Types of Financial Institution Blogs (NetBanker)

I am in the process of creating a table for the next issue of Online Banking Report, our 13th annual planning guide. The table (see draft below) is designed to show the wide variety of blog types available to banks and credit unions (see note 1). It's a tabular update to the "45 Reasons for Banks to Blog" article in our Bank 2.0 report.

Many (most?) blogs could be classified in two or more categories. For example, Royal Bank of Canada combines student marketing, event awareness, and recruiting at its RBC p2p site where the bank is soliciting entries for six college-student bloggers to create video and text content for its student site (screenshot below; note 2).

Here's the list so far. Am I missing anything? A $5 Starbucks card for anyone who comes up with a new blog type for this list or who provides an example to fill in the ??? holes in the table (please leave in comments below):

Type	Financial Institution Examples
Contest	RBC's (Canada) Next Great Innovator Challenge & RBC p2p
Recruiting	Quicken Loans What's the Diff?
Product focused	Student Loandown from Wells Fargo
Community building	Piedmont Credit Union
Community service	Vancity Change Everything
Board report	The Boardcast from UFirst Credit Union
Students/kids	Stagecoach Island from Wells Fargo; RBC p2p
B2B	Wells Fargo CEO (Commercial Electronic Office)
Special interest	Bank of Internet MyRVBank.com
General	PayPal, Tech CU, Verity CU and 30+ others
Single employee effort	Mobile Banking from Huntington Bank's Brandon McGee
Credit education	Credit Bloggers from Credit.com
Shareholders	??? (see note 3)
Real-estate owned, repos	???
Branch manager	???
Real estate	Zillow, Redfin
CEO/exec blogger	Tinfoiling by Gene Blishen, Mt. Lehman CU (Canada)
Events/sports	???
Online banking tips & tools	???

More information and links to the above blogs can be found in the "blogs" topic here.

Notes:

1. For a thought-provoking editorial on how blogging can be incorporated into financial institution websites, check out Ron Shevlin's latest here.

2. Hat tip to Colin Henderson for posting about RBC p2p here.

3. ??? means I don't know of banking or credit union examples for these blog types; $5 Starbucks cards for the first commenter to fill in the blanks.

Comments (7)

Ginny Brady:

Jim, Great chart! thanks for including The Boardcast. I think you can fill in the "Branch Manager" category with the blog that Valerie Brown, President and CEO of Service One Credit Union in Bowling Green Kentucky does. It's called "Brown Knows". Pretty clever!

Ginny

Posted by Ginny Brady | September 11, 2007 5:25 AM

Posted on September 11, 2007 05:25

Ron Shevlin:

Type Example
----------------- ---------------------
Industry analysis Bankwatch (CHenderson)
Snarky ex-analyst MarketingROI (RShevlin)

Posted by Ron Shevlin | September 11, 2007 8:07 AM

Posted on September 11, 2007 08:07

Tony Mannor:

Shameless plug but I am a marketing whore :)

How about "Credit Union Marketing" CUHype.com ? :)

and I have something to add to your note #1.

I am a fan of Ron's site. He does an excellent job of forecasting this trend and I tend to lean his direction in my own thoughts and research. The same day he posted this, we posted a "How to create your own credit union blog".

I fully support banks and credit unions using the technology available to engage their customers/members. It is just sound business practice. Changing your FI web presence from a static and fixed marketing tool to a dynamic and compelling COMMUNICATION tool is vital to remain competitive.

And the best communication is bi-directional.

Posted by Tony Mannor | September 11, 2007 1:33 PM

Posted on September 11, 2007 13:33

Alex Osterwalder:

Hi, We're not a bank, but we are lining-up several private banking CEOs to speak on our blog called "Private Banking Innovation". We have one interview with a CEO online already and another 2 coming in September...

have a peak at www.privatebankinginnovation.com

Posted by Alex Osterwalder | September 12, 2007 12:41 PM

Posted on September 12, 2007 12:41

Dan Veasey:

Cusecure.org might fall under the last category, Online Banking Tips & Tools.

I'm not sure who they are, I joined the site when I found it several month ago but I have not yet contributed anything to it.

Thanks for mentioning PCU!

Posted by Dan Veasey | September 12, 2007 12:56 PM

Posted on September 12, 2007 12:56

Gene Blishen:

Wow! Thanks Jim, I am truly honoured that you would even consider Tinfoiling.

Posted by Gene Blishen | September 13, 2007 6:25 PM

Posted on September 13, 2007 18:25

Paul Fraser:

Att: RBC President Gordon Nixon - I'm a commercial fisherman fighting the Royal Bank of Canada, (RBC Centura) over a $100,000 loan mistake. I lost my home, fishing vessel and equipment. Website http://www.corporatebully.ca Thanks, Paul Fraser. If you are interested in supporting my cause, phone or e-mail :

RBC President, Gordon Nixon, Toronto (416)974-6415
RBC Vice President, Sales, Anne Lockie, Toronto (416)974-6821
RBC President, Atlantic Provinces, Greg Grice (902)421-8112 greg.grice@rbc.com
RBC Manager, Cape Breton/Eastern Nova Scotia, Jerry Rankin (902)567-8600
RBC Vice President, Atlantic Provinces, Brian Conway (902)491-4302 brian.conway@rbc.com
RBC Vice President, Halifax Region, Tammy Holland (902)421-8112 tammy.holland@rbc.com
RBC Senior Manager, Media & Public Relations, Beja Rodeck (416)974-5506 beja.rodeck@rbc.com
RBC Ombudsman, Wendy Knight, Toronto, Ontario 1-800-769-2542 ombudsman@rbc.com
Ombudsman for Banking Services & Investments, JoAnne Olafson, Toronto, 1-888-451-4519 ombudsman@obsi.ca

Posted by Paul Fraser | December 31, 2007 11:53 PM

Posted on December 31, 2007 23:53