Finally, we have someone using a blog to have a little fun (note 1). Carolina Postal Credit Union's blog, I Love My Hoopty, is using humor and user-generated content to drum up car loan business. Through its website and blog, the CU asks users to write about and post pictures of their first cars, and the more rickety the better. I wasn't familiar with the term, but apparently in this context "hoopty" means an old rickety car. 

The hoopty theme is also used on the CU's homepage to promote vehicle loans (see second screenshot below). 

Analysis
Since I'm twice the age of the target market here, it doesn't matter that the blog's content doesn't resonate with me. I LOVE the creativity and I'll bet the younger, Colbert-Report-watching crowd thinks it's pretty cool that a bank/credit union would do something this irreverent. 

Unfortunately, the follow-through doesn't look nearly as good as the creative. I first noticed this blog a few months ago, and until last week, it hadn't been updated since July. It doesn't really make sense to have a blog that's only updated a few times per year. If the CU doesn't have the resources to add something at least once per month, it should pull the blog down and incorporate the content into its main website.

Also, I question the prominence of the campaign on the CPCU homepage. Is that really the main message you want displayed to your members for several months? Even if does fit the overall brand strategy, the CU should change the banner ad's hyperlink. Currently, it goes to the hoopty blog (after a short detour to acknowledge that they are leaving the CU's website), which is not an effective landing page. The CU should first take users to a dedicated lending page that explains loan options and prices and invites members to apply.

Carolina Postal Credit Union blog (20 Nov 2007) 

CPCU homepage (20 Nov 2007) 

Note:

1. UMB used a similar approach in its My Ugly Room contest a year ago. 

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):

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.

An interesting aspect of blogging is that when you get something wrong, you are quickly called on it, oftentimes through public comments. While I hate making mistakes, I like the fact that it's easy to correct the record with an update to the original entry.

So I was glad to see the comment yesterday from Ann-Marie Murphy (here) informing me, and the world, that Quicken Loans has been publishing a blog for more than a year. Making them, not PayPal, the second major U.S. financial-services company to blog. And after looking at it, I was doubly glad she took the time to comment, because it's a top-notch blog and it gives me the chance to do something I've always wanted to do, work Dave Matthews Band into a blog post. I figured if Ron Shevlin can blog about the Grateful Dead four times (here), I can at least slip in one DMB mention.    

The well-designed Quicken Loans blog is called "What's the Diff" and is run under its own URL <www.whatsthediff.com>. It features stories written by employees, and guest bloggers, about making a difference in the world. Published entries win a slick t-shirt.

It just so happens that the most recent entry chronicles the experience of Quicken summer intern, Mark Messing, as he helped push stuck vehicles out of the mud-filled parking lot at the Cuyahoga Falls DMB concert (see note 1). It's well written and exudes a positive, can-do attitude that leaves the reader with good feelings about the company.   

The Quicken Loans blog is more of a recruiting tool than a marketing device. Notice the big red button on the right asking, "Are you the difference?" That's designed to attract high-achievers to apply for a position with the company. Clicking on the button brings job candidates to an attractive "careers" landing page that carries the same "The Diff" theme, and has its own URL <www.quickenloanscareers.com>. It's very well done. That attention to detail in the recruiting process no doubt helps it achieve its position in the Fortune and ComputerWorld 100 best places to work. 

The only gripe I have with THE DIFF is the 3-column layout with the blog entries in the middle. While not uncommon, blog readers tend to expect the posts to be in the far-left column. This non-standard layout makes it slightly harder to navigate for first-time visitors. But this layout does help expose more content, so it's not a terrible tradeoff.  

Grade: A+

Note:

1. Like Mark, I've been stuck in the endless line out of the parking lot at The Gorge here in Washington state, most recently this past Sunday night. But instead of waiting in line for an hour, we got out of our car and visited with some friends we'd met that night. Now that's not a good enough story to make the What's the Diff blog, but it does help me win a bet!

Update: Quicken Loans has also published a recruiting blog for the past year (thanks Ann-Marie, see comments below and NetBanker post here).

I've been a big proponent of blogging. In my Online Banking Report on the subject published last fall (here), I predicted there would be 300 financial institution blogs by the end of this year. While there is no definitive listing, OpenSource CU's blogroll lists just 15 CU company blogs. Even if you add the CU employee blogs, MySpace pages, and four blogs from Wells Fargo, the grand total is less than 100 today, and unlikely to get much higher than that by year-end.

Why the slow start? Having worked inside several banks, I do not underestimate the difficulty in creating a new communication channel. And from what I've heard, many banks and credit unions just don't believe the benefits, which are largely intangible, will outweigh the costs. And with so few banks blogging, Wells Fargo being the only major in the U.S., it's hard to show examples to demonstrate the power of the blog.

That's why we were happy to see one of our favorite companies, eBay's PayPal unit, launch a blog a few weeks ago (here). As you can see it's not too fancy, and they post to it only a few times each week. But it really hits the mark, in my opinion.

Here's why:

1. Humanizes the organization: The initial posts are by various department heads or senior staff and discuss briefly what they do and a major initiative each is involved in. Each post has a small head shot in the upper left that increases the credibility of the posting (see screenshot below).

2. Educates in a more interesting way: PayPal managers are obviously excited about their projects as their enthusiasm comes across in the writing and makes the reader interested in the subject. For instance, last week CIO Michael Barrett posted seven paragraphs (here) on improving the safety of your online computing experience. It's a good way to get a simple message across, that users should use up-to-date operating systems and browsers. Usually, that advise is buried  five layers deep in a security FAQ.

3. Sells with a more "consultative" approach: Several of the blog entries are designed to "sell" but again, when the head of consumer marketing blogs about the latest program, as Hillary Mickell did about PayPal's back-to-school shopping portal (here), it's much more believable than a banner ad slapped onto the homepage (see screenshot below).

4. Communicate during an outage or severe service problem: The most recent entries (here and here), both posted on the Sept. 2 holiday, informed and reassured customers about the problems with subscription services.

The challenge is generating readership. Would I subscribe to the blog if I was a consumer making an occasional PayPal purchase? Unlikely. But if I'm a merchant, and the PayPal system is an integral part of my livelihood, you can bet I'll pore over every word (note 1).

So, financial institutions, if you want to get into blogging, find the communities where you really make a difference and start speaking to them (see note 2).

Note:

1. The press and analysts will subscribe, spurring articles on your company such as this one.

2. Although perhaps just a shade too critical of the industry for my tastes (see the first comment for some balance), Verity Credit Union's latest post (here) speaks from the heart about the sub-prime lending fiasco and the CU's "Keep the Dream" fund to help at-risk borrowers keep their homes. Great post. Great program. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything on the website about it.

Note: Read part 1 and part 2.

Many articles and blog posts will tell you that the cost to enter into the world of blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts, social networking (Facebook or MySpace), social bookmarking (del.icio.us or ma.gnolia), or  Application Programming Interfaces (or APIs) mean that you can start a blog or social media project for your bank or credit union at a total cost of zero. Right?

Well, sort of.

One of the critical, but often unsung factors of success of a social media project is the resourcing. If you're going to invite the public to play, make sure you have someone who can help create the kind of community you want.

As we planned ChangeEverything.ca at Vancity we had many discussions about how to create a vibrant and postive community. We have all seen online bulletin boards, discussion forums and blogs degenerate into the kind of name-calling no one wants associated with their brand. This was one of our worst fears. Since then, we've learned a great deal about community building.

In my first part of this post, I mentioned nine success factors for a social media project. An important one is hiring someone who knows how to nurture and grow an online community. Here's why.

Whether or not hard dollars are spent launching a social media project, someone needs to manage the initiative and ensure that it achieves its goals. This is a very specific skill-set with the following requirements:

• Someone who can inspire visitors to come back, readers to register, and registered users to add good content.
  
• Someone who knows when to get involved in discussions and threads that are degenerating, going off topic, or just going nowhere.
  
• Someone who can elevate good material to the homepage so it will hook like-minded people, as well as delete remarks you don't want on the site.
  
• Someone with good taste.
  
• Someone who understands the business goals of the site and can act appropriately and decisively.

Recently I have seen a few interesting posts speaking to the issue of good online community moderation. One was on Jeremiah Owyang's excellent web-strategist.com: For the Community Managers. I also saw a very good piece on Seth Godin's blog: Jobs of the future, #1: Online Community Organizer. So it seems that more and more people are catching on that this free revolution has some resourcing costs built in if you want to achieve success.

Here are three examples of financial institutions that blog and how they manage their resourcing.

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo has a total of four blogs, the most for any financial institution. According to their VP of Social Media, the amazing Ed Terpening:

Although we have an Experiential Marketing group dedicated to social media activities for Wells Fargo, all of our bloggers are team members who have other full time jobs. They add blogging - writing, posting, reading, replying - on top of those jobs, and our lead bloggers take a more active role than others. The culture of blogging is unique and we strive to connect with that culture through many different voices at Wells Fargo. Finding the person with the right passion + knowledge is our goal, whether they have a professional communications role or not (most do not).

Verity Credit Union



Verity was the first financial institutions to blog, beginning in late 2004. It recently received an excellent facelift and functional overhaul. It's a highly usable and readable blog. According to their CMO and VP Shari Storm, they staff their blog with volunteer employees from around the credit union. Employees who want to blog go through a quick 10-15 minute training on the dos and don'ts of blogging, and they are allowed to spend no more than an hour a month blogging so their managers won't get upset with the project. This is a nice way to save money on resources. Until their recent overhaul, their blog was even hosted for free at Blogger. Says Storm, "One of the unexpected successes of our blog is how much employees like writing for the forum. We’ve heard from employees that it provides extra job satisfaction and a sense of employee pride."

Vancity



One of the key success factors of ChangeEverything.ca was the investment in a full-time Online Community Moderator, Kate. Kate has been instrumental in nurturing the community, providing them with contests and activities, connecting the site to the press to get earned media exposure, moderating comments and understanding the needs and wants of the site's registered users. Not an easy job, and I always say that Kate is one of the key reasons why the site has grown and excelled in the way it has. She has an amazing balance of clearly knowing the purpose of the site, and also being open to where the community wants to go. She deserves amazing credit and her skillset will only make her more and more valuable. (NOTE: no poaching!)

So, by all means try out social media. There are many low-cost, even free, options. But realize  that for a site to achieve longevity and success as a communications vehicle, branding tool, community platform, or whatever you have planned, you may need to invest in social media management. This means either tapping good people internally to devote time to the project or hiring a community moderator to ensure your project develops to its full potential.

William Azaroff is the Interactive Marketing & Channel Manager at Vancity where he develops interactive marketing initiatives, and pioneered ChangeEverything.ca, the groundbreaking change-themed online community. William also plans strategy for the online channel, with a view to its potential to help Vancity, its members and the community. William brings nine years of experience in Vancouver, Seattle and Los Angeles producing web projects for such clients as Honda, Disney, Intuit Canada and Nike Jordan. He writes about the intersection of online branding, social media and the world of banking on his blog at azaroff.com/blog

Note: Part one of this series can be found here.

On blogs I visit discussing social media, one ongoing debate concerns metrics. Some claim that metrics for social media projects are not meaningful; some claim that new metrics must be developed to gauge social behaviour. Some even claim that metrics aren't needed.

I believe that it is essential to have meaningful key-performance indicators in place for a social media project, as you would for any other project. You must know what success will look like to know if the project is worth repeating or not. Some of these metrics are familiar Web metrics, some are more similar to offline advertising, some are similar to PR metrics, and some are indeed brand new and hard to measure.

For ChangeEverything.ca we measure a few things that are familiar to anyone who runs a website:

• Unique visitors
• Time on site
• Referring URLs
• Natural search results
• Number of registered users
• Number of active users (need to define for yourself)

We also measure "Web 2.0" stuff:

• Our Technorati authority ranking
• The number of RSS subscribers
• Conversions of visitors to contributors (people who make it through the registration or content-creation funnels)

Like offline media, we measure how many people in our geographic region are aware of the site, just like we track awareness of our television campaigns. We also measure how many can link it back to our brand.

Like our PR, we try to measure the earned media the site has garnered for us, which has been significant, with lots of positive coverage on TV, radio and newspapers. We also keep track of what bloggers say about us. We consider a blogger writing positively about ChangeEverything.ca to be an unsolicited third-party endorsement. Happily, almost all blog posts so far have been positive, as have our earned media. It's difficult to criticize this project since most press coverage is about how the site has helped the community in some way. And that leads us to the most interesting metric by far.

Where we need new metrics is on the issue of real-world impact. This was not a metric we had in place prior to launch—honestly, it never occurred to us. But it became necessary because of activities happening in the real world (remember that?) due to the influence of the site. The first time this became obvious was after a bad snowstorm Vancouver in November 2006. The site's amazing community moderator Kate created a post called Got Hats? and asked for people to donate warm clothing and blankets to the homeless. This initiative took off and over the next few days, we estimate that more than 4,000 pieces of clothing, blankets, pillows, and, yes, hats were donated to local shelters, all via communication and organization on the site. The change occurred while snow was still on the ground, while the need was still very real, and even a matter of life and death. It was the first clue that we were onto something truly important.

There are many positive traits the site lends to the Vancity brand. ChangeEverything.ca is more than a bunch of people discussing local issues they want to change. The site has created real impact in the communities Vancity serves. Since the Got Hats? episode, we have seen the impact of the tremendous exposure a woman on the site has received for blogging in depth about her valiant attempt to give up plastics in 2007, the successful implementation of a bike share experiment in Vancouver and now a contest where people can win $1,000 to give to an organization making change for the good (appropriately called ChangeSomething).

Traditional Web metrics can't measure the human terms of this impact, and that's the beauty of social media. It spills over into people's lives, because people are in the driver's seat. We need to expand our view of key performance indicators for social media so they reflect the project's success, which now includes the true impact of these projects on our communities.

I think that explains why those of us who advocate for the appropriate use of social media are so passionate about our work.

Many companies are entering the world of social media but don't really know what success looks like. They want to dabble with this new toolkit, but don't know how to manage expectations.

I believe these projects can be of tremendous value to our industry, which is based heavily on trust. Social media, when executed well, engenders great trust among the users and participants. Somewhere I came across the quote "trust is the killer app," and I like it a lot (I'd like to know who coined that phrase; if you know, please comment).

One year ago, the company I work for, Vancity, launched a social networking website called ChangeEverything.ca. This project is an open online community "for people in Vancouver, Victoria and the Lower Mainland who want to change themselves, their communities or their world." I must admit, one year ago we were fairly naive about what to expect. Now, just past our one-year anniversary, we consider the project a success due to several factors:

• The steady and impressive growth of the registered user base
• Site traffic peaking during times when relevant local issues are being discussed
• Tremendous media exposure in local print, radio and television
• Excellent response to the site from the blogging community (we consider good blog reviews to be unsolicited third-party endorsements)
• Real world impact (more on this in part 2 next week)

The site now acts as a community platform to explore issues of change in and around Vancity's market. It's a unique and wonderful position to be in, with this base of local changemakers associated with our brand.

Lessons from ChangeEverything 

Over the last year, we learned many lessons about what makes a good community project. They include:

1. The first 500 members set the tone
2. Create a set of Community Guidelines
3. Focus more on encouraging good content than eliminating content you're afraid of
4. Ensure you have good moderation capabilities
5. Have patience and persistence
6. Be genuine and authentic
7. Make it part of a campaign to trial
8. Identify your critical success metrics ahead of time
9. Hire an excellent community moderator

Let me explain each point:

1. Typically, in online communities the first 500 members set the tone and mood. If the first 500 people who register and use your forum are yelling, being rude and creating havoc, then those people you do want to participate won't feel welcome. The good news is, the opposite is also true. Handpick the first few users, ask them to pass along the URL to their peers. Start slow and feed the community well, with people who get what you're trying to achieve. By the time the masses get hold of it, the tone will be set and it'll be far easier to monitor and moderate. In fact, you may find that you don't have to moderate comments much at all, which is what we've found with ChangeEverything.ca.

2. Set proper expectations and then link to those guidelines from every place on the site where users can add their own content. It helps to write your guidelines in a very readable way - here are the guidelines for ChangeEverything.ca. Make them humourous and fun, which will make them easier to enforce.

3. Add features and functions that make people want to collaborate. It's too easy to get caught up in being a security guard and forget that you need to be a concierge first. The primary objective is to get people to contribute positively, not to stop people from contributing negatively. Admittedly, this is a hard one to follow through on.

4. Whatever software platform you use, make sure you can moderate content on and off the site easily. The amount of spam blogs get make this doubly essential.

5. Rome wasn't built in a day and communities don't flourish overnight. Keep finding interesting ways to let your initiative take root.

6. One of my absolute favorite quotes is "all social media projects are inherently authentic." The more I think about it, the truer it is. If companies play with social media for the right reason, they will have a greater chance of success.

7. If companies need a safe way to try out social media, they should make it part of a bigger campaign. The ROI (or sometimes lack thereof) is easier to justify to try something different and more innovative.

8. Metrics are crucial and part two of this post will explore the changing world of metrics for social media more fully.

9. Hire someone who knows how to nurture and grow an online community. I'll go into more depth on this topic in part three of this post.

Now for the kicker: In the year of running an online community, where registered users can immediately add comments, with no moderation before those comments go live, we have not had to remove a single comment due to inappropriate behavior. We're extremely proud of this fact, that we were able to build a thriving community focused on positive change. We have removed spam and gibberish, but no one has gone against our community guidelines and posted anything hateful or obscene. Gives me renewed faith in humanity.

I've  been meaning to write this post for a while. Since I'm about to go on vacation and the posting here will be light, I encourage you to follow these blogs if you are not already. In the order that I first began subscribing to them:

Best Financial Service Industry Blogs

• Best financial services news blog: Payments News from Scott Loftesness at Glenbrook Partners is far and away the best source for tracking financial industry news, especially on the payments side. Scott has an uncanny ability to find every pertinent article published anywhere around the globe. And I swear he must never sleep. For sheer scope, it absolutely blows away American Banker, the pre-blogosphere "publication of record" for the banking industry.  
  
• Best strategic thinking in financial services, especially online banking: The Bankwatch from ex-Bank of Montreal exec Colin Henderson. Colin covers an enormous amount of ground in his writings, from organizational development to direct marketing. And his involvement with peer-to-peer startup Community Lend provides an important real-world perspective.   
  
• Best behind-the-scenes look at social media, especially as it relates to financial services and the credit union space: OpenSource CU is another wide-ranging and pointed commentary from the brilliant crew at Trabian (Brent, Trey and Matt). Full disclosure: I won a $5 Starbucks card from them in a comment contest earlier this year.
  
• Best way to track bank and credit union offers: Bank Deals, written by an anonymous engineer who is a prolific poster in his spare time. It's like BankRate.com without the advertising and forced pageviews. Unlike the others listed here, Bank Deals is a pure B2C blog, so you only get the facts, no strategic insights.  
  
• Best antidote to all the b.s. circulating online: Marketing ROI by ex-Forrester analyst Ron Shevlin. Today's post is great example, as he dismantles a recently published article that attempted to convince readers that online banking leads to more online shopping.

Off-Topic

• TechCrunch: The inspiration for hundreds, if not thousands of blogs, including ours. It's been diluted a bit with more posts and more authors now, but when Silicon Valley insider and founder Michael Arrington digs into a subject, it's still a fascinating read. And with 400,000 readers, the comment stream can be even more interesting than the post.
  
• Freakonomics: From the authors of the best selling book of the same name. While they rarely touch on financial subjects, the blog is always thought- provoking and entertaining. 

In our blogging report published last fall (here), we predicted there would be 300 U.S. financial institution blogs by the end of this year. Five months into the year, we are way behind on that projection, with about two dozen financial institutions blogging. That includes just two banks (Wells Fargo and Bank of Internet) and 20+ credit unions (see previous coverage here).

We found three new credit union blogs this weekend, another 1% of the way towards that prediction, which looks high. But I still think there will be close to 200 by year-end. And I promise not to profile ALL of them here.

My Credit Union Blog

MidWest Financial Credit Union and its affiliate, University of Michigan Health System Financial, launched a joint blog on May 14. Although, these two financial institutions are part of the same company, joint blogging efforts across several credit unions in the same geographic area could make a lot of sense.

My Credit Union Blog is attractively laid out and has five postings in its first week, several that are fairly long and fall into the "consumer education" category. It's fine to sprinkle those in over time, but don't overwhelm your readers with long lists of tips and tools. They can already read that stuff at just about any financial website.

Your blog should primarily have short, interesting articles of local interest. Limit the educational pieces to one or two per month at most. Again, Piedmont CU is the best FI blog I've seen in terms of content (see previous post here).

Old Hickory Credit Union

Old Hickory Credit Union's blog began last week with the obligatory welcome message and the first entry on going green with electronic statements, always a good blog subject. With just one entry, it's too early to comment on the content. But the layout is clean, it wisely uses it's own URL <blogohcu.org>, unique template, and covers the basics in the About section introducing the two bloggers behind the effort. Hopefully, over time the blog will be spruced up with more graphics and pictures.

Secure One Credit Union

Unlike the other two new blogs, Secure One Credit Union, should consider pulling its blog down until it has more resources to commit to the project. The blogger platform makes it look cheap (which it is), but the fatal flaw is lack of content. There are only two entries since its March 20 launch, and the last, which is more than a month old, simply lists CD rates, something that can easily be found on a regular website. Here's the link: <securefirstcu.blogspot.com>.

You don't have to blog that often, but once or twice per week is a good rule of thumb, and at least some of the posts should be original content, not cut-and-paste jobs from your website.

Seattle's Verity CU, the first financial institution in the world with an external company blog, is replacing its aging Blogger version, in use since the December 2004 launch.

Verity posted a clever "farewell" in its old blog on May 11 (see screenshot below) and promised a link to the new version "soon." A week later, the new blog is live, and you'll want to take a look at it <blog.veritycu.com> (screenshot below).   

 The new site is pleasing to look at, easy to follow, and state-of-the-art in just about every way, exactly what you'd expect from Trabian, the red-hot social media design firm. I especially like the middle column which showcases  recent blog postings by department: marketing, member services, executive, HR, IT, accounting, and business services. It helps expose more great posts, while demonstrating to members that the blog is a true company-wide effort. Each department's posts can also be accessed through the Categories area in the lower-right.

I give it the first A+ of the year. Excellent work!

New

Old

One of the biggest questions surrounding financial institution blogging, is whether anyone would actually want to read one. We are firmly in the camp that EVERY bank, credit union, and financial services company should have a blog (see our Online Banking Report on blogging here). But with so few actually doing it, it's hard to find examples that provide a good mix of community news, financial advice, along with that right "tone" that makes it readable and believable. 

Here's one to watch. After just two months bloggin, Dan Veasey, Director of Marketing and Biz Dev at Piedmont Credit Union in Danville, VA, looks like he has what it takes. When I first looked at his blog (here), there were only a few entries, and its credibility was hampered by the limitations of the Blogger template. Well, Dan took the advice of several industry observers and moved it to a Wordpress template several weeks ago.  

With the conversion behind him, Dan has been concentrating on the content, which is really what it's all about. For example, in the past week Dan had a great content mix with local news (Starbucks opening), humor (sponsoring a digit of the number pi), CU business (annual meeting invitation), and serious financial subjects (budgeting for a family). He uses a friendly tone that establishes his credit union as the kind of place you want to like. And he drops in a picture or two to break up the text. 

Now, all this takes time, so he may need to bring in another author to keep up the pace; but so far, it's great work and a good example to follow.  

Here are the previous five posts: 

• Math teachers, don’t you wish you’d thought of this?: Light-hearted Friday post on a website where you can buy a digit of the number pi. It has nothing to do with the credit union, but it's a nice break.
• Annual Meeting and New Benefits for PCU Members: Dan drums up interest in the CU's annual meeting, emphasizing the fun, food, and festivities.
• How much family can you afford?  Serious piece about the cost of raising a family and the need to budget. Supported with background and a picture about his father's medical mission to Honduras.
• New Future Neighbors at Coleman Marketplace: Short post about a new business coming to town, supported with a picture of a local billboard.
• Starbucks Opens Tonight! (see below) Great post about the first Starbucks in Danville. The post a wonderful job welcoming the new business, while still honoring the two independent coffeehouses in town. Dan should be a politician.

Comala Credit Union: <comalacreditunion.blogspot.com>

Overview:

In our view, any blog is better than no blog; however, Comala Credit Union's new blog puts that hypothesis to a test. It's only been online for two weeks, so we'll cut them some slack, but they need to spruce it up a bit if they want members to trust it as a reliable resource.

Thanks to Ron Shevlin for posting the first link to the blog (here).
Update: Apparently, Morriss at Everthing CU had it first. Both posts were on the same day, but I doubt Ron posted his before the 12:19 AM entry at EverythingCU (here).

Metrics:

First post: 12 April 2007

Number of posts in April (April 1 to 25): 3

Comments in April: 3

Comments related to blog content or CU: 1

Traffic: not available

Score: 7 out of 18 (Grade = C-)

• CU branding: No (just a small picture of what must be headquarters)
• About this blog area: No
• Relevant content: Not enough info (just 3 posts)
• Appropriate post frequency: Not enough info 
• Acceptable blog "tone": Yes
• Prominent link to main CU website: No (buried in link list on lower right)
• Email address for author or CU: No
• Author name: No
• Author bio: No 
• Posts dated: Yes
• Categories: Yes
• Blog search: Yes
• Professional look and feel: No (standard free Blogger template)
• Comments: Yes 
• CU response to comments: Yes
• RSS signup: No (small Atom link at very bottom does allow feed signup; but it is difficult to find)
• Email signup: No
• Links to other appropriate resources: No
• Prominent mention on main CU homepage: Yes (big time...and it blinks!)
• Supplements text with occasional pictures/graphics: No

For more info on financial blogging:

• Our previous coverage of financial institution blogs here
• Our report on blogging and feeds (Online Banking Report, #138)
• Opensource CU from Trabian  
• Ron Shevlin's open letter to  CU bloggers (here)

Piedmont Credit Union: <piedmontcu.blogspot.com>

Comments:

It's a good start for Piedmont. The subject matter and writing style are good and it follows most "best practice" guidelines for financial institution blogging, scoring 13 out of 20 on our blog scorecard below. The blog is mentioned on the CU's homepage <piedmontcu.org> which helps introduce members to the new resource. Upgrading from the "blogger template" would make it more professional looking, and an email option would benefit the members and employees who want to follow the blog. Thanks to Trabian for posting the first link to the blog.

Metrics:

First post: March 2007

Number of posts in April (April 1 to 24): 10

Comments in April: 1

Comments related to blog content or CU: 0

Traffic: not available

Score: 13 out of 20 (Grade = B)

• CU branding: Yes
• About this blog area: No
• Relevant content: Yes
• Appropriate post frequency: Yes (2 to 3 per week)
• Acceptable blog "tone": Yes
• Prominent link to main CU website: No (buried in link list on lower right)
• Email address for author or CU: Yes
• Author name: Yes
• Author bio: No 
• Posts dated: Yes
• Categories: Yes
• Blog search: Yes
• Professional look and feel: No (standard free blogger template)
• Comments: Yes 
• CU response to comments: Yes
• RSS signup: No (small Atom link at very bottom does allow feed signup; but it is difficult to find)
• Email signup: No
• Links to other appropriate resources: Yes
• Prominent mention on main CU homepage: Yes
• Supplements text with occasional pictures/graphics: No (only one graphic used so far)

For more info on financial blogging:

• Our previous coverage of financial institution blogs here
• Our report on blogging and feeds (Online Banking Report, #138)
• Opensource CU from Trabian  
• Ron Shevlin's advice today for CU bloggers (here)

Since I'm a numbers junkie, whenever I'm at a conference, I try to note as many meaningful statistics as possible. By meaningful, I mean a number that provides an outsider with some insight into the business. Merely saying, "we beat our expectations by 63%" does NOT qualify, unless the speaker also shared their expectations. 

The flow of numbers was about a bit below average during the three days I attended Net.Finance, but the two professional researchers on the agenda, Jim Van Dyke of Javelin Strategy and Asaf Buchner of Jupiter Research, delivered slides chock full of statistics. I will check with them to see if they are willing to share with our readers. 

Here's some of the nuggets buried in the presentations from the other experts on stage: 

Most Eye-Opening Stat: 

• During the past 14 months, more than 280,000 messages have been posted on the Prosper.com discussion forum, according to CEO Chris Larsen (see here for Colin Henderson's complete notes on this session).
  
  My take: That's an amazing level of consumer engagement with the new lending platform. To put that in perspective, Wells Fargo's Student Loandown blog has received 98 total comments during its eight months online.

Best Stat to Drop in a Business Case:

• Shari Storm, CMO, Verity Credit Union, said that 1% of its new members named the blog when asked how they heard about Verity; the new members had an average of 2.7 accounts with $9,000 in deposits and $11,500 in loans (excluding mortgage); furthermore, the CU's blog, launched in Dec. 2004, now has 1,000 readers (see here for Colin Henderson's complete notes on this session)
  
  My take: While I don't recommend trying to turn this single data point into an ROI calculation, it's the first time I've heard a financial exec say something about blogging that the finance folks will appreciate (chalk up another first for Verity).

Stat that Most Contradicts My Previous Position:

• Vancity's ChangeEverything.ca blog, launched commercially in Sept 2006, now has 1,000 registered users who've generated more than 2,000 blog entries and comments; in total, the site has had 45,000 unique visitors according to William Azaroff, Interactive Marketing Manager (see here for Colin Henderson's complete notes on this session)
  
  My take: Despite my reservations about whether it would gain traction without a financial services perspective (see our Online Banking Report on Bank 2.0 here), Vancity's unique blog has gained a small, but growing, worldwide following, and, more importantly, has contributed measurably to Vancity's efforts to help its community and create positive brand positioning for the CU. Nice work.  

Blogging/Podcasting:

• Key Bank's most popular podcast, top stock picks by John Caldwell, has recorded 70,000 visits and 12,000 unique users, according to Interactive Marketing Manager Mickey Mencin
• Colin Henderson, BankWatch blogger and former BMO exec, mentioned that 39% of Canadians are now reading blogs 

Online Marketing:

• Colin Henderson also cited Forrester findings that 50% of recent financial buyers did 100% of their research online; 30% performed both on- and offline research; and just 20% conducted all the research offline. In Citibank's late 2005 new checking account promotion, the bank gave away 275,000 iPods, according to Charles DeFelice, SVP customer information environment (it wasn't specified if this was the POTENTIAL or ACTUAL number given away, since consumers had to follow through with a number of electronic activities over a period of months in order to qualify for the freebie) 
• Jon Kaplan, head of Google's financial services group, said that 60% of Google users have a personalized (Google) page and that 20% of Google search volume originates from these pages
• GE Money's SVP of Strategy Vincenzo Picone said the company has 300 million customers with $190 billion in assets across 54 countries which led to a net profit of $3.5 billion in 2006; the company has 2010 targets for 300 million unique visitors; $20 billion in online originations and 1 billion transactions via the online and mobile channel
• U.K.'s Lloyds TSB experienced a 71% revenue lift (against a control) on its homepage by implementing Touch Clarity's (now Omniture) targeted ad server which uses a number of variables to determine which ads should be shown to an individual visitor; according to Omniture's Brent Hieggelke who showed results from a case study presented by Lloyds TSB at a recent conference

Mobile Banking:

• Jennifer Vos, director of Citi Mobile, Citibank's new mobile banking service, said that one-third of current Citi customers have input mobile phone numbers into the bank's alert system; furthermore, the new mobile offering was piloted by 100 employees, who have recently been joined by another hundred users in the southern California market

Small Business Banking:

• Wells Fargo has 150,000 "very active" small-business online banking users according to Eskander Matta, SVP of internet services group; businesses are making $45 million in payments per month with the bank's DirectPay service launched just a year ago

Branding:

• 94% of ING Direct's customers would recommend it to a friend, according to John Owens, Head of Marketing

Online Banking:

• Customer satisfaction in online banking, while on the rise, still trails online retailing by five percentage points, 78% vs. 83%, according to Larry Freed, CEO Foresee Results