The social app that will redefine financial services firms

I’ve been thinking about why social media has sputtered so much in financial services (beyond the obvious legal fears and constraints). Many attempts to leverage the amazing potential of emerging web trends have fallen short and I think the reason is very simple. The solutions that have been created are often not relevant to people’s everyday lives. The best measure of a social media application is whether or not people would miss it when it is gone.

Email is one of the very first social media digital applications and once we began using it we became very reliant upon it. Then our calendars began filling up — and people began scheduling lunch meetings because that was the only slot they saw open. Our lives were suddenly, yet very organically, run by the schedule and communications within our email applications.

Today, the most successful social media sites are using simple features to embed themselves into people’s lives in a similar way. The difference is they are mostly fun and very easy to use. The barrier to adoption is lower than ever for the average online user. Twitter has Tweets, Facebook has a simple status update and a news feed that tells you about your friends’ activity. This kind of transparency has proven to be quite addictive. So much so we see $8 billion valuations for some sites with little by way of a business model but lots by way of eyeballs.

I saw a twitter tweet several days ago where an international “week without Twitter” was proposed. The networks of people who are contributing and following Tweets often can’t imagine their lives without it.

The stakes are also being raised by sites like Mint.com and Cake Financial. People can gain insights into their finances that are unimaginable in a typical logged in firm experience today.

Apply that “can’t-imagine-life-without-it” lens to some solutions that exist in the financial services world today:
Several message boards, a couple of blogs from Wells Fargo and ING, several small communities built for college students or small business owners. Also, there are very few examples of firms large or small adopting solutions that emphasize any content or data that is not in their control (for reasons that can be understood to a certain degree).

So what will help firms get over legal and business challenges facing the implementation of social media application? What is the app that will redefine the way firms serve information to clients?

The solution won’t just be:

• Launching a blog or online community or message board
• A single campaign
• A single tool or calculator with a strong call-to-action

The solution will:

• Be a series of small features that are slowly and quietly adopted by users until they are pervasive enough to be relied upon.
• enhance the way people go about their lives.
• fill an need for information, insight, convenience, or fun.
• connect people to people explicitly and implicitly
• leverage the wealth of data and information firms have at their disposal to draw connections between customers.
• Offer unprecedented transparency of the client’s information
• It will not be tied to the browser or any other device

Ok. The actual solution is still yet to be imagined, but the potential is great, the clock is ticking and the possibilities make me excited to do what i do.