While the arrival of the likes of Twitter, Facebook and YouTubein global treasury services is not likely to help fomentrevolution, banks' use of social media channels and features toservice corporate customers does promise to introduce profoundlymore interactive relationships. Banks have been reaching out toconsumers through social media for a few years now, but the uptakeat the business-to-business level has been slow. Security is aconcern, and the more experienced executives running corporatefinance departments—a polite way of saying the 50-plus crowd—tendto show less enthusiasm for adopting the latest technology.Nevertheless, at least a few national banks plan to launch socialmedia initiatives this year that are intended to facilitate theflow of ideas between the bank and its treasury customers as wellas among those customers.

Banks routinely engage in meetings with corporate clients inperson or through webinars to discuss initiatives and allow clientsto share their experiences. Such meetings are limited by space,time and the number of participants. Wells Fargo, for example,started up advisory councils in 2003 made up of more than 100representatives from treasury clients, including big and smallcompanies and governmental institutions. The councils meet once ortwice a year to talk about services and such issues as how tointegrate acquisitions most effectively.

However, the bank wants to harness the collective wisdom of thethousands of corporate customers that use its wholesale bankingplatform, Commercial Electronic Office (CEO), and eventually enableall of its CEO customers to participate. Wells Fargo will get morecustomer input, while customers will gain a broad array of peerswith whom to converse and consult.

“It seemed like a logical extension to move to an online forum,so if someone has a question or idea but is not physically sittingin the room, it can still be addressed,” says Jeff Tinker, seniorvice president and national sales manager at Wells Fargo TreasuryManagement.

Banks are also using social media channels such as YouTube,Facebook and Twitter to drive traffic to their Web sites. Theinitiatives to launch advisory committees into the social mediarealm, however, appear to be the near-term focus for severalbanks.

“They're taking a process they already have in place—obtainingfeedback from treasury customers—and making it more collaborativeand providing more transparency,” says Stessa Cohen, an analyst atGartner Group. Banks have aggressively pursued social-mediachannels aimed at consumers, Cohen says, but notes, “on thebusiness side it requires a bit more thought in terms of how to goabout doing it, and there are bigger risks and privacy concernsthan on the consumer side.”

Michael Connolly, treasurer at Tiffany & Co., says heparticipates in the Association for Financial Professionals' onlinediscussion groups, in part because he's “comfortable” with thegroups' composition and knows many of the members personally. Hesays discussion groups over social media channels such as LinkedInraise concerns about just who will see the information—a hurdlebanks will have to overcome as they launch their own social mediainitiatives.

“I see it more as a resource to read about issues and currentevents as opposed to an open sharing of thoughts and questions,”Connolly says. “My primary concern is there is a lack of certaintyas to how closed the group is.”

Another factor is the perception that resistance to social mediachannels generally increases with age, Tinker notes. In fact, thebank's surveys of business customers have found those over 45 yearsof age are more skeptical about the value of channels such asFacebook, Twitter and the business-focused LinkedIn. “But when westarted talking about replicating what we've accomplished inperson-to-person meetings, that knocked down some barriers,” Tinkersays.

Bank of America has implemented open social media channels thatare aimed at retail customers and sole-proprietorship businesses,where the decision maker will be using the service directly.However, its surveys of corporate clients, ranging from smallbusinesses to large corporations, have found those executivesalready use social-media channels outside the bank.

“They felt that in delivering such a solution a bank would beoverstepping its bounds,” says Milton Santiago, head of globaltreasury product portal strategy at Bank of America MerrillLynch.

So rather than launching an information sharing and discussionchannel, Bank of America queried business customers about thesocial media features they find most valuable and sought toincorporate those features into its electronic offerings.Facebook's feature showing which users are currently logged in, orthe ability to respond to messages via text messages, e-mails orother means without going outside the application are primeexamples.

“Commercial and middle-market customers want to spend as littletime as possible in a solution because they have to move on to thenext activity,” Santiago says.

Bank of America has been testing social media features over bothits mobile and Web banking applications, called CashPro Online, formore than six months. Such features, and especially the userpatterns they foster, have been incorporated into three newapplications for the global treasury management and online bankingchannel B of A launched in November.

Those features are particularly helpful whenclients are using small-screen mobile devices. For example, anexecutive receives a message seeking a wire-transfer approval buthas a question. On the same screen she clicks an icon to bring up acontact list and calls the correct contact to answer the question.When she hangs up, the wire-transfer screen reappears and she canpress the approval icon to transfer the funds, all without leavingthe application—similar to the multiple communication choicesFacebook provides.

Or an executive may be looking at the image of a check and wantsto share it with colleagues in accounts payable to show it hascleared. The new mobile apps now allow sharing images via e-mails,Santiago says, and as executives become more comfortable with thecapability, it can be extended to other messaging options.

“Why are these social media networks so popular? Because userscan quickly and easily communicate,” Santiago says, adding thatclients say the social media workflow patterns the bank hasincorporated seem designed to meet their business needs.

And those features' “discoverability”—their intuitiveness—hasbeen important in today's troubled economy, where employee turnovermay be high and new or existing employees have limited time tolearn new duties. “It's easier for associates to learn about theproduct, because these patterns are so common,” Santiago says.

He adds that Bank of America's advisory committee meetings stilltake place in person or via Cisco TelePresence, which lessensgeographical constraints but still requires participants to attendat a specific time. Social media channels on the other hand enableparticipation at virtually any time and from any place. In today'sbusy world, as upper-level executives become more comfortable usingsocial media channels, a virtual setting to provide and exchangeideas would appear almost inevitable.

Tinker says Wells Fargo used feedback from its dozen advisorycouncils to design the mobile services offered to commercialcustomers, providing the features they requested, such as access toprevious day and intraday balances and the ability to approve wiresand reset passwords. The advisory councils also helped the bankcraft transition guidelines for customers navigating the changesresulting from Wells Fargo's integration of Wachovia, tellingcommercial customers what was changing, how to use the newservices, and who to contact with questions.

And, says Tinker, council members' ability to exchange ideasabout how to tackle regulatory, technology and other issues hasbeen invaluable for participants. “Knowing that we sponsored othercouncil meetings where there was that kind of interaction, folksasked how they could also get plugged into those groups,” hesays.

To facilitate that exchange of ideas, Wells Fargo started up asocial media service resembling a rudimentary Facebook that letsmembers of its advisory committees communicate virtually. The bankhas temporarily suspended that service while it decides on thetechnology to build a more robust platform providing access to allCEO customers.

Tinker says the technology decision—likely to be made in thefirst quarter—has less to do with the user interface than the “easewith which customers can get around” and communicate with eachother.

Citigroup has targeted the first quarter to launch a socialmedia channel designed to foster collaboration with clients in asecure environment and will use its own vendor-built proprietarychannel instead of an existing service such as LinkedIn. Citi hasalso experimented with other social media to engage corporatecustomers in the last several years.

“For us, the next step is to create closed communities for thesegroups of individuals who either work together or know each otherfrom the more traditional channels and feel very open about havinga dialogue,” says Leslie Klein, global head of marketing for CitiGlobal Transaction Services (GTS).

Those communities are likely to be highly popular if GTS'sinternal social media program is any indication. It allows GTS's20,000 employees to collaborate. Starting two years ago, forinstance, GTS introduced “jam session” Web sites where employeescan communicate with one another about such topics as sales,operations, technology and even how to best serve a specificclient. Klein says one three-day jam session generated more than6,800 postings from 4,000 employees in 88 countries, ranging fromentry-level analysts to C-level management.

For external clients, GTS leverages its expertise by producingvideos providing up-to-the-minute news and “thought leadership,”which clients can access wherever they are. GTS has also been usingTwitter for a year and a half to augment its public relationsefforts, and while those tweets have been picked up mostly byjournalists, industry analysts and associations, the articles andreports they write are ultimately read by existing and prospectiveclients, Klein says.

Meeting with executives on Citi's consumer banking side, whichhas more experience with social media programs, GTS decided to trytheir recommendation that it follow tweets of its key clients, whoin turn would likely begin to follow the bank's tweets.

“Nine times out of 10 the person or client company would end upfollowing GTS's tweets,” Klein says.

So in August, ahead of GTS's major conference season, the Cititeam researched the Twitter “handles” for its top customers andfollowed them, prompting most to sign up for GTS's tweets. Inaddition, GTS saw strong “retweeting” activity—for example, half ofthe 86 tweets sent by GTS were retweeted by others.

Klein says studies the bank conducted last year on how corporateclients consume information revealed more than half of executivesno longer rely solely on print.

“They're certainly starting to rely on digital media to consumeinformation, and how that impacts their purchasing decisions isstill evolving,” Klein says. “I think we're still inventing howthese channels will be used.”

For a look at how companies are using tablets, seePutting IPads to Work.

To read about how mobile apps are transforming the filing ofexpenses, see T&E?Phone Office.