Social media and multimedia enhance chase and wells online small business centers

Chase and Wells Fargo offer small business owners online resource centers that contain materials on how to start, maintain, and market a business. The resource centers effectively use video and social media to educate small business owners in an interactive and engaging manner.

Chase’s Grow Your Business Section
Chase’s online resource center, Grow Your Business, allows users to view event listings, educational articles, videos, and more. The center is rich in content and available publicly, which is great for non-Chase customers who want to gain business knowledge. It’s also very beneficial for Chase customers who wish to retrieve special offers, learn about the Jot mobile application, and participate in events including conferences, seminars, and webinars.

The firm offers educational videos on the Strategies for Success page. The videos provide commentary from successful business experts on topics such as Managing Employees or Customer Service. Experts enlisted by Chase can be owners or managers of small or larger businesses, such as Zappos.com. The videos are available on the site as well as through the firm’s YouTube channel.

Chase also nicely ties the resource center to its Facebook Ink from Chase page by directing users to the profile for more updates about events, offers, and information about the firm’s products and services.

As for the articles, they play a smaller part on the resource center, though they are just as insightful. Although linked from the resource center, the articles load on third-party sites, including Forbes, Smart Blogs, and Entrepreneur. They offer information on various aspects of running a business, whether it’s about building connections, the secret of successful leaders, or work relationship strategies.

Among the services Chase is currently promoting on its small business center site is Jot, a small business expense account app offered free on iPhones and Android devices exclusively to Chase Ink customers.


Wells Fargo’s Resource Center
The most impressive part of Wells Fargo’s Resource center is the Business Insight Resource Center, which contains the educational materials. Here, users can access a multitude of videos, articles, and podcasts categorized under Business Financials, Business Management, Business Stages, and Business Types. The videos include advice from business leaders about topics such as obtaining a business line of credit or maximizing profits. Visitors can share, save, email, or recommend the in-house videos and articles; they can also download a full transcript of a video or podcast. The Business Insights Resource Center also includes links to the firm’s social media outlets--Wells Fargo’s blogs and Twitter page.

Wells Fargo allows visitors--clients and non-clients alike--to register for free to the Business Insight Resource Center. Once registered, users can customize the content shown on the overview page and access their saved materials. In addition, the firm posts special offers for registered users. This customization service allows users to prioritize what they would like to learn about when it comes to maintaining their business.




Both customers and noncustomers can obtain guidance on small business matters from experts who deliver information in Wells Fargo’s videos.

 

 

Final thoughts on resource centers
Chase and Wells Fargo diligently deliver useful information to an engaged audience of business owners. Their resource centers differ significantly in design and content, but share a number of key approaches. Both firms understand that using videos to communicate with users about a specific topic can be the most efficient way of getting a message across, especially when the information is delivered by business experts. Chase and Wells Fargo also effectively integrate their social media presences into the centers to add an interactive element.

By Alisson Andrade, senior analyst at Corporate Insight. She received her B.A. in Finance and Investments from Baruch College in 2006. Earlier this year in another blog Andrade explored small business forums offered by American Express and Bank of America.