She’s written a fantastic article that features some great information on how banks like ShoreBank of Chicago and Umpqua Bank of Portland are using social media to better connect with customers..

There’s also some great information there on legal and compliance issues related to social media for banks.

This is just some of the information I’ll be covering in my upcoming social media workshop for community banks.

Here’s the article.

Here’s a link to one of my more popular posts I’ve written, “What Your Bank Can Learn About Social Media Marketing From A County Fair.”

By Kevin McIntosh

If your bank is considering social media marketing, it’s likely that the question of ROI is one that keeps coming up. Fortunately, you don’t have to be an Einstein to figure out some of the answers.

One thing to keep in mind is that Social Media Marketing seldom falls into a “promotions” type approach, unless of course, you’ve injected some kind of idea such as Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice Facebook app or Will It Blend’s infamous viral video.

I believe, however, for the average community bank that if you enter social media marketing hoping for that kind of quick hit, you’ll come away disappointed. First of all, the cost to develop a viral idea that’s creative enough to generate a ton of exposure can itself be costly. A look around YouTube will tell you that for every $50 Will It Blend video there’s thousands more that never get more than a few dozen views.

You need to think of social media marketing as having a cumulative impact, such as a traditional branding or PR campaign.

Fortunately, with tools such as Google Analytics and social media monitoring tools such as Radian6, you can measure the progress your bank’s social media marketing campaign is making and align it with objectives in the marketing funnel.

Here are just three quick ideas on measuring social media marketing ROI for bank:

1. ROI on bank customer support costs
Your bank blog may have content that answers customer questions that otherwise, might only be answered through a live conversation that would require a bank employee’s time. In fact, you could end up with a particular post that may address a question that gets asked several times a week.

2. ROI on getting free social media exposure versus paid exposure
If you have content that you can see was viewed by 500 customers in a month, what would have been the equivalent cost of getting that message out there in a newspaper, direct mail effort or broadcast spot (if the content was video)?

3. ROI of bank customer feedback
Social media marketing involves listening to your audience to detect trends, needs and interests. The feedback your bank receives in a social media marketing campaign should constantly be shaping your bank’s brand to be creating brand loyalty and creating brand advocates. The ROI aspects of this can include increased customer retention rates and decreased acquisition costs.

Now, perhaps more than ever, bank marketing directors are being held more and more accountable for results. The good news is that the results of a social media marketing campaign are very measurable. It’s just that because of the inherent difference of social media, what’s being measured may be different than some of your more traditional marketing metrics.

A lot more of the ROI aspects are covered in my social media marketing workshop, The Social Media Marketing Journey.

Kevin McIntosh has over 15 years of bank branding experience. His “Social Media Marketing Journey” workshop is available for community banks and other financial institutions.

I don’t know if you ever saw this B of A video that went viral back at the end of 2006. While it’s old news now, there are some reminders that it leaves us when talking about social media marketing.

The video featured 2 Bank Of America executives at a company conference performing their rendition of U2’s “One” with their own lyrics including lines like “Integration has never had us feeling so good/and we’ll make lots of money,” and “We’ve got Bank One on the run, what’s in your wallet, it’s not Capital One.”

Somehow, video of the performance leaked onto YouTube. And that’s where the real fun began.

Within a week, the video had over 100,000 views. And the comments left by viewers were not necessarily glowing reviews:

“It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion” wrote one viewer.

The whole ordeal got national coverage including a great podcast moment from National Public Radio.

“It probably seemed like a good idea the time, these things usually do,” begins the NPR story.

Universal Music Group, the copyright owner of the song, posted a cease and desist letter directed at Bank of America in the comments section of Stereogum, one of the blogs that posted the video.

Even comedian David Cross did a parody of their video. Which had you not seen the original, you would assume was a bit of his on its own.

It seems to have reinforced a stereotype of corporate bankers, in that they only care about making money. In this case, even when they rolled up their shirt sleeves to have fun, they are still keeping their shirtsleeves down and still wearing neckties and still singing about money and banking.
What are some social media marketing lessons we can learn from this?

1. Anything (including your internal meetings) can end up on the Internet.

2. Once it’s out there, the control is in the hands of your audience.

3. Once it’s out there, it can spread fast across the Internet and even into the mainstream media.

4. Long after the initial posting, the content and comments remain. Indefinitely actually. There are viewer comments posted even as recent as this week in response to the video.

5. Have a blogging policy in place for your employees. Given this was an internal meeting, it seems most likely it would have been an employee that posted the content.

6. Regularly conduct monitoring for social mention of your brand name. And be ready to respond. Although honestly, I don’t know in this situation a whole lot that B of A could have said that could have turned this into a positive. I do know that B of A has a social media marketing program in place now, and is likely monitoring as well. They may even respond to this post, and I welcome their response. If so, I’d be particularly interested to hear what they learned from this social media incident.

I guess at the end of the day, the question is, what’s the cumulative impact on the brand. Given all that’s gone in the banking industry in recent months, this is probably just a blip on the radar.

-Kevin McIntosh

Kevin McIntosh conducts social media marketing workshops and shows banks how to use social media to build stronger relationships with their communities and in the process, increase brand loyalty.