Tinking Through Linkedln: The social media LinkedIn has grown into a valuable tool for bankers. At The--Stephenson National Bank gz Trust, Wisconsin., the marketing department has taken on the role of overseeing the bank's LinkedIn presence.

• Author: Hubert. Marcia
• Position: Company overview

HERE ARE TWO EXAMPLES OF HOW LINKEDIN HAS ENABLED OUR BANKERS to network with potential prospects. Recently, one of the trust officers at The Stephenson National Bank & Trust (SNBT) Marinette, Wis., appeared on a local TV show as part of a panel discussion. The show went well, and afterwards a viewer contacted him through Linkedin to ask additional questions. In another situation, an officer was successful in re-establishing contact with someone he had lost track of for several years. After the exchange of a few brief messages through LinkedIn, they began planning to meet for lunch.

LinkedIn is an effective way to find and reconnect with people who may have moved, changed companies or switched telephone numbers. But it is also a wonderful tool for communicating with current customers and contacts, sharing information, and learning by participating in groups and reading posted whitepapers.

Until just over a year ago, sNBT did not have any social. media presence. It was obvious that our customers were using social media extensively and that in order to communicate with them, as well as grow our visibility, we needed to be where they were spending time. The question remained: which social media should we introduce first?

We began with an evaluation of what we hoped to accomplish with social media marketing and which platform best suited our brand strategy, yet did not require more resources to manage than we had available. We decided to pursue a LinkedIn presence.

The bank's history

SNBT is a I 39-year-old community bank that is located in northeastern Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We have full service offices located in Marinette and Oconto, Wis, and Menominee, Mich., and a trust/investment office in Marquette, Mich. In addition to a complete line of retail products, we also offer extensive business banking loans and services, plus trust and investment services.

Two of the communities, Marinette and Menominee, share a border and in many cases the two function as one larger community. They have a combined population of nearly 20,000 with a concentration of industrial and manufacturing jobs. One result of being located in northern Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where there are long, snowy winters, is that a large segment of customers are "snowbirds" (retirees that migrate to warmer weather during the winter months). We are continually challenged with keeping these customers engaged when they are out of town for extended...