For #CommunityBankers who are curious

In a departure from the numbers game, this post is not about IRR, prepayments, nor decay rates – and with that, I’ll throw a number at you: in the next 10 years, 75% of the workforce will be made up by #Millennials. That’s the catch-all term used to describe people younger than me. And guess what? They are now the target market you must address in order to grow your customer base, if not replace the attrition happening as we speak. This generation - the Millennials - and the next, will be looking for you in the social media pyramid, and it’s important to be there when they do.

What? Never heard of the social media pyramid? I’ll get to that in a second. But, as a community bank, where are you in the social media game? Answer the following questions to give yourself a score. It’s as simple as grammar school grades – 9 or better is an A, etc. (if you are willing, tweet me your score and I’ll post the averages on my twitter page @tcparsons):

1. Do you have Twitter and LinkedIn pages?
2. Do you follow, compliment, and re-tweet at least twice a day?
3. Is your LinkedIn page branded consistently with your Twitter page?
4. Are you actively blogging on relevant topics of interest to this generation?
5. Are you working to become an influencer in social media?
6. Are you generating educational content via videos and/or podcasts?
7. Can you identify the important information sources within the social media pyramid?
8. Are you actively listening in all levels of the pyramid?
9. Do you know your Klout score?
10. Do you have a social media strategy as part of your strategic planning process?

Now, more about the The Social Pyramid

1. At the very top are Social Networks: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. This is where shallow conversations take place. Important as it is to be active in this level, it’s far from where you need to be.

2. Next are News Aggregators - think CNN, newspapers, Yahoo.

3. Then comes Passion Connections - places where we can gather with others on common topics of interest.

4. Video Connection Sites (like YouTube) allow you to quickly and painlessly (to your viewer) get your point across. Most people would rather watch a quick video on how to organize their IRA investments rather than read a white paper.

5. The fifth level is Thought Leader Sites, which includes bloggers. These are your influencers spend a great deal of time.

6. And finally – Virtual Community Sites - a place where extremely focused and influential discussions take place.

There is far more information about each level than can be discussed in THIS Thought Leader blog, so I recommend you invest a very small amount in a very good book – "Social IMC: Social Strategies with Bottom Line ROI" by Randy Hlavac, in which he explains the pyramid in full detail (full disclosure, I am in the middle of his Northwestern University Social Media Marketing course, but I in no way benefit from book purchases; it's just a really good book!).

There will be plenty more to come on Social Media, but please feel free to follow us on Twitter @plansmith, Facebook, and/or LinkedIn. I personally follow a lot of social media marketing influencers, too, which can give you access and help you find the information needed to solve this in your communitbank. Here’s one to get you started:http://bit.ly/1lULngq. Follow me on Twitter @tcparsons for more!