Ongoing list of Social Media Efforts from Banks, Credit Card, Financial Institutions and Lenders
Jeremiah Owyang has a nice list of the Web 2.0 activities being pursued by financial institutions in the name of serving existing customers and finding new ones.
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Here’s a question I hear from marketers all the time: “We want to launch a corporate blog, but we don’t know how to go about it. Where should we start?”
My answer is that you should start a couple of steps back from where you are. Social media tools – whether they’re blogs, online communities, instructional videos or something else – don’t solve anything unless they address a specific business need. Don’t use social media for its own sake. Use it to accomplish an objective.
Unfortunately, the temptation is difficult to resist. Lots of businesses are experimenting with social media tools these days. It’s natural to think that they know something the rest of us don’t, but the reality is that most people are still kicking tires right now. There are some very successful companies like Apple Computer that are doing nothing with social media because they don’t have to. If the tools aren’t right for your culture or your business, don’t use them.
Whatever you do, don’t start the decision process with technology. The choice of a social media tool is no more relevant to the success of a campaign than is the choice of paint to the structural integrity of a house. Many tools are flexible enough to be used for multiple purposes and some strategic goals require you to leverage many tools in concert.
Stop and consider the problem or opportunity you’re trying to address. Here are a few possible business objectives, with the best tool options listed in parentheses.
Many more examples will be explored in my forthcoming book, Secrets of Social Media Marketing. It will be available this fall and you can pre-order it on Amazon right now. I also recommend reading Groundswell, the new book by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research. It has some excellent advice on how to take a disciplined approach to social media selection.
Note that blogs appear next to every bullet point listed above. That doesn’t mean blogs are a panacea. They are the easiest form of social media to implement, but far greater leverage may derive from more complex tools like customer communities. You should choose media based upon your budget, staff resources and commitment. It’s often best to start small and grow your social media footprint as you become more fluent with the tools. Blogs are a good starting point, but you may need stronger medicine after a while.
Keep in mind the importance of balancing between ease of use, simplicity of deployment and functionality. Many social media tools can be used for multiple purposes. You may be better off starting with a tool that you understand well rather than deploying a somewhat richer solution that carries a steep learning curve.
If you keep the tools secondary and work outward from the business goal, you’re far more likely to reap the rewards of your efforts.
100 Personal Branding Tactics Using Social Media | chrisbrogan.com
A very useful list of tactics you can use to brand yourself (and feed your ego!) using social media tools.
IDS says Web advertising to ‘defy’ economic crisis
Internet advertising will grow about eight times as fast as advertising at large between 2008 and 2012, according to IDC, doubling revenue to over $51 billion. The slow economy will only accelerate the move of advertising dollars online, with video leading the growth. Video advertising expected to grow almost 50% annually through 2012, reaching $3.8 billion.
Social Media and E-Mail Spending to Rise
Quoting:
“More than three-quarters of marketers surveyed said they will increase their social media spending during the next three years, according to Eloqua’s “State of the Marketer” report. A full 74% said they plan to increase their direct e-mail spending while about two-thirds will spend more on mobile texting and SMS.
“Respondents were bullish on online ad spending overall, with nine out of 10 saying they would continue to increase their direct online ad budgets. The spending increases are likely to come at the expense of print ads, since 55% of respondents said they will probably decrease print ad spending in the next three years.”
Worried About Bloggers Dissing Your Company? Read This
Marketers fret constantly about the risk of negativity in the blogosphere. Read this uplifting story of how one entrepreneur engaged with a critical blogger and turned her into a valuable alley.
‘Personality Not Included’: A Podcast with Rohit Bhargava
In this podcast, Paul Dunay interviews Rohit Bhargava, whose book Personality not Included is about how to regain a brand personality.
Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s Intros Avatar, Social Net Campaign
Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurants will turn their social networking pages into virtual outposts. Myspace members will be able to download a branded application and create custom avatars that live in the virtual outlets or a burger-themed living room complete with mechanical bull.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt admits Web 2.0 advertising is small opportunity
In an interview with a German newspaper, Google CEO Eric Schmidt admits that the company has not yet figured out a way to monetize Web 2.0 as an advertising vehicle and may never do so. Quoting:
“MySpace did not monetize as well as we thought. We have a lot of traffic, a lot of page views, but it is harder than we thought to get our ad network to work with social networks. When you are in social network, it is not likely that you´ll buy a washing machine. It is not a long term problem but it is taking us longer than we thought. We are trying new ways, new approaches all the time.” (via Media Post).
Hydrox Redux: Cookie Duels Oreo, Again
Spurred by more than 1,300 phone inquiries and an online petition Kellogg Co. is bringing back the Hydrox cookie, if only temporarily. The company had killed the Hydrox five years ago, ceding the market to competitor Oreo. However, some people missed the Hydrox, and their online agitating convinced Kellogg to give it a try. The revival is only temporary for now, although Kellogg left the door open to a permanent reintroduction if demand is there. (via WOMMA blog).
For Coors Light, a Night Out That Begins on MySpace
Coors has a new campaign called “Code blue” that’s built on the new feature of Coors Light beer bottles that turns the color of the mountains pictured on the labels from white to blue when the beer gets cold enough to drink. Facebook users will soon be able to send friends “Code blue” alerts inviting them to meet up for a beer. They can even set a meeting point using Facebook maps. (via WOMMA blog).
Branding In An Age Of Authenticity
Dave Morgan says marketers are too focused on using social media as an advertising opportunity and disregarding the impact that blogs and social networks have on brand image. Today, almost nothing is secret, which means that efforts to deceive customers almost always backfire. In addition, a host of competitors are lurking out there, waiting to jump on every bad customer experience and make it into a public indictment of your company. In the new world, businesses need to focus on delivering outstanding experiences to all their customers.
Time Inc. Tries Hand at Reader-Generated Issue
Another publisher – this time a unit of venerable Time, Inc. – tries its hand at a print publication composed entirely of user-generated content. 8020 Publishing and the Hartford Courant are doing the same thing. Editors say the quality of ideas contributed by readers is remarkably good, although the copy needs a lot of work. They all plan to keep the conversation going.
This Blog Post Is Available At No Charge!
Tim Lee writes in the Atlantic about the creeping economy of free. Content providers will increasingly find themselves under pressure from competitors who offer similar information at little or no cost. The challenge is to develop new business models around ancillary services. Chris Anderson is big on this topic right now. He notes that the value of commodities falls quickly to the cost of production and in the content world, that’s zero.
Open Source Evolution podcast: The Changing Landscape
Tom Hanrahan, Director of Linux Interoperability at Microsoft, speaks with Wharton Legal Studies and Business Ethics Professor Kevin Werbach about the value of open source development in today’s marketplace. It’s interesting how the mindset is changing at Microsoft.
Everywhere, JPG – magazines for the future
8020 Publishing has a strong ownership pedigree (Halsey Minor and ex-Conde Nast execs) and a fascinating model. Each bi-monthly issue of its two magazines is composed entirely of content submitted by readers. It takes a staff of only 19 people to produce the two titles and they’ll be profitable by next year.
French skydiver plans 130,000-foot free fall
I am so happy there are people in the world who will do this kind of thing willingly so the rest of us don’t have to.
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I just returned from my second trip to Toronto in the last two months and was again impressed with the Web-savviness of the Canadian audience. Did you know, for example,that Canadians are the world’s most active users of Facebook? Or that Canadians spend, on average, two morehours per week viewing online video than their counterparts south of the border?
And don’t give me that “Of course! It’s cold up there!” cliché. Canadian homes are wired and its businesses are doing some very innovative things to reach those web-savvy customers.
Take FutureShop. Canada’s largest consumer electronics retailer is using online community not only to learn more about its customers, but to help sell products and support customers. It has built an online advisory and customer support service that is like nothing I’ve ever seen.
“Ask an Expert” is formulated on a high-touch model in which sales associates are taught to be valued customeradvisers. The company has come up with a strategy to duplicate that real-world experience online. The screen shot shows “Aaron,” one of the video avatars who guides customers.
Since mid-2007, visitors to Future Shop’s website have been greeted by a video image of a sales associate who offers to help guide their experience. Customers can ask any question of the avatar (he’ll even dance for you) and get results from a growing database of advice contributed by sales associates and customers. Future Shop created the video front-end itself and bound it to a community portal from Lithium Technologies.
“We’re trying to blur the lines between the offline and online experience,” says Robert Pearson, Future Shop’s director of e-commerce. “Our goal is to become the largest technology community in Canada.”
Future Shop is well on its way to that objective. In less than a year, the site has signed up 50,000 members, which would be equivalent to about 450,000 members in the much larger U.S. market. But the community isn’t just a discussion forum. Future Shop co-developed a ranking system with Lithium that lets customers provide feedback on each other and on the quality of information offered up by sales associates. Customer contributors can earn discounts and status in the community. The most helpful sales associates can earn cash.
Next up: Facebook-like functionality that gives contributors their own personal spaces and ties sales associate profiles to store locations. Success is measured by a survey of customer affinity with the brand. It’s still too early to draw measurable conclusions, but all the trends are pointing in the right direction. “We’re getting about 250,000 visitors a day out of a population of 33 million,” Pearson says. “That’s many more than come into a store. We actually see people walking in with printouts and asking for specific experts they’ve met online.”
Future Shop isn’t using video to be cool. It’s using video to reinforce an in-store experience that is essential to its business strategy. It has also bound its customers to the company in a way that is rewarding for both parties. The company is now owned by Best Buy, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar capability showing up on a retail website near you.