When I posed the question “Does blogging matter to you?” in a recent email, I was pleasantly surprised to find the answer for many people is yes.
That particular email’s link to The Better Banking Blog generated a record number of clickthroughs and our blogwatch section has also proved popular – well beyond our expectations.
Online Banking Review first wrote about blogging and banking in 2004, but I think it’s fair to say blogging has now gone mainstream. In the current issue’s feature on Web 2.0, Hothouse founding partner Simon van Wyk says “Anyone who runs a business needs to run a blog.”
Ok, so blogs are big, but has anyone seen a bank in Australia enter the blogosphere?
Google the words “bank blog” and you’re more likely to find a hardened blogger complaining about poor customer service from a bank rather than a contribution from the industry.
But while the banks may be silent on the blog front, a credit union chief executive in South Australia has taken up the challenge. Greg Connor, who runs Savings & Loans Credit Union, uses his blog to communicate to the credit union’s 170,000 members and even takes the time to respond to their posts.
I’d like to see Ralph Norris or David Morgan do the same.
Ok, so the Commonwealth Bank and Westpac have millions more customers between them. But Telstra has already proved it’s possible for a big company to engage and incite interest from customers and shareholders with its “Now We Are Talking” blogs.
Isn’t it time Australia’s major banks started a dialogue?
If you've seen a banking blog we've missed, we'd love to hear about it.
Friday, September 08, 2006
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5 comments:
Charis,
Maybe you've covered some of these before, but if so, there's a good chance I've missed it.
UMB Bank and Wells Fargo both have entered the social web with blogs, but they're either topical (in the case of WF) or marketing campaigns (UMB).
There are a handful of US and Canadian credit unions directly conversing with their members on blogs, and my blogroll covers these CU blogs.
Great find! Greg Connor's posts are top-notch.
ING is both a banking and insurance company - a bancassurance company. Jacques Kemp, who used to head the international ING Bank operations (then NMB bank) and who effectively established ING bank presence in both Latin America as well as in Central and Eastern Europe, has since 2003 assumed leadership over ING's insurance activities in Asia Pacific.
His CEO blog is: www.ingblogs.com. Maybe you did not miss that one out, but it might be worth mentioning nonetheless?
As Trey mentioned, we have several (4 now) covering both finance topics and broader general interest - see blog.wellsfargo.com. We feel we need to be where are customers are, and clearly they are using blogs and social media sites. We've found it well worthwhile.
Ed Terpening, VP Social Media, Wells Fargo.
Westpac has an internal blogroll that they were experimenting with.
Westpac CIO Simon McNamara (who set up Deutsche Bank's software development centre) was blogging
Hi Charis, I haven't yet come across a private banker that blogs. However, on our blog, www.privatebankinginnovation.com, we are starting to get CEOs who are willing to participate in video interviews that we post online. Quite an innovation, I think. Particularly since we are talking about Swiss private bankers...
Best regards from Switzerland,
Alex
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