Social media in the finance sector
The New York Times reported in September 2006 on an expected explosion of business blogging.
Citing statistics from Nancy Flynn, director of the ePolicy Institute and author of Blog Rules, it estimated that only 4% of major corporations operate external blogs today. However, 85% more plan to do likewise. Among small business, 10% have already incorporated blogs into their marketing plans.
The authors of the Online Banking Report said in response to the NY Times article that “Our preliminary estimate is that within two years, there will be at least 500 bank and credit union blogs”.
No big Australian financial institutions currently have blogs.
The small Savings & Loans Credit Union in South Australia has
a CEO blog JWM client Bibby Financial Services has a blog on factoring.
ING, which has a strong presence in Australia, has blogs in Asia so it can only be a matter of time before they start here
ING has an Asia / Pacific blog, My Cup of Cha, by Jacques Kemp, Chief Executive Officer, ING Asia/Pacific, a microfinance blog by David Hatton, Director and Chief Retirement Officer, ING Vysya Life Insurance Company Pvt. Ltd.
ING also has a Chinese blog by a brand marketing manager (who explains that ING is targeted at the young not the old) could be domiciled in Beijing or Shanghai.
Wells Fargo in the USA has started blogging and has blogs dealing with student loans and community risk management. It is credited with being the first big North American bank to start blogging.
A few weeks ago, the Royal bank of Canada became the second big North American bank to start blogging.
Cardwise in the UK has a blog targeted at customers and potential customers. A lot of small finance sector firms are using blogs to market their expertise and services eg Creative capital associates’ “The art of factoring’ and Electrical Credit Union.
And there is a growing number of blogs about the banking industry, providing commentary and news eg “Financial Marketing: Strategies for the Internet”.
So, in financial services, as elsewhere it seems that we are on the verge of a big shift but still waiting for some more major players to make the move.
Trevor - I didn't even realize that Royal Bank started a blog good to see that us Canadian's are getting on the ball. Too bad they don't have a RSS feed to make it simple for people to subscribe.
Posted by: Dave Forde | 10 December 2006 at 05:21 PM
The way I see it blogging is just another way of dispersing information - so, it can be a corporate memo, a newsletter or plain old voice mail, it really does not matter - it's just a vehicle and the content is all that matters...
Just my two cents...
Cheers,
Elma
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