Organizational firsts at Citigroup: Social

First blog in Citi’s history to create authentic dialogue

Coming out of the financial crisis, Citi’s CEO challenged our group to change the conversation and communicate the numerous reform measures taken by the organization. I managed the digital strategy and all creative assets for “Project Talk” – blog, editorial calendar, online display ads, search, blogger outreach and social media monitoring – while initiating a healthy debate with consumers, the press and the influencer community for the first time in Citi’s history. I led the socialization process with the IT organization and legal community to establish protocols for allowing for content and comments management, putting internal partners more at ease after an initial chorus of, “No, we can’t do that”.

Visitors spent on average about two minutes on the site engaging with the content. 48% of users have clicked to read a blog entry, and there have been over 60,000 video plays and over 1,500 comments submitted (as of September 2010). Brand sentiment measures also greatly spiked since the beginning of the campaign.