FreshNetworks Blog

We recently held a senior executive round table for a small group of financial services brands in order to debate the future role of social media in financial services.

As we’ve developed the social media strategies for several financial services organisations, including business divisions of  LV=,  Royal Bank of Scotland, LloydsTSB, American Express and SNS Bank, our aim was to facilitate an open discussion about the future direction of social media among senior level decision makers from the financial services industry in a relaxed, informal environment.

Registered attendees included senior executives from American Express, Credit Suisse, Friends Provident, Homeserve plc, ING Direct, Investec, Lloyd’s of London, Moneysupermarket, More Than, Simply Business and UBS.

On the day 11 people turned up to join in what turned out to be a very lively discussion about social media.

Charlie Osmond, FreshNetworks co-founder and Strategy Director, kicked off proceedings by introducing some of the  leading social media case studies in the  industry in order to assess current social media activity within the financial services sector. The discussion then turned to the main issues facing financial services brands and also future predictions for social media.

The event served to highlight the various themes and concerns facing senior level decision makers in the financial services industry including:

• The rise of niche online communities
• Customer driven markets
• Transparency
• Regulation and risk
• Resourcing

Over the next few weeks we’ll be visiting these topics in detail and will share with you the discussions and insights that occurred on the day.