Financial Services Connect To Their Audiences With Social Media

Financial services firms face specific challenges when it comes to social media. Between being heavily regulated and meeting client confidentiality objectives, they may seem unlikely users of tools designed to broadcast information and invite dialog. However, financial services firms are embracing social media tools to their great advantage. If you are in financial services and have considered yourself out of the running for expanding your web presence through social media, perhaps the following example will inspire you. It may make you re-think your approach.
 
I first learned about OpenView VenturePartners from Social Media Examiner which highlighted the Boston venture capital firm in one of their blog posts about creative social media marketing. I watched their video of “OpenView in 60 Seconds” and I was impressed! I mentioned it in a previous blog post about adding YouTube videos to the social media mix. In the OpenView video, Managing Partner, Scott Maxwell, sums up his firm’s focus and gives his personalized view of his involvement in less than 2 minutes. The video lives in a library of other OpenView topical videos on YouTube. They obviously understand the impact of personalizing their business, delivering a crisp, creative message and catching viewers’ attention with insightful, low-commitment video productions.


OpenView’s lively website offers links to a number of social media tools (Google Currents, Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and an RSS Feed). Take a look at their Facebook Page to understand how a financial services firm can present a creative social presence without violating any regulations or client confidentiality. Their topics are ones any financial services firm can use to personalize their business -- attracting an audience and keeping them there with upbeat updates. The topics they cover include:
 

• internal happenings such as rites of Spring and employee promotions
• sharing links to other creative marketing ideas
• offering thanks for media coverage they received
• reporting on events in which they recently participated
• updating an album called “Faces of OpenView” with pictures of employees at work and play
• tips on how they keep their own creative juices flowing
• fun things they discover along their own business journey

Announcing new clients and showcasing events they sponsor are about the only ways they directly report their business operations. The rest of the time, their Facebook Page focuses on providing a deeper understanding of the people who make the company hum. They allow their public to get to know their employees’ interests outside of OpenView, attaching a very human quality to a business.
 
Last month, Financial Times reported that financial services firms are embracing social media, a trend in line with the industry’s tendency to be on the cutting edge of technology (Financial Times, April 15, 2012: Financial Services Firms Embrace Social Media). FT references a study prepared by Corporate Insight who surveyed 90 financial services firms about their Facebook and Twitter use. Corporate Insight confirms the importance of connecting with targeted audiences on a personal level, through social media (For the whole article, click here to register with FT for free).
 
The use of social media by financial services companies has increased substantially over the past few years, with great results for firms who have incorporated it thoughtfully into their marketing strategy. Revisit social media’s role in your financial services firm, especially if it is not already part of your marketing strategy. With some creativity, you could be cultivating a community of followers which could grow your business!

Get Creative, Get Personal: Online Video

It was my high school freshman who introduced me to Blendtec when he came home laughing about the YouTube videos he saw of a guy in a lab coat putting things in a blender that should never be near a blender, and standing by to see the resulting mayhem.  Blendtec’s "Will it Blend?" marketing campaign -- pulverizing marbles, iPhones, golf balls and soda cans, to name a few – experienced a 500% increase in sales since the company began putting their videos on YouTube.

Much has changed in the video world and companies of all sizes should consider this mode of social media as a great way to increase exposure to audiences. Certainly it takes creativity. But it also has a low cost of entry with very respectable videos being produced with as little as an iPhone! I watched a clip on the Social Media Examiner website where they were interviewing Steve Garfield who is a social media video guru. Steve offered the tip that his iPhone 4, which now has HD video, and a new handheld microphone (iRig Mic), could be your baseline equipment for producing a business-quality video. Now we can produce, create and share videos all on the same little piece of technology that fits in our pocket.

YouTube, in its early days, was a quick place to load any-quality, shaky videos. It has advanced to offer HD-quality viewing with annotation options used by businesses posting to YouTube: add a title to your video, provide a description for it, and be sure to include the URL for your website so people can find you from your video. Business websites now link to their YouTube pages where they store libraries of videos to promote their brands and solicit subscribers – building their communities. Bottled water company, Evian, successfully embraced this approach with their “Baby Inside” marketing campaign, which is worth a chuckle or two.

Where to put it? Embed your video in your website. Put it on your Facebook Page or Google+. Put it where ever your audience is found.

Businesses are adding video to their social media bag of tricks because it is an inexpensive way to get personal with their audience. A website with a video giving insight into a company’s personality is more engaging than one filled with text. Creativity can be showcased but video is also a way for consumers to identify core business principles as they seek brands or services. Reliability, professionalism, confidence and stability can be conveyed, even in an entertaining and personable way.

The Bark Side

While some of the most memorable videos involve big budgets and outrageous feats – check out Volkswagen’s barking Star Wars Dogs or Chevy’s video with the band OK Go – the small budget can still produce effective delivery that can bring a brand or service to life. Put some effort into the planning and you may be surprised at the results. Good promotional videos don’t happen by accident. Plan the script and venue, work with decent lighting and sound, and practice, practice, practice. Put some fun in it and humanize your brand. Updating your video periodically on your website helps it stay fresh and can keep your audience engaged.

Have you seen any fun promotional videos? What made them rock?

Discovering Yourself in the 1940 Census

Have you had a chance to stop and think about what you might find hidden within the 1940 US Census?  Or maybe you have already taken a look. What a marvelous snapshot of our country in the throes of the Great Depression, teetering on the brink of World War II. In fact, some questions were added which reflect the stressed economic conditions under which Americans where working then; such as a person’s usual occupation, not just what they were doing the week of March 24-30, 1940.

The US Census Bureau teamed up with the National Archives to stage a great social media campaign to build interest in the April 2^nd first-ever online release of US Census records. They so successfully used Twitter (#1940Census), Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr, YouTube, and blogs (NARAtions and Prologue: Pieces of History) that followers' queries overloaded the servers shortly after release, followed by sincere apologies as the administrators realized they did not have the capacity for the interest they had generated. It was definitely a disappointment to those who had anxiously awaited the big release. Over the weeks, months and years to come, we can all satisfy our curiosity of how our ancestors, communities and country were reflected in those records.

The house on W. 74th Street

One of the amazing elements of this Census, for me and for many of my contemporaries, is that this is the first time our parents appear in a Census. When I look at a digital copy of the census document, I can imagine the census-taker, standing on the porch of my great-grandmother’s house on West 74^th Street in Cleveland, talking to my grandfather, who was home during the day from his job as a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. This census includes an indicator of which household member answered the census questions. The census-taker was undoubtedly male, wearing a bowler hat and, most likely, a tie. My grandfather would be giving him the names and ages of his household: besides himself, my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother (almost 3 years old) and my uncle (almost 2 years old).

Timmy & my mom

Although the handwriting of the census belongs to the census-taker, it was written in the presence of a grandfather I barely remember, recording a conversation so full of information, I wish I had been there to gather those facts, and more, myself. The facts the government collected are pieces to the puzzle I long to complete – the family tree on the side of my family known more for record-burning than record-keeping. I admit the 1940 Census has no new news on this little family: I know that my maternal grandfather’s parents were born in Ireland and that my grandmother’s mother was born in North Carolina, her father in Ohio. But there are other paths for me to explore that, I know, will give me countless hours of pleasure: Find my great grandparents in Columbus and see who was living with them then; find my father (3 ½ years old) and his family and see whether they were living in the house I came to know so well; Find the McCarthys in Findlay and the Learys in Cleveland; find my father’s cousins in Ashtabula and see if Great Aunt Winifred was still alive; find my step-grandfathers’ families; find my North Carolina relatives and see how the 10 years since 1930 treated them in births and deaths; find everyone’s occupations and incomes to put together an image of their lifestyle; the list goes on and on.

Aunt Winifred, my dad & his sisters

I am a map lover, and the census data across the decades are a rear-view map of the life journey we are on. We are products of our ancestors. Even generations ago, their experiences weigh heavily on our station in life, our view of the world, the foundation of our soul. 

Time to do a little time-travel.

Social Media Explained in Donuts

It can be hard to wrap your mind around social media, especially if you were busy with other more important things in life when it emerged, or if you watched it emerge but just hoped it would go away. With social media clearly here to stay (as 1,600 staffers at P&G – the world’s largest marketer - are being laid off upon the CPG giant’s realization that Facebook and Google advertising is more efficient than traditional advertising), anyone with a product or service to market should become knowledgeable on the subject and start actively marketing through social media.

To a social media newcomer, explaining the differences between the tools can be confusing. Not to mention, new tools keep popping up. Here is a great whiteboard breakdown, from Douglas Wray, via geek.com, to set us all straight.

This is great! It is all clear to me now. What do you think?

I think I need a donut.