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RSS feedsQ Who are you?
A I am Christophe Langlois, 31 years old, a Frenchman who loves London after spending seven years in the UK. I enjoy networking with people, I love travelling and I’m passionate about social media.
I’m an active blogger and business networker. I am an experienced presenter, thought leader and Web 2.0 advocate, and a regularly requested speaker at conferences.
I’m the founder and CEO of Visible Media/Visible-Banking.com. We help financial institutions to understand and leverage social media. We focus on people more than technology, organise internal and external industry-leading workshops and seminars, and deliver audit and consultancy work all over the world.
Q Where is your blog?
A My main blog is at
Q Describe your blog and the categories on it
A Visible-Banking.com is 100% focused on social media in banking and financial services. I cover a vast range of social media from blogging to virtual worlds. Check my video interviews with some of the leading visionaries and social media advocates in banking, financial services and online finance. And also take a look at my social media directory.
Q How long have you been blogging?
A I’ve been blogging on Typepad since 2004. Visible-Banking.com is my third blog, which I launched back in February 2007.
Q What started you blogging?
A I absolutely love social networking and wanted to experiment with blogging, which was becoming increasingly popular four years ago. I wanted to share my passion and expertise with people all over the world. The reach was appealing; so was the ease of publishing and posting articles.
Q Do you comment on other blogs and what is the value of it?
A I try to, but I don’t do it enough. There is tremendous value in doing so: linking a popular post to your blog, driving traffic, growing your readership base, and demonstrating your expertise. It’s a great way to increase your profile and online visibility, and build strong relationships with bloggers and industry leaders.
Q How does your organisation benefit from your presence in the blogosphere?
A In just two years, Visible-Banking.com became the leading blog in its space. It’s because of that I’m a regularly requested speaker at conferences all over the world, I developed trust and credibility, and 100% of my clients came from the blog and my speaking engagements. I wouldn’t have been able to achieve such a rapid growth and global reach without blogging. Prominent bloggers are an asset to their organisation.
Q What are the blogs in your sector that you trust?
A The best four that I have come across are:
The challenge with blogging is that people claim to be experts in their field, but how credible is the claim? On the other hand, it’s easy to spot someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about or is just stealing ideas from others. Someone will discover it sooner or later, and the blog will go down.
Q What do you personally get out of it for your career?
A Visible-Banking.com is the most gratifying initiative I have ever launched. Blogging and building a sizable, trusted, community of readers is hard work and takes a lot of time and effort. Nevertheless, it is totally worth it. It gave me an incredible reach and visibility in the industry.
Q What good things have happened to you that could only have occurred because of blogging?
A It enabled me to leave my senior innovation role at Lloyds TSB to focus on social media and help banks leverage social media worldwide.
Blogging has also brought me invitations to speak at and chair many industry-leading events worldwide, working with financial services clients all over the world. I’m based in London, but I can virtually operate from anywhere globally.
Q Which blogs do you read just for fun?
A I use blogging mainly for work. I like Techcrunch and Mashable.
Q Do you Twitter? How has this helped you or your blog?
A I have really just started to use Twitter. Surprising? Not really: I deliberately focused on Facebook to build a community on social media in banking and financial services. The Visible Banking Page on Facebook has more than 240 fans from all over the world.
Tags: Blogs, Social-networking, Visible-media, Twitter, Techcrunch, Mashable
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