Social channels: a lightning rod for the whole bank?

It's a big dilemma.  On the one hand you're absolutely right that an official channel can become a lightning rod for attention.  On the other hand, the conversation will mostly happen without you elsewhere.  I’d agree that you have to try to fix problems or at least be very prepared for the attention if you engage.

I don’t think any institution, not least banks particularly like the lack of control that social media presents.  And frankly that’s often the tone of senior, less digitally savvy leaders.  “How will I control the message?” being the question asked.

You can participate in the conversations.  You can get involved with consumers.  But you simply cannot be selective on the conversations you have, or the subject or audience that you’d like to engage.  And you cannot control the conversation.  But you can of course steer, manage and respond in a suitable manner.  In some cases, the manner by which an organisation manages negative situations can get quite a bit of credit in itself.

The relative anonymity of social does lead ironically to dissocial behaviours, but that shouldn’t deter those that are prepared.  I'd rather know where the lightening will strike.

As I'd highlighted in The Business Case For Social Media Customer Service, better opportunities for cross- and upselling are one more reason for banks and other service providers to take this channel seriously.

Hi James, Ketharaman

Suspect we are agreed, social channels are often (not always) a good thing to do.

But the Co-op's experience just made me reflect that us external advocates of social channels, should sometimes pause and have a little empathy with the folk inside the bank who put themselves directly in the firing line with these initiatives.

@SteveE:

Absolutely. In fact, alongside our guidance for implementing social media based customer support, we strongly recommend banks to follow a "zero tolerance" policy towards NSFW language. Appearing hip and cool by participating in social media and all that is fine. But, in all that, we should never forget that a bank performs a very serious function in the society and, regardless of the channel, communications between a bank and its community must be carried out with utmost respect to each other. I for one won't want to wade through filthy language on a bank's property even when I know that the bank hasn't written it by itself.   

As an aside, just wanted to be sure that I've got Co-Op right. From what you say, it seems to have a vibrant Twitter account but, one bank called "The Co-Op" got zero points in this social media benchmarking report and, "despite having an account, does not even tweet"!