Some people have a LinkedIn account, some a Facebook page. Some have both – and hate them equally.
It’s not that they’re curmudgeonly, stubborn people. Many are in love with their smart phone, or their iPad. Perhaps they stream videos to their television, and maybe Amazon.com thinks they should be awarded “customer of the year” for all they buy.
But for all that, many are not keen on what happens whenever they log on to their Facebook or LinkedIn account. The next thing they know, they’re getting overwhelmed by friends and contacts pinging them with messages. It’s too much, too many, too free-wheeling. They don’t like it.
Neither do banks, and for many of the same reasons. Bank IT people see danger in social media sites. They see too many risks of hackers, too much interaction with too much of the public. They don’t want to compromise the privacy and security of the bank for the benefits of social and business connectivity.
The problem is that a lone Luddite might be justified in staying away from such advancing technology, but a bank that needs to be connecting with customers can’t just turn away from the most important outreach tools available.
What makes LinkedIn and Facebook so annoying – the surging mob of people using them – is also what makes them incredibly attractive. But to tap into the power of those sites, banks have to find a way to be more proactive, more accepting and more forward looking.
There is a trade organization called the New England Financial Marketing Association. It’s made up of marketing directors of banks and credit unions across the region. Those bank executives are thirsting for information about how to best use social media to grow their institutions. But many of them also have one key obstacle: Their IT departments have blocked any access to Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and others.
For many bank marketing departments, that sets up a comical scene: A single computer on its own internet connection, sitting in the middle of a marketing department for the sole use of updating the bank’s Facebook page.
That kind of setup is for chumps. It’s for banks and credit unions that want to pretend they’re actually in the game.
While it’s true that it’s hard to equate “bank” with “cool and hip,” it’s also true that banks are going to miss out on the newest, best, most affordable ways to reach prospective customers if they don’t let their own personnel learn how to use these techniques.
The ubiquity of the personal computer really is less than 15 years old. And the rise of smart phone and tablet usage has truly exploded only over the last few years. Yet it’s hard to imagine anyone in business not employing a computer, and it’s getting much harder to see active executives without their personal data devices.
Banks that don’t adapt to the inevitability of social networking are going to be left far behind. Or they’re going to find their client base is almost exclusively old people.
We did say that some people hate their Facebook account, and their LinkedIn page. Despite that, many of them still have social network accounts, and use them. They don’t have to be enamored with something to realize that it’s the future and that’s where they want to be headed – not stalled out in the past.
Most likely, they’ll also be doing their banking with an institution that looks like it’s got the vision to be one step ahead of them – not turning a blind eye to what is happening all around it.
