Lee Gardner usually looks the part of a credit union president, complete with traditional pinstripes and wingtips.

But online, the Family Trust Federal Credit Union chief executive takes on a different persona. He’s pictured on the beach sporting a fedora as he writes about his backyard grill, bocce ball and banking on a new blog.

Gardner is among a growing group of financial executives and bank marketing teams to experiment with the casual nuances of social media.

Rock Hill-based Family Trust is one of the first local credit unions or community banks to engage customers informally online. Larger banks — including Charlotte-based Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. — are increasing their social-media presence this year. And they rave about their newfound ability to interact with customers.

“It’s all about connecting with the community,” Gardner says.

Social media is a form of communication Americans are flocking to by the millions, allowing them to create and publish information online without following the traditional channels of mainstream media. People of all ages and incomes are writing blogs, sharing photos and notes on Facebook, posting home videos on YouTube and sending brief updates on their activities and thoughts via Twitter.

Banks and credit unions, hoping to join the conversation online and ditch the stodgy stigma attached to their business, are following their customers into the social media networks.

Statistics measuring the use of social media remain difficult to analyze. But a study by comScore Inc. estimates more than 130 million users in North America.

At Family Trust, Gardner has joined a handful of staff members in writing about the differences between banks and credit unions at their blogging Web site, www.good2cu.org. But the bloggers also write about more casual topics, such as clipping coupons and the pitfalls one employee navigated as she and her fiance considered combining their finances.

The blog site has been online for less than two weeks, and it’s already approaching 1,000 page views and recording reader feedback in the comments section.

Jason Keath, a Charlotte social-media consultant and owner of SocialFresh.com, says most banks are still in the “test-the-waters stage” of social media. He says banks have been slow to embrace the new technology and trends linking people online. But he says momentum is gaining in the industry to do more.

He’ll host a conference in Charlotte on Aug. 24 linking local businesses to social-media experts. BofA has already reserved space for a group of employees to attend, joining other large companies such as Duke Energy Corp. and Family Dollar Stores Inc.

Keath says the social media give banks an opportunity to relate better to average customers.

“Banks don’t have sexy brands,” he says. “But they get sexy when they connect with the customer.”

One of the industry’s most prominent bank bloggers is Wells Fargo Chief Executive John Stumpf. He’s an occasional contributor to the bank’s Wells Fargo-Wachovia Blog, which discusses the merger of Wells Fargo with Charlotte’s Wachovia Corp.