That is one thing i feel banks and credit unions cannot understand. If it’s means of talking to members or potential customers they feel the need to tell them every promotion and every interest rate and never engage in conversation!

And if banks and credit unions are afraid of negative comments they should face them head on. I attended a Word of Mouth conference last week and one of the things i learned was how Starbucks replies to every negative comment. People would feel better if a financial institution was trying to fix a problem it instead of hide it.

“Why is it that virtually everything we read about community and social media/marketing contrary to what we are seeing first hand when we dig in?”

True, on the surface, huge strides have been made in adopting social marketing and community practices and achieving great results but the case studies we encountered were emblematic of the phrase, ‘achieving the miracle of doneness’. Meaning, goal achieved, perfection attained.

It seems that community, like everything in life is a journey and ‘perfection’ is a goal not a destination. Brands and the agencies helping them in large part still had a long way to go in terms of creating real, sustainable branded communities that were viewed and treated as strategic brand assets. Consistency was one of the biggest things we saw still needing work. Most communities were still in the tactical campaign column; treated may times like another tool and was an occasional casualty of the ’shiny penny syndrome. Or at least this was our opinion.

The purpose of this study (which took us well over six months to complete) was to some degree to prove or disprove our own hypothesis. In the end, the results show that no one has come close to achieving that miracle of doneness…community nirvana where there is a harmonious balance of interests and real collaboration occurs that drives even greater brand value to all involved. Some are doing a very good job and should be both congratulated for some very hard work, as well as, be emulated. Yet others should take it for what it is. A current state of the industry, which offers some suggestions on methods to improve.

We used some outside experts from acedamia to validate and help tweak our measurement filters, as well as, some stringent QA processes (overseen in part by a former ISO 9000:9001 process quality auditor), so the results would be what they were, not what anyone thought or wanted.

This report was not intended as a definitive statement on all things community, only a way to help summarize the work done thus far and offer suggestions on how to better capitalize on a very important opportunity-achieving a higher degree of relevancy with the people who support you…your fans and customers.

We genuinely hope it spurs discussion on the topic and aids continued improvement by all.

Thanks again for the posting and keep up your great work in this industry segment.