Online Social Networking by the BAI

Posted by Luke Owen on Mon, January 19, 2009

bai community Online Social Networking by the BAI I recently joined the BAI Online Community and so far I’m very impressed with the overall design and functionality of the site.

When you join, you’re asked what’s your goal, who you’re looking to network with and what professional challenge you hope to overcome by joining the community. You create a short bio of who you are, upload a photo, and away you go.

They have several groups you can join such as the BAI Mavericks in Banking, Financial Services Marketers, Banking Strategies Corner and Employment Opportunities. From what I can tell, anyone can join.

There are various ways to connect with peoplemap Online Social Networking by the BAI other members in the community. One of my favorite tools is the BAI People Map where you select certain criterias and based on your choices, a circular map appears with little human icons representing all the members that fit your criteria. You are the gray icon in the middle of the map. The more relevant a member is based on the search criteria, the closer they are to you in the map. When you scroll your mouse over each icon, a window pops up with details of the member. Very useful tool for finding contacts.

But like any other online network, it all starts with the blogs. A few select members run the community blogs. You can read each one individually or follow the “community blog” which shows all posts. I’m not sure how you can become a blogger but I’m assuming it has to do with being an actual member of the BAI.

For someone who’s not a banker, it’s invaluable to read posts from bankers like Mary Beth Sullivan. Here’s a snippet from a recent post by Mary. The post was titled, “Relationship Banking: Time to Walk the Line”:

Most banks have long stated as a primary element of strategy that they are in the business of building customer relationships. But saying it and doing it are two very different things.

Relationship pricing, product bundling, and the like have proven somewhat effective in garnering multiple account relationships from customers, but we still find many banks with low cross-sell rates and a large number of single service customers. With the economic challenges many customers face today, its time to rethink the concept of relationship banking.

A relationship is forged on mutual trust. It’s characterized by open and often frequent communication. In this time of great economic challenge for millions of consumers across the country, banks have a tremendous opportunity to step up to the plate and become the source for information, assistance, and solutions.

Read more posts by Mary and others by signing up today. After signing up, make sure to add me as a contact. My username is “LukeOwen”.

Join Now: mycommunity.leveragesoftware.com