I helped to organise a briefing on social media for a major bank yesterday. Here were some of the points that came out of the briefing:
Conversations about banks are taking place on blogs, wikis, podcasts and these are influencing customer perceptions. These conversations are likely to grow.
With the huge increase in user-generated content, there is a need to integrate social media ideas - and feedback - into communications activities.
Broadcasting messages in a narrow way is out, and there is a need to involve banking customers in a meaningful way with banking activities.
Banks have useful knowledge and expertise which they can share more effectively with their customers using social media tools/approaches.
There are clearly risks and opportunities associated with social media. Banks need to develop social media strategies which can embrace internal communications as well as external communications.
One size no longer fits all in terms of communicating with customers.
Try to take a positive approach towards responding to messages on blogs.
A lot of these points are equally applicable to other large organisations.
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