Bloggers Blogging Bank Blogs
Two of my favorite banking blogs have started discussing a topic that I also love to talk about, banks and blogging. Rob Findlay at the Bank Channel has posted regarding research by the Javelin Group indicating that blogging is the answer to the bank-to-consumer communication issue. Ron Shevlin who oversees Marketing ROI build further stating that banks better get into the blogosphere, and figure out how to do it right.
I have written about corporate blogging and specifically that corporations and banks need to get on with it as a matter of message control and participation in a hypergrowth channel for consumer interaction. I would add to it now that this channel is the de facto channel for topics that can be tagged as innovative. Imagine how much easier it would be for us to figure out the whole US mobile banking mess if we had been blogging with interested customers, partners, experts, whoever at the same time that we were discussing strategy, hiring consultants and having kick-offs internally.
From an organizational perspective, the value that interaction with senior management generates, particularly among those who have no traditional avenues to do so, is routinely underestimated. I come across folks at Citi everyday who operate blogs in their free time and would love to do so at work, just for the exposure and the thinksharing. Most blog-related discussions at work inevitably come to the questions of “…what do we get out of this?”. Well, Banks have to turn a corner and believe that honest, open. two-way dialogue is the cornerstone of the new bank. This needs to happen with employees, customer, shareholders, constituents, regulators, competitors, partners…the list goes on. And as for the question of the ROI of blogging, I leave you with Nobel Prize and Oscar winning author George Bernard Shaw’s quote:
Related Posts:“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”
