Being a blogger about banking law for over six years, I’ve
developed an interested in social media use by banks, and I’ve posted about the
topic on this blog (when I can tear myself away from the siren call of bashing
bank regulators, stealing walkers from the elderly, and stuffing cats in the
microwave). In the course of my travels around the country speaking about the legal
aspects of this topic, I served on a panel with a smart, engaging speaker named
Shari Storm (pictured to the left), a published author of a book on business management principles, mother of three little girls, and also the Chief Marketing Officer for Seattle-based Verity Credit
Union. Verity was an “early adopter” of social media as a branding and
marketing tool, including the use of blogs that are written by the institution's employees and that are hosted on the credit union's web site. When people ask me to point them to
examples of financial institutions that seem to “get it” in the effective use
of social media, I always point them in the direction of Verity.
Recently, I became aware of a social media campaign that Shari
developed for Verity that involved the credit union’s blog, Youtube.com videos, a
contest, and the credit union’s members competing with one another to promote
the credit union through social media. I was impressed, and although pure marketing
and branding issues are something that I only occasionally address, I asked
Shari to give a webinar for BankLawStuff on the campaign and what she and
Verity learned about social media through the process, and she agreed. It’s
being presented this Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. Central Time. If a reader of this
blog isn’t interested in the topic, he or she might pass it along to their institution’s
marketing personnel.
Computerworld ran
an article Friday about the gap between the desire of consumers to interact
with companies through social media and the ability for businesses to do so.
Banks and other financial institutions have been notoriously slow to adopt the “new
media” as compared to other business that interact with consumers and I don’t
see that trend suddenly changing.
"Social media is changing the way businesses, customers and employees interact, and this creates significant opportunities for contact centers and the enterprise as a whole to leverage the integration of these tools into business
processes," said Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala in a statement.
"As integration of social media improves within the contact center and
with unified
communications and collaboration, businesses can improve customer
interactions and positively impact employee productivity and
collaboration."
The study notes that businesses may not be using social networking sites or adopting enterprise
2.0 tools fast enough to satisfy many of their customers.
Yankee and Siemens Enterprise reported that nearly 60% of those surveyed said company
outreach through social media would make them more loyal to that company. Most
of those surveyed said they want companies to monitor
social networks for customer comments and complaints.
What that tells me is that those institutions that have “gotten with the program” concerning social media are opening up a wide lead on those that still start a fire by rubbing two sticks together. I think that gap may only grow wider as banks slug it out for customers in an economy that remains in the doldrums.
