CME Group: From Financial Currency to Social Currency — Live from BlogWell

2:10 — Bergen Anderson introduces CME Group‘s Director of Corporate Communications, Allan Schoenberg.

2:11 — Allan thanks McDonald’s for hosting. The talk today is about going from financial currency to social currency.

2:11 — Allan: We can’t start without a finance lesson. Check out the Big Mac Index, a good tracker and barometer.

2:12 — Allan says that The CME Group is comprised of three exchanges: the CME, the Chicago Board of Trade, and The NYMEX

2:12 — Allan says that there are a number of products that trade: Grain, corn, wheat, cattle, natural gas, oil, gold, silver, currencies, weather, etc.

2:14 — Allan explains that a vast amount of trading has gone from the floor to electronic.

2:15 — Allan says there are a lot of things in social media, so social media from CME’s perspective is to do a few things and do them well. CME maintains 2 blogs and runs tyheir main campaigns through  LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.

2:16 — Allan: Social media is the new trading floor – it’s where traders now connect virtually.

2:17 — Allan breaks down CME Group’s LinkedIn.  They have 1,100+ followers and focus on making sure the information is accurate and up to date.

2:17 — Allan explains the importance of CME Group’s utilization of groups on LinkedIn.  They have 5 groups, 4 of which are private. these groups include:

1. Equity index products

2. Careers in the futures industry

3. Journalists and bloggers

4. Interest rates products

5. Forex products

2:19 — Allan talks about what they’ve learned on LinkedIn. First, treat it as a focus group. It is more transparent and more reliable due to photos, employment history, etc.

2:22 — Allan says LinkedIn is great to build relationships by creating private and targeted conversations and discussions. It also allows them to have more control over members. CME Group’s LinkedIn has become their hub to connect members to each other.

2:23 — Allan says that LinkedIn also provides further opportunities for creating unique content and staff training

2:24 — Allan moves on to CME Group’s Twitter. Twitter is great because it is a real time news ticker. They’ve been on twitter for almost 2 yrs.

2:24 — Allan finds that lists are sometimes more resourceful than followers. Where am I listed? How many lists am I on? These questions provide a lot of insight.

2:24 — Allan says that CME Group uses Twitter for breaking news and/or different views.

2:25 — Allan says that Twitter is also great for issues management and exchange talk.

2:25 — Allan talks about their StockTwits partnership. StockTwits uses $ instead of # and also has a tool similar to TweetDeck that is a great inroad for investors because they can see your “stock” online.

Q & A

Q: Martha, Fidelity Investment — How do you let people know about your groups on LinkedIn if they are private?

A: We continually promote groups through email, Twitter, and Facebook.

Q: Laurie, Verizon — How do you make sure you’re not breaking any social media and/or disclosure rules in the commodities area?

A: When The CME Group started their social media, they met with the legal department to make sure that everyone was on board.  Also, everyone who deals with social media within the company is extremely conscious of what they can and connot say. Also go by the 70/30 rule — 70% of the stuff CME tweets has to deal with stuff going on in the industry, and 30% has to do with CME itself.

Q: Joe, Perdue — With social media, is there an increased risk of market manipulation?

A: No, because we don’t use social media for any trade purposes.

Q: Martha, Fidelity — Who do you decide to follow back?

A: Allan actually though about this recently, so CME asked via Twitter who was involved with finance and trading that they should be following.  A ton of people responded and CME got a lot of insight