A little over a year ago, my bank account got hacked. It sucked and the phone support at Citibank couldn’t help me out. So out of frustration, I turned to the best place I know to get help – Twitter. After some back and forth over the phone, their social media team had me fixed up right. Ever since then, I thought they had the social game right and would use it to help repair their image post-bailout era in a similar fashion to the auto industry.
Image: Wikipedia
Well, that was until today when I read this article on the Street noting that CEO Vikram Pandit launched his own fan page on Facebook to help bolster the brand image. He was the first major bank CEO to do so. I have to admit, reading the intro and opening quotes from their PR man Paul Butcher had me on board saying, hey this is cool, but shortly after that, I came to this paragraph that knocked me off the gravy train:
Although Pandit has a Facebook page he does not post or update the page himself, so you won’t see any personal status updates, friend requests or be able to poke him, Butcher explains. “He doesn’t update the page personally, but he thinks social media is very important,” he says.
To me this is just Citibank talking out of both sides of their mouth while also screaming at the top of their lungs that they were the first to market with a CEO fan page. That screaming and lack of usage by the CEO is plain vanity and poor taste – it is also is the antithesis of what a company should be doing to engage their customer base.
Having a page run by a social or communications team is one thing for a brand; it is completely inauthentic when done for an individual as a “ghost” fan page. Hopefully the team over there gets their act together and pulls down this act of hubris and focuses on the corporate brand instead of feeding an ego.
Hopefully other banks do not follow this lead.
What do you think about this account? What would you do if you were in Citi’s shoes?
That’s awesome!! “He doesn’t update the page personally, but he thinks social media is very important,” Classic.
@cartertx Just goes to show that it is really an awful strategy from a company who “sees the value in SM”
How can you consider anything important if you haven’t bothered to immerse yourself in it to at least understand its value? I’m not one of those people who thinks every CEO needs to be on Facebook, because they don’t, but if you are going to have your company invest a lot of time and resources into creating what amounts to an ego boost for the CEO, at least make am earnest effort at the start to be part of the process. Otherwise, you’re just wasting everyone’s time.
This is so typical of big bank thinking – the us and them approach. It just underlines the core of the problem. If banks really want to connect with customers and have a good relationship, it must be a two way street among equals, as a minimum when it comes to communicating in public.
@DavidSvet Agree completely. At first glance I was excited reading the CEO was getting involved. It reminded me of the Twitter chats and semi-hands on, but hyper-aware approach taken by the Ford CEO. Then I read the, well he doesn’t update the page and was turned out. A brand page like this is fine, but making a phantom CEO page is just out of vanity, like a five year old saying I want I want.
@KeithTrivitt Agree completely. Not every company or person needs social media. Unfortunate thing is that in this Me2.0 world, people get jealous and want to be internet famous.
Good read, @jeffespo . And I’m glad you posted this: Hopefully, some of the social media folks working with the banks will take heed to your main point that this is an inauthentic start. With NY investigating the Big Three for their role in the financial crisis, teachers protesting in the streets,etc. the big banks have their hands full so I can appreciate their CEOs are busy. I’d be much more impressed if they would hand the reins of social media communications off to a “Frank Elliason” type. As you so well point out, this move just further instills public distrust of the whole industry.
@LisaThorell See even using Frank in this case is will not help the brand. The brand needs to repair its image holistically – much like Ford did. Using Frank can be just good as hiring a mercenary as he was, for years, the face of Comcast, not Citi.The best approach for them n this Monday Morning QB’s perspective is to really incorporate social into their marketing campaigns and use it to put out little known facts and tidbits that would strengthen their value proposition.
So glad you wrote this! I think the huge takeaway from this post for your readers is the “talking out of both sides of the mouth” point. It’s not just that this is part of their social strategy, it’s that it comes in tandem with some decent headway into the financial services social media space. Why do all that good work and then hurt your own efforts?
It made me think of bankmarketing ‘s recent post, “Is your bank drunk at the Twitter party?” specifically this point:
Bank Tweet #3: “BankX Welcomes Shareholders to town! The BankX Annual Shareholders Meeting is today at the Douglas Theatre.”
Cocktail Party Translation: “My rich parents are coming to visit next weekend. We will be drinking from cups made of gold. Try to keep your manure carts off our lawn, peasants!
Hehe. Why do I want to see a bigwig talking about his attendance at meetings I’m not important or rich enough to attend? I’d rather see a bigwig talk about meeting with customers, or talking in plain language about new initiatives he’s excited about. This could be a great idea, but without A. authenticity and B. active monitoring and response it’s going to end up doing more harm than anything else.
@jennalyns bankmarketing Very good point on that. Not like they owe it to the consumer to rebuild trust overall.
Jeff – great thoughts. We all know as PR and social media professionals ourselves, we are often tasked with handling the CEO’s / president / public figure’s blog entries, FB fan page updates, Twitter, etc. Fine. However, blatantly station “He doesn’t update the page personally, but he thinks social media is very important,” is just plain old dumb. This exact statement is a walking contradiction. I guess they get points for honestly while others just don’t speak of “ghost posting,” but it’s still not smart in my opinion.
@kottavio The whole concept of ghost anything is pretty awful an inauthentic. My big reason for that is that if the executive meets someone in public who recognizes them and wants to discuss a recent blog, tweet, white paper, etc., they need to be able to speak to it and know the nuances used. If they don’t they are exposed as a fraud.
Plus people who go around wearing sheets all day (above five years old) are either A) Mental or B) in some awful secret ignorant society and who really wants to be associated with either of those two areas?
So it’s really not his fan page at all. Let’s call a spade a spade.
@ginidietrich nope, but it is a great model that I suggest the CEO of a certain PR firm in Chicago follow 🙂
As a former Citi employer (not a banker, just worked for a bank) I enjoyed this post. I must say one thing that jumps out at me is – don’t forget Citi handled the hacked account issue. This is important to remember as Apple, Google and others seem to be staking out a position to handle our money, banks suck on many levels, but they do know how to handle money. On the social front, it is funny to think Citi used to (they still might) run every single tweet past a lawyer before posting. Yup, real-time is a relative term. As for the faux Facebook page, that is disappointing but not surprising. My time at Citi was filled with great moments, but I was always shocked how rarely talk of customers entered the discussions. They are trying to partner with companies like Apple and hopefully they can learn to engage customers on the customer’s terms. Time will tell if banks remain relevant to the upcoming millennial customer base.
@dionlisle Thanks for popping by. Trust me noting was lost on me with how they helped resolve the account and I was seriously sad leaving the bank. Big issue for me is the farce that was creating a page and asking customers to fan the CEO only to know that it is a ghost page. If you are trying to rebuild trust, do that, don’t fake it as it only pisses people off more.
Conversely if another bank CEO has a fan page and engages with customers, that would make me trust them more and Citibank less.