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Several Norwegian companies have jumped on the social media bandwagon, but my overall impression remains that most companies are still struggling to see the benefits of investing time and money on activities such as blogging, twittering and Facebook marketing. In my opinion businesses needs to be ready for two-way communication, before even considering creating any social media accounts. Listening to what your potential customers have to say about your values and products is key to social media success.

I have an example of a company that I think is well on its way to succeed with the use of social media in their marketing strategy. And for the sake of clarity, I have not worked with this company in any way. This is just a neutral observation from a satisfied customer.

Postbanken (one of Norway’s largest and most traditional banks) has created a blog where one of their consumer economists gives advice about personal finance. She encourage users to ask about things that concern them within the economy. Commenting on posts requires no registration and anyone can participate in dialogue with the bank representative. The people behind the blog have enough confidence that the comments that are posted are of relevance, that they’re not held for moderation before they are published. If any inappropriate comments should show up, there will be no problem to remove them within a short amount of time.

However although the blogposts are well written and they encourage anyone to comment, it doesn’t help very much if nobody knows the blog exists.

The bank has made some cheap but smart moves on marketing the blog. By linking directly to the blog on the banks main page, it’s clear that the project is a priority at the top of the organization. Putting a banner on the first page surely doesn’t cost a lot of money, and it ensures that most of their customers are made aware that they can go there if they need any financial advice.

The bank’s consumer economist is also present on Twitter, and it appears that she understands the importance of participating in the debate, listen to people’s opinions and last but not least, share knowledge. She follows everyone that follows her, which suggests that she is equally interested in your opinions as you are in hers. Big thumbs up!

Examples of other companies that are active in the social media sphere are Stormberg, Ludo Mobil and Kvasir.

Do you have any examples of good (or bad) business presence in social media?

This entry was posted on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 12:54 pm and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.