In our blogging report published last fall (here), we predicted there would be 300 U.S. financial institution blogs by the end of this year. Five months into the year, we are way behind on that projection, with about two dozen financial institutions blogging. That includes just two banks (Wells Fargo and Bank of Internet) and 20+ credit unions (see previous coverage here).

We found three new credit union blogs this weekend, another 1% of the way towards that prediction, which looks high. But I still think there will be close to 200 by year-end. And I promise not to profile ALL of them here.

My Credit Union Blog

MidWest Financial Credit Union and its affiliate, University of Michigan Health System Financial, launched a joint blog on May 14. Although, these two financial institutions are part of the same company, joint blogging efforts across several credit unions in the same geographic area could make a lot of sense.

My Credit Union Blog is attractively laid out and has five postings in its first week, several that are fairly long and fall into the "consumer education" category. It's fine to sprinkle those in over time, but don't overwhelm your readers with long lists of tips and tools. They can already read that stuff at just about any financial website.

Your blog should primarily have short, interesting articles of local interest. Limit the educational pieces to one or two per month at most. Again, Piedmont CU is the best FI blog I've seen in terms of content (see previous post here).

Old Hickory Credit Union

Old Hickory Credit Union's blog began last week with the obligatory welcome message and the first entry on going green with electronic statements, always a good blog subject. With just one entry, it's too early to comment on the content. But the layout is clean, it wisely uses it's own URL <blogohcu.org>, unique template, and covers the basics in the About section introducing the two bloggers behind the effort. Hopefully, over time the blog will be spruced up with more graphics and pictures.

Secure One Credit Union

Unlike the other two new blogs, Secure One Credit Union, should consider pulling its blog down until it has more resources to commit to the project. The blogger platform makes it look cheap (which it is), but the fatal flaw is lack of content. There are only two entries since its March 20 launch, and the last, which is more than a month old, simply lists CD rates, something that can easily be found on a regular website. Here's the link: <securefirstcu.blogspot.com>.

You don't have to blog that often, but once or twice per week is a good rule of thumb, and at least some of the posts should be original content, not cut-and-paste jobs from your website.

One of the biggest questions surrounding financial institution blogging, is whether anyone would actually want to read one. We are firmly in the camp that EVERY bank, credit union, and financial services company should have a blog (see our Online Banking Report on blogging here). But with so few actually doing it, it's hard to find examples that provide a good mix of community news, financial advice, along with that right "tone" that makes it readable and believable. 

Here's one to watch. After just two months bloggin, Dan Veasey, Director of Marketing and Biz Dev at Piedmont Credit Union in Danville, VA, looks like he has what it takes. When I first looked at his blog (here), there were only a few entries, and its credibility was hampered by the limitations of the Blogger template. Well, Dan took the advice of several industry observers and moved it to a WordPress template several weeks ago.  

With the conversion behind him, Dan has been concentrating on the content, which is really what it's all about. For example, in the past week Dan had a great content mix with local news (Starbucks opening), humor (sponsoring a digit of the number pi), CU business (annual meeting invitation), and serious financial subjects (budgeting for a family). He uses a friendly tone that establishes his credit union as the kind of place you want to like. And he drops in a picture or two to break up the text. 

Now, all this takes time, so he may need to bring in another author to keep up the pace; but so far, it's great work and a good example to follow.  

Here are the previous five posts: 

• Math teachers, don’t you wish you’d thought of this?: Light-hearted Friday post on a website where you can buy a digit of the number pi. It has nothing to do with the credit union, but it's a nice break.
• Annual Meeting and New Benefits for PCU Members: Dan drums up interest in the CU's annual meeting, emphasizing the fun, food, and festivities.
• How much family can you afford?  Serious piece about the cost of raising a family and the need to budget. Supported with background and a picture about his father's medical mission to Honduras.
• New Future Neighbors at Coleman Marketplace: Short post about a new business coming to town, supported with a picture of a local billboard.
• Starbucks Opens Tonight! (see below) Great post about the first Starbucks in Danville. The post a wonderful job welcoming the new business, while still honoring the two independent coffeehouses in town. Dan should be a politician.

Comala Credit Union: <comalacreditunion.blogspot.com>

Overview:

In our view, any blog is better than no blog; however, Comala Credit Union's new blog puts that hypothesis to a test. It's only been online for two weeks, so we'll cut them some slack, but they need to spruce it up a bit if they want members to trust it as a reliable resource.

Thanks to Ron Shevlin for posting the first link to the blog (here).
Update: Apparently, Morriss at Everthing CU had it first. Both posts were on the same day, but I doubt Ron posted his before the 12:19 AM entry at EverythingCU (here).

Metrics:

First post: 12 April 2007

Number of posts in April (April 1 to 25): 3

Comments in April: 3

Comments related to blog content or CU: 1

Traffic: not available

Score: 7 out of 18 (Grade = C-)

• CU branding: No (just a small picture of what must be headquarters)
• About this blog area: No
• Relevant content: Not enough info (just 3 posts)
• Appropriate post frequency: Not enough info 
• Acceptable blog "tone": Yes
• Prominent link to main CU website: No (buried in link list on lower right)
• Email address for author or CU: No
• Author name: No
• Author bio: No 
• Posts dated: Yes
• Categories: Yes
• Blog search: Yes
• Professional look and feel: No (standard free Blogger template)
• Comments: Yes 
• CU response to comments: Yes
• RSS signup: No (small Atom link at very bottom does allow feed signup; but it is difficult to find)
• Email signup: No
• Links to other appropriate resources: No
• Prominent mention on main CU homepage: Yes (big time…and it blinks!)
• Supplements text with occasional pictures/graphics: No

For more info on financial blogging:

• Our previous coverage of financial institution blogs here
• Our report on blogging and feeds (Online Banking Report, #138)
• Opensource CU from Trabian  
• Ron Shevlin's open letter to  CU bloggers (here)