Credit Union’s Marketing and Branding = Blogging/Experiences?

True or false – blogging can take on a pivotal role in helping you leverage you and your credit union’s expertise in your market?  Answer = ?.

I just want to know who started the whole thing.

In my quest to uncover the truth…I discovered the following “research.”  I would love to give credit where it is due unfortunately; I don’t know who wrote it originally.  In other words, it isn’t mine.  Here it is nonetheless.

A look back in time helps clarify what’s happening with the ongoing evolution of the Net. The societal ramifications are far more important than the technology.

The Internet – that is to say, organized mass network communications — started around 1450 with this guy, Johannes Gutenberg. The tech languished until a blogger, Martin Luther, created the first killer app, the Reformation. Luther made an informal “store-and-forward” network of churchmen, piggybacking on the Vatican network much as the modern Net piggybacked on the old phone network. During the Reformation, power flowed from small groups of people to slightly larger small groups of people.

During the 1600s, William of Orange sought the throne of England and prepared for that using the Net. Specifically, he utilized a network of bloggers, particularly John Locke, and distributed the blogs as pamphlets via a router network of coffee houses. John Locke et al, created a new killer app, modern representative democracy, with checks and balances.

In the following century, the colonists in the America sought to redistribute power in a more explicitly democratic manner. Bloggers like Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine set the moral and political tone for the American Revolution. Power was gained by even greater numbers of people.

The modern Internet, however, is everyone’s printing press, particularly using those tools that require little or no technical knowledge to publish. Ordinary people are using the Net to work together to effect change. That is, the voice of the powerful and that of extremists is being replaced by the combined voice of moderates.

For examples, we used to say that history was written by the victors in war. However, Wikipedia is now the history of our time, written not by the powerful, but by the knowledgeable. While the powerful and others still attempt disinformation, ordinary people are building methods and technology to defeat that.

Can blogging impact the value of your brand?  Sure – but only if you have something to say that others value.  Do you?  Clearly I don’t…I am using someone else’s words…

Jay Kassing

Jay Kassing

Jay Kassing is President of MARQUIS, a Texas based provider of marketing analytics solutions including MCIF/CRM software, MCIF services, profitability, compliance, consulting and direct mail creative/fulfillment. Jay has ... Web: www.gomarquis.com Details