Fortune 500 Blog Project: Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC)

The Fortune 500 Blog Project is a collaborative effort by bloggers to identify and evaluate corporate blogs of all 500 companies on the Fortune 500 list.  I chose to profile Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) because of their commitment to green lending:  (1) In early October, Wells Fargo announced that it would buy renewable energy certificates to support generating 550 million kilowatt-hours of wind energy, making it the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy (at the time), and (2) In early July 2005, Wells Fargo committed to lending over $1 billion to environmentally friendly businesses and has financed at least 12 green (or "LEED") buildings. 

WELLS FARGO: CORPORATE BLOGGING
I was surprised to find that the company has recently jumped on the blog bandwagon.  As Debbie Weil of BlogWrite for CEOs commented, "Bravo! I love this example of how a Fortune 500 can adopt blogging as a low key but, IMHO, effective marketing strategy."  You'll notice from her post that Wells Fargo is held to certain banking restrictions that interfere with some of the more "bloggy" features such as comments.  Here's what they have:

• Wells Fargo Blogs:  Join the Conversation - this is the blog front page that leads to two other corporate blogs.  I imagine that, if WFC decides to add more blogs, this will be the front page for all of them. 
• Guided By History:  A Community Preparedness & Response Blog - currently powered by Movable Type 3.2, this blog looks good and has atom feeds, an internal search function, and a good section of related links.  The about page currently shows 12 bloggers, including President and COO John Stumpf.  "This blog puts events and responses to natural disasters into context that helps you to prepare for the future."  Posts started in March 2006. 
• The Student LoanDown:  A Blog About Financing College and Managing Debt - also powered by Movable Type 3.2, this blog looks more bloggy, has atom feeds, a "Blog Roll," and an internal search function.  Posts started in September 2006 and looks to have a list of 4 bloggers, some of which don't necessarily look to be otherwise employed by WFC. 

Non-corporate Bloggers:
As one would expect, there are those out there, which I call the "contrary bloggers," who make it their mission to find, create, post, link, comment, etc., anything bad about a company that they can.  The blogosphere is like the wild, wild west as far as truth and libel law is concerned, so one must take the information in this area under heavy, strict consideration (credible? truthful? hateful? etc.). That said, there is some history of Wells Fargo and the blogosphere:

• Peter Whitney's Blog - according the USA Today (I'm not sure what WFC's side to this story is), Whitney started his blog and was fired after taking jabs at people he worked with.  Who wouldn't get fired for that behavior, blog or not?
• Google Blog Search with Term: "Wells Fargo."  Like I said, there's all sorts of stuff out there. 

And that's what I've found on the great, green Wells Fargo!  WFC's leading the way, not only on the green lending front, but on the blogging front as well.  Thanks Mike Sansone for the tip!

Comments

[Mike Sansone]

Great review, JG. I especially like the research you did outside of the corporate sites.

I would imagine that the 'Join the Conversation' portal is a signal for more blogs to come.

Stay contagious!

[Jetson Green]

Thanks for dropping by Mike! Keep up the contagious blogging, I have you in my netvibes, ready to pounce!

[Easton Ellsworth]

Great job and I'm glad I found your blog via this project, JG. We're well on our way to a more complete picture of things.

[Jetson Green]

Same with you Easton, thanks for dropping by. This is an awesome project! I'm already getting tons of hits from Google Finance to The Project Front page to technorati. This should uncover great information!