Here’s a scenario for you. You’re a consultant, blogger and social media “guru” (there seems to be more and more of them popping up these days). Your business involves advising banks and the otherwise less informed on how to cut it in the big bad world of the Interweb. You have plenty of good arguments to convince your corporate clients why they should be embracing all things Web 2.0, so you’re a little bit irked that they don’t immediately ‘get it’. Still, they pay well, so you persist. After all, for as long as they don’t get it, you have a business.
Here’s another scenario. You’re a career banker who understands the Internet. Your career has been built on avoiding risk, and where you can, convincing senior management they can get a return on investment on the online channel. You work with a lot of people who don’t get it, but you persist as you’ve managed to convince those with an open mind that innovating requires taking a little bit of risk. And yes, you have a great budget and get paid well.
So when the banker dares to tread the rocky path of social media, how does the social media consultant respond? She crucifies him. Asking your customers what they want from you – FAIL (you already know apparently). Moderating comments posted to your site – FAIL (if people want to call your site a “pointless piece of junk” you should take it on the chin). And when a loyal bank staffer steps up to the bank’s defence – super FAIL (you should be able to control the behaviour of every one of your 25,000 staff, even the ones you’ve never met). FAIL, FAIL, FAIL, she says, you people really should get better social media advisors.
But sadly it doesn’t end there. Since we’re talking about a big bank, journalists start asking questions. They quote sections of the consultants blog and accuse the bank of being dishonest. This suggestion provokes a reaction from senior management and the bank’s PR people get involved. The social media experiment is shut down, the banker left to pick up the pieces and figure out a way to once again build the case for social media.
RIP myfuturebank.org
P.S If you’re looking for the original post from the consultant, sorry, it’s been taken down, comments closed. I wonder why?
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Why bankers are wary of social media
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14 comments:
To be honest, pulling the site seems to be an overreaction. Yes, social media can be rough. It exposes your brand to dialogue. It opens you up publicly to the voices of your customers. In fact, in doing so, you create a platform for their complaints (and their praise). This is not necessarily a bad thing.
And regardless of who did what, this is a supreme opportunity wasted. Why build a site designed to provoke conversation and then shy away from it when it doesn't run to your script? Why not dig deeper? Why not truly (and honestly) engage with the detractors and questioners?
Instead of working through the issues and creating a premier, leading, socially-oriented brand, the bank rolls over and closes up shop at the first hurdle? In a sea of bland similarity this was an opportunity to differentiate. Shame it was squandered so readily.
s a bit disappointing that apparently, NAB couldn't take the heat being generated at myfuturebank.
If it had been me advising them, I'd have strongly advised a couple of things:
- engage in a little "mea culpa" recognising that their participation, readiness and attitude was not quite up to the response. It would have humanised the participants on the NAB side and won them some social capital.
- establish a strong and clear rules of engagement for participation, both for NAB staff and visitors to the site. It then becomes clear what everyone's rights and responsibilities are.
- get back to some of the detractors and the supporters to canvas more opinion. Find out what they really want.
NAB had a huge opportunity here that, while it exploded in their face a little, actually left them with something of value - real, human opinion. Sure, they made some mistakes, but they could have been recovered from.
I think your post is a little harsh on the social media and engagement people like me. I have close friends in the banking industry and whether with them or their businesses, would never respond in the way you suggest.
For a bank, or any big business, an approach to social media needs to be implemented quickly, but it needn't be implemented badly.
There would have been no discussion of "FAIL". Only opportunities and risks. It is business, after all.
Other big brands in Australia and elsewhere that are experimenting with social media are doing it successfully, admitting and exposing their mistakes, learning and moving on. Unfortunately, NAB has chosen the ostrich technique.
Gavin, Stephen,
I don't disagree with you that pulling the site is an overreaction. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that there are real people involved (who are also disappointed at the site being pulled),and whilst you can criticise the bank (the corporation & its spin machine)writing off the site before it had been going for a week was also an overreaction on the part of the digerati.
Charis, I don't think either Gavin or I wrote off YourFutureBank. It was a great idea that I'd much prefer hadn't been taken down - that's the lawyers, old school marketers and grey suits getting in the way. Rather, we see it as an opportunity squandered.
The only bad thing that was done was having NAB employees sock-puppeting as something they weren't. If that had been handled properly, the community would have moved on by now. They are a very forgiving bunch when errors are admitted and accepted.
Gavin and I both talk with big organisations a great deal about these sorts of opportunities and the risks and benefits they offer. We were actually at an event on Monday night where we had this type of conversation with a very recognisable Australian brand.
I would much rather have seen NAB keep the site up and admit their errors of expectation and execution. That would have won me as a fan.
The only FAIL (to recall your post) that NAB has engaged in now is killing something that had promise. It will have won them no fans at all. That's twice since June that whoever's advising NAB on social media strategy has got it wrong and made the rest of us look bad by association.
Taking down myfuturebank is definitely not good news...
I can imagine a number of other banks would have been watching closely.
I can also imagine myfuturebank being used as evidence for against side in the social media debate.
What an extraordinary episode. It is disappointing that NAB couldn't take a little criticism If you're hoping to get into social media and not cop some criticism you're a bit naive. I thought the whole 'let's kep it positive' line was a dead giveaway that NAB wanted applause not engagement
A good post that needed to be written.
I am not a social media expert, but rather a participant who also happens to work at a bank (not the NAB, before the witch hunt begins :-)).
Yeah, the NAB overreacted, but so did the social media gurus. There were some crazy assertions in one prominent post about a person in a photo looking like someone in one of the videos therefore they must be a NAB puppet etc etc.
So what if "Frank" worked for the NAB? There was an assumption that he was a puppet, a plant for the grey suits - but he could have been a passionate, somewhat misguided employee. Apparently asking your customers what they want (without the use of an overpriced marketing firm) is wrong. But instead of taking it slowly, offering a bit of encouragement, the one-up-manship of the "FAIL" posts began.
Big banks and big corporates are run by men in grey suits. They are risk adverse. That is how they do business. They make a hell of a lot of money doing it this way. This will change over time, but it will take time.
My advice to the gurus - free of charge - if you want big business to participate in social media, maybe you need to get a thicker skin too? Constructive criticism may not make for sexy posts, but it does wonders for improving the situation.
Lets remember that this is the second time that the NAB has been busted for attempting to subvert social media.
I think its the duty of the digerati to cause a scene when this sort of subversion occurs because otherwise it will slip under the radar and then the positive opportunity that is presented by social media and the Web will be lost.
These people are riled because they are passionate about these positive opportunities.
The fact that NAB closed down the site in response to feedback is evidence enough (for me) that openess, transparency and all the other defining qualities of social media aren't yet part of this corporation's DNA.
NAB should have been applauded for reaching out into social media marketing yet they were crucified.
Why?
Well, it doesn't matter how we try to rationalize the incident, its what the people think and in this case, the people - the social media professionals - were given free rein to craft a negative perception of NAB and UBank.
One lesson? The first thing to do when you screw up a SMM campaign is to acknowledge it. Even if you don't think you screwed up, your priority then is to engage the audience and establish a dialogue ASAP. The web is about immediacy and transparency and you can't sit back and stay passive while public sentiment rises against you.
Maybe bank bureaucracy worked against a quick response, but Frank the-loyal-but-misguided employee's comments only reinforced public perception. As they say, perception is reality and the reality was, NAB followed up April's (minor) blog spam incident with what appeared to be another social media gaffe.
The whole incident is a real shame for any banks that were planning social media marketing campaigns as the head honchos will now think twice before them signing off.
Wouldn't it have been great if NAB had talked to the commentators or at least asked what NAB could do instead of just pulling the plug?
Saying that banks deserve to be applauded for reaching out into social media is like saying that the Americans deserve credit for wanting to bring peace to the Middle East while disregarding their tactics, strategy and motives.
@Daniel:
Don't you think that analogy is stretching it a bit far?
Yes, NAB didn't follow all the little subtle rules of blogging, but it was hardly a fatal flaw of their campaign.
You really need to work in or with a bank to understand how hard it is to make anything 'new' happen.
There's a number of issues this debacle raises. And both the social media people (social scientists?) and bankers must jointly share in the responsibility.
The bankers: arrogant, inept, ignorant, half-hearted, ill prepared, out of touch
Anyone who has worked in a banking call centre could have told them (assuming they would ask) that for every one customer who is happy to say they are, there are ten others ready to say they're not.
NAB should have steeled themselves for a kicking and resourced the responses properly with marketing people to return the fire.
Clearly, they didn't and withdrew wounded from the totally unanticipated onslaught.
Social scientists: amatuer, weak, batting out of their league, weak strategy, caught like rabbits in the headlights, seduced by the money
The social scientists should have understood the likely consequences of such an action and provided a strategy to handle it by hooking up with a strong marketing and PR team to defend their client.
They should have dry-run the site internally to check the known public sentiment bucket before actually drinking from the fire hose itself.
NAB's experience could have been predicted by any of us working in this field.
So where to now?
What NAB did changes nothing. They now know what to expect and need to re-group. A kicking isn't a massacre and they should come back - it would be to their credit if they did.
They could actually celebrate the mauling and use it to say how they've learned from it and try again, snatching triumph from the jaws of defeat!
I think we (corporations) are all a bit hung up on blogging as the only form of adopting social media in a bank/ financial services institution. There are so many ways that financial services and institutions, my own included, can become part of the conversation thread - blogging could always be added later, its not the best way to start. I find it extremely frustrating that in practically 2009, these institutions, my own included still don't get that the bar has been raised and that they have opened themselves to disruption through peer-to-peer financial solutions by being irrelevant to the contemporary consumer.
@MsMaverick yes! Very astutue observation. Any business, including banking, has many options for social media engagement - at many levels. With good advice, any of them have the potential to be a success.
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