| By Jim Bruene on March 29, 2007 10:04 PM | Comments (2) |
Wells Fargo marked the one-year anniversary of its first blog, Guided by History, with a Q&A today with the bank's Social Media VP, Ed Terpening. The post appeared in the the bank's Student LoanDown blog (post here), which just made it past the six-month mark. I've already weighed in on its blogging strategy (see previous coverage here), so I won't repeat myself.
The bank is experimenting with a number of social media outlets to extend its brand and see what works and what doesn't. Not all of these will pan out. The MySpace presence seems like a long shot, but then again, the cost is negligible so it's worth a try. Wells Fargo has wisely not posted a pure "banking" presence, but instead used one a character from its StageCoach Island game (see screenshot below).
Bottom line: The bank's willingness to try new things has created an impressive lists of "firsts:"
- First U.S. bank with a blog (though Verity Credit Union beat them to it by more than a year)
- First bank with a student loan blog
- First bank with a business banking blog
- First bank in the world with a Second Life presence
- First bank on MySpace at <www.myspace.com/stagecoachisland>, really more an extension of its StageCoach Island game which also has its own blog here (see below; though several credit unions beat them to it)
- First bank with 2, 3, and 4 blogs
- First bank with an avatar persona on MySpace
- First bank with a VP Social Media (who appears to be proactively reaching out to the blogging community)
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Thanks, Jim for evaluating our MySpace profile. We feel that if we want to be where are customers are, it's important to reach out beyond our own blogs to other social networks. To ensure their financial success, we need to understand them and their needs. Hopefully, more to come.
Sorry, forgot one correction: I don't think we were the first bank on MySpace. I recall seeing one small regional bank there while I was researching our own program. Sorry, I don't recall which bank.