Week in review

Semi-social.  Financial News looks at the financial sector’s lukewarm embrace of social media.  Citigroup says it’s taking social media skills into account when hiring.  Deutsche Bank has a global social media team and is active on several platforms.  Anything a bank does pales in comparison to what social media juggernauts like Southwest Airlines and Frito Lay are doing online with customers, but you cannot compare the B to C world with the institutional marketplace — at least not yet.  Limitations related to control, branding and even basic functionality of Twitter and Facebook are real hurdles for corporations looking at these platforms.  Content strategy is an entirely different challenge.  The article doesn’t mention Credit Suisse, but that bank is doing some nice work on Facebook.

What took you so long?  Futures Magazine writes about the first press conference held by the Federal Reserve last week.

Less is more.  Pensions & Investments writes that small hedge funds are getting a larger slice of the institutional pie as pension funds worry about how multi-billion hedge fund portfolios will generate returns.  This marks a potential reversal of the big-getting-bigger trend we’ve been seeing in alternative asset management as the industry was rocked by the one-two punch of the credit crisis and the Madoff scandal.  If pension funds are ready to listen, small managers need to do whatever it takes to get heard and distinguishing themselves through intelligent media relations is an important part of reputation building for small hedge funds.

News release 2.0.  Dealbook writes about how companies, like Vice and Groupon, that target young people are dropping the stilted, formal press release language for a tone that resonates with their customers.  Recent radical headlines:  “The World’s Most Successful Media Moguls Align with Upstart Media Empire with the Goal of ‘Total World Domination” and “The World’s Most Successful Media Moguls Align with Upstart Media Empire with the Goal of ‘Total World Domination.”  Sweet!