Anyone can claim a business (if no one else has, and I’m seeing a lot that haven’t*) on dozens of these sites. I would want to take control of that from a security standpoint, as well as making sure the location is correct, hours, contact information, photo/logo, etc. If (big if) proximity to brick and mortar is still driving the initial selection of a bank or credit union by many consumers, wouldn’t it help to have your presence on a mobile app? If a F.I. wants to draw new younger customers, I think that registration on these sites might be worthwhile. It’s free and easy to do.

Most of all, I would want to have some monitoring of these internally to see what the public is saying, good or bad. As I said, anyone can register a business on many of these sites, except for the big guys like Google and Bing that require a post card confirmation and website code insertion, respectively. 

As far as the marketing potential, I agree that it hasn’t proven any significant results that I have seen, and may not. Running specials and adding coupons on places like Google Places is free the last time I looked. I wonder if that might be worthwhile? Most of this seems designed for general merchants, like restaurants and retailers. I’m just wondering if there is a place for it with F.I.’s? Is Google Places even being considered Social Media? MapQuest or a GPS? In general, I wouldn’t put a lot of resources into it now, but I would want to have at least a physical presence and my ear to the ground. 

*I do see that the regional’s and above have more of a physical presence on these sites when I search F.I.’s in the mobile search categories.

If you looked at the bottom half of all financial institutions ranked by assets, you would find very few Foursquare check-ins. A $200 million credit union with one marketing employee would find only a handful checkins every month. Which raises the question: Should a small financial institution with limited staff and limited resources work to engage such a small segment of their base? What does that engagement look like? How does it benefit the financial institution? And, strategically speaking, should you even be rewarding more Foursquare checkins at your costly physical branch locations? Or should you be discouraging that kind of activity?

And yes, social media definitely does have a positive effect on SEO. However, most financial institutions organically rank high (enough) already, so how important is improving SEO to them? Generally speaking, a search for “XYZ Bank” will yield results ranked according to the relative size of institutions bearing the “XYZ” name (or something similar). A financial institution’s SEO ranking is largely a factor of its assets: more = higher.

Like the word “bank”, “social media” covers a diverse population. The advantage that I see with sites like Yelp, Foursquare and even MapQuest, is that they are more of a reference tool for consumers to find a business that is near them (like the closest branch). Their mobile applications allow one to find a merchant or F.I. on the go. It also provides a relatively unfiltered (most of the time) look at the experience (some) customers have had with a particular business. This, of course is the double-edged sword that F.I.’s also fear – and is being challenged in some cases (I predict a Supreme Court case with the AMA on that one!). Additionally, I have seen SM increase search engine optimization, i.e. Facebook boosts Bing rankings according to a SEO conference I attended last night.

In essence, by moving faster than the rest of the organization social media practioners are providing a perverse incentive to consumers to move the complaints process to a public forum. I would characterize the situation Charlotte described not as the success of the social media channel but the clear and profound failure of the traditional channel.

Thanks for your comment. There’s nothing wrong at all with banks and credit unions trying to deliver service to customers via social media channels. However, it seems that this strategy only makes sense for the largest financial institutions. If you have the chance, please read this article from The Financial Brand on social CRM: Should You Join The Social Media Conversation If No One Is Talking About You? Along those lines, I’m curious if the bank you are referring to is one of the larger players?

All financial institutions should at the very least have a listening program in place. That goes without saying as far as I’m concerned.