Using social media in financial services – be focused but creative in how you engage
11th May 2010, 03:08 pm by Tim Fowler
- Image by HafsaN00 via Flickr
It sometimes feels as though parts of the financial services industry are in the grip of a social media frenzy, with a keen anxiety to “do something”. We’ve written before about why tactics such as “We want a Facebook page” are not a social media strategy and will not, in themselves produce long-term engagement and benefits for the brand. Sometimes Facebook as a presence is right for your brand and what you are trying to achieve, but there are some great examples of financial services organisations being more creative in their use of social media.
One such example comes from the US and is AXA’s My Retirement Shop. Rather than just trying to engage customers in their brand or products they are offering a real service. They are meeting their own business objectives, engaging a defined audience and also providing them with a service and an enhanced brand experience over and above their existing transactional relationship. It is one of many ways that financial services firms can make themselves relevant and also engaging. For many consumers insurance is not an engaging topic, but by adding this additional service to them it can become so.
We see many examples like this, particularly coming out of financial services firms in the US and increasing adoption of them in the UK and Europe. Brands moving from just using social media to engage customers in the brand, to providing a real service and value to them. Of course for many brands, a combination of both as part of a coherent and ongoing social media strategy would be the best option.
Developing these solutions comes best from a thorough review of why a financial services organisation is using social media in the first place. At FreshNetworks we work with clients, though our social media workshops, to identify the overall business aims that social media can help with and the best audiences for the business to target. Then we figure out what will bind the audience as a community and hence encourage them to participate.
It’s not necessarily all about Facebook. And it’s not necessarily all about engaging with your actual product or service. When you are using social media to engage customers make sure you focus on your business aims and target audience, and then be creative about the tactics you use.
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[...] Using social media in financial services – be focused but creative … [...]
11 May 2010, 6:36 pmEleanor:
Interesting POV but I don’t consider the AXA website ‘Social Media’ or even a platform for social media. I agree that the brand is engaging with the target audience by providing an additional set of services/info etc. but this does not constitute a ‘creative use’ of social media.
Social media is defined as ‘media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media use web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues….that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content’.
Unless I’ve missed something on the site?
Using this definition can you provide any appropriate examples of Financial Services providers who are using social media interestingly and appropriately?
Thanks!
24 August 2010, 5:13 pmTim Fowler:
Hi Eleanor – and many thanks for your feedback. You are right that there is not alot of dialog at AXA’s myretirementshop! In fact, I might be wrong, but I suspect that some social activity might have been removed since I first wrote this blog; while an interesting and useful site, I agree it is not a “great” example for the use of social media. I think that a better example that demonstrates good social integration is from ING Direct at http://www.savingfeelsgood.co.uk, where they have taken their core brand theme (i.e. saving makes life better!!), with a good understanding of their audience personas and online requirements, and then it has allowed lots of social interaction including competititions, photos, forums, and some simple and easy links to RSS feeds and Twitter.
27 August 2010, 4:41 pmHow to forge strategic relationships in your industry:
[...] The general increase in digital marketing use in the reinsurance market, particularly in Financial Services is interesting. Using social media in financial services should be focused but creative in how you engage your audience, both in B2B and B2C models. Here are some examples http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2010/05/using-social-media-in-financial-services-be-focused-but-cr... [...]
16 September 2010, 12:19 pmWilliam:
Here is a great eBook which helps those in the financial services industry with their tactics towards social media – 7 Steps to Social Media Success for Financial Advisors http://financialadvisorselfpromotion.com/
12 July 2011, 3:49 am