Touring Stagecoach Island on NetBanker.

Stagecoach IslandIt’s been a while since I posted anything new on NetBanker. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to write about next, and then Ed Terpening, VP of Social Media Marketing at Wells Fargo invited me and a few other bloggers (including one of my favourites, Ron Shevlin) to tour Stagecoach Island, their own Second Life-like virtual world.

This tour became the fodder for my newest NetBanker post, entitled A Virtual Tour of Wells Fargo’s Stagecoach Island. In my post I examine what SI is, what it does for Wells, and where some future opportunities may lie.

As always, all of my NetBanker posts can be seen here.

Wells Fargo… Center Stage

Tomorrow, Wells Fargo will launch its newest social media venture, Center Stage in the Rose Parade. It’s a super funny idea: They have different musical genre takes on the “The Wells Fargo Wagon” song from “The Music Man.” Anyone can create their own music video to any of the five versions, and submit it to the site.

Registration is quick and easy. And the prizes are amazing:

The Grand Prize winner could have his or her video highlighted in our Wells Fargo national TV advertisement during the Tournament of Roses Parade and on wellsfargo.com. That’s a lot of eyeballs. We’re also awarding two (2) 8GB Apple iPhones, as well as ten (10) 1GB Flip Video Ultra Cameras to other lucky winners.

Nice!

I also noticed that the platform they’re using is a viral video platform by local Vancouver digital agency, Invoke Media whom I’ve worked with a couple of times over the last few years.

In the end, this gives Wells great content, helps them identify some brand enthusiasts, lets people play with the brand and humanizes the company. Plus free content. Nicely done, which is hardly a surprise considering how amazing their VP of Social Network Marketing is, Ed Terpening.

They just keep rolling out interesting projects, and no one else seems able to keep up in the banking industry.

Final part of trilogy now on NetBanker.

The third and final installment of my three part article on success factors of social media projects is now live on NetBanker.

The Importance of Community Management in Social Media Projects examines the crucial role of the moderator in ensuring the success of social media projects, including efforts by Vancity, Verity and Wells Fargo.

The first part was titled Key Success Factors for Social Media Projects, and the second part was Measuring Success for Social Media Projects.

All my NetBanker articles can be found at netbanker.com/azaroff.