“Perform a Google search for terms such as ‘bank,’ ‘loan,’ ‘finance,’ ‘home loan,’ or ‘car loan.’ What you find are individual offerings. The overarching narrative about the industry’s role as an economic engine is nowhere to be found. While industry trade associations work within the Beltway and the banks hawk their products, no one is communicating the most important message of all.
“Where are the high-profile bloggers who can validate banks’ efforts to improve service and fiscal strength? Where is the social media outreach that creates the kind of customer loyalty that saved George Bailey’s skin? ...
“The American Bankers Association’s blogs are solid resources for bankers, but they have yet to be deployed as consumer outreach tools that can help move the overarching conversation about banks where it needs to be. Citi’s use of Twitter to solve customer service problems is a template that has yet to be widely emulated. These and other forays into social and digital media can’t be the exceptions when the industry’s audience has grown beyond watching golf on Sundays. They are essential first steps. The sooner they are taken, the better.
—Richard Levick
