Banks and social media: a complicated relationship.
Legal requirements limit how freely banks can engage in dialogue, for example with regard to the possible disclosure of insider information, suspected market manipulation or unauthorised investment advice. And colleagues in the legal department get a headache anyway when they hold their data protection policies up against the terms of use of Facebook & Co. Every time a bank employee or a user interacts via social media, data flows into another jurisdiction (usually the USA). Then there is the fear of shitstorms. It is probably a mix of dreading abusive comments and not wanting to deal with them on top of everything else. Complex, lengthy approval processes rule out quick responses. Community managers at banks deserve sympathy: they often lack the “legroom” they need in day-to-day business.
In short, banks approach social media rather hesitantly or stay away from it altogether. Understandable. But not right. Social media are simply part of any consistent digitalisation strategy.
For one thing, customers expect to be able to talk to you across channels. Connected customers do not care about switching media. They want to be served attentively at the touchpoint of their choice. You may like this expectation or not, but you can neither get rid of it nor ignore it without consequences. The customer is king.
For another, banks are missing out on the chance of hands-on reputation management. First, social media serve as an outlet for positive messages. Many users now use social media as a news aggregator. They follow relevant fan pages and value the overview in their timeline. Second, handling questions and complaints has value too: prospects can be passed on, justified complaints resolved, and unjustified ones refuted in public (and possibly even entertainingly).
Banks should also not miss out on the many advertising opportunities in social media. Facebook in particular impresses with extensive selection options that let you narrow down target audiences more precisely than in any other medium. Advertisers can segment by age, gender and place of residence, by device and operating system, by relationship status, by education and employer, by hobbies and pages users like, and even by estimated income level. And that is far from all the criteria. XING and LinkedIn also let you pinpoint narrow B2B target audiences. Thanks to this precise selection, wastage is minimal. And compared with Google AdWords, click prices are moderate.
(A short commercial break: if you want to benefit from the wide range of targeting opportunities but are determined not to set up and run your own fan page, we can help. With Findo, our provider-independent Facebook profile for financial product advertising. The images in this article show examples of Findo ads. Feel free to contact us if you would like to find out more.)
Banks and social media: this is certainly not love at first sight. But the two may well turn out to be ideal partners once they get to know each other a little better.
