the official announcement of the launch of this app on the ActiBva blog. Jose confirmed the idea for this service came as much from the feedback from the community as the desire from the ActiBva team to better serve the Spanish investors in an innovative way.
 
They also implemented an automated following process based on a thorough monitoring of Spanish tweeps covering 20ish key words relevant to the Actibva community.
 
Their following strategy had a positive impact on their growth rate (+240% between Nov09-Feb010) and last month they broke the 1k follower mark and became one of the #85 twitter accounts globally with over 1k followers and #2 in Spain as mentioned in my Visible Banking Twitter Watch #17. Following people is a good way to drive your follower base up the roof, but I recommend to do it wisely. In that case, I would be keen to analyze their follower base to assess "the quality" of their contacts and help BBVA take their twitter strategy to the next level.
 
Video Introduction to Actibva
I invite you to watch a YouTube video with J.A. introducing Actibva back in May 2008.

ActiBva brings together newspapers headlines, blogger reviews, stock market information, and simulators for mortgages, loans and other financial products. In case you missed it, Forrester flagged ActiBva on their prestigious Groundswell radar in June 2009.

Stats for the month of November 09: Actibva had over 100k unique users, 210k page views, 140k visits, and over 2100 registered users.
 
I invite you to join the Actibva community, visit their blog, follow them on twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

BBVA Social Media Slides
Please find below the presentation Jose Antonio delivered at the Banking Innovation Day organized by Microsoft on 19th November (found on the innovacionenbanca.com blog)


Related Articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Pol Navarro, Head of Channels & Innovation at Banco Sabadell
* BBVA Open Talent: Startups, Apply Now to Raise Your Profile &  100,000 Euros!
* Guest Post #4 - Overview of Social Media and Banking in Spain
* Visible Banking Press Articles & Slides
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series
* The Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services

Visible Banking Facebook Watch #2 - February 2010: Tracking 340 Accounts in 49 Countries - Top 20 Pages - Top 20 Applications

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In May 2009, I started tracking the financial institutions (FIs) on facebook.
 
From 128 accounts back then, I am delighted to announce that I am now tracking over 340 pages, groups, users, and applications in over 45 countries. It will always be a work in progress, so please don't hesitate to get back to me to flag any missing initiatives.
  
I believe my initiative is unique, definitely exciting and rewarding, and full of great insights. I aim to share some key stats with you, my blog readers, my twitter followers, and my facebook fans, and provide some second-to-none recommendations to my clients.
      
From now on, I will post regular summaries of the Visible Banking Facebook Watch on my blog. I am aiming for at least one update every two or three months. For more regular updates, I invite you to follow me on twitter @Visible_Banking.
 
My ambition is to establish my Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Blogs, Facebook and YouTube) as The first point of reference in the Finance industry. I aim to demonstrate that the industry can leverage social media, even though very few FIs do it well mainly due to lack of a subject matter expert. Indeed it is good to know how the likes of Dell, Starbucks and Toyota successfully leverage social media, but the Finance industry is a totally different ball game.
 
You work for a financial institution? You would like to leverage the most popular social media sites more efficiently, learn how your peers and competitors are using facebook, or find out more about the best practices and the most successful initiatives in the finance industry?
I invite you to send me an email or call me on +44 7736 446 357.
 
Visible Banking Facebook Watch - Stats
Please find below some stats collected on March 2nd.
* 279 pages, 36 groups, 4 people, 20 applications.
* 1,000+ fans: 81, 5,000+ fans: 31, 10,000+ fans: 18.
* Less than 500 pages: 227.
* 47 countries including Vietnam, Iran, Puerto Rico, Qatar and France.
 
Please feel free to use those insights as long as you mention Visible-Banking.com.
 
Top 20s - Most "Loved" Banks
Please find next the 20 most followed pages I am tracking on VBFW (sorted by name): Absa Bank, Arvest Bank, Bank Mandiri, Bank Rakyat Indonesia, BNI, BNP PARIBAS NET, Chase Community Giving, Citi Argentina - Guía de beneficios, ING DIRECT, J.P. Morgan Global, KBank Live, Livesolid by SunTrust, Quelle est la banque préférée des Haïtiens ? CIC,parce que le monde bouge!, Santander Students (ex Abbey Students), Sparebanken Sogn og Fjordane, Standard Chartered Bank, Standard Chartered UAE, TD Canada Trust - TD Money Lounge, UBank – Backed by NAB, Vanguard.

The top 20 pages have an aggregated total of 2.3m fans ranging from 4.3k-1.988k with an average of 115k fans. This is due mainly to the Chase Community Giving initiative which counts almost 2m fans. Without Chase's page, the average falls to a more relevant 17k fans per page.
 
Top 20 Applications
Please find below the 20 applications I am currently tracking sorted by number of monthly users. 

Related Articles on Visible-Banking.com
* Visible Banking Facebook Watch #1 (September 2009)
* Visible Banking Press Articles & Slides
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series
* The Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services