Banks and social media – what kind of content are you using?
For the past year, the social media revolution has been gaining traction in the financial industry. A recent article in the popular social media blog, mashable.com, highlights some of the ways banks are using social media today.
One tool that’s played a large roll is Twitter. Recently, the ABA announced that they would like all their attendees at the ABA Marketing Conference in San Antonia this week to use Twitter and to use the hashtag “#abamc” when tweeting about their experiences. The hashtag is a popular tool among users as it allows for people to connect in a way that wasn’t possible prior to its invention. The hashtag phenomenan came about because of Twitter Search. People type in the hashtag they want to follow into the search engine. This brings up everyone in Twitter who is talking about the event or happening that’s related to the hashtag.
But Twitter provides more then just an opportunity to connect with likeminded industry associates. It provides an opportunity for banks and credit unions to communicate directly to their customers at a much faster and cost effective way then ever before.
But as with all online marketing campaigns, content is king. So the question becomes, what kinds of content are banks and credit union’s using to send to their followers?
A quick review of the institutions we follow show that the majority of messages fall under the following categories:
- Community News: “Photos from our Mequon Open House where we welcomed customers and local businesses to check out their newest neighbors. http://bit.ly/wdvvS”
- Promotional: “Apply today for a 5-1 adjustable rate mortgage and pay no application fee through Oct. 3″
- Customer Service: “@jskinner37 That doesn’t seem right. Please follow & DM me w/specifics and I’ll try and get you help.”
A more recent, but yet to be widespread use among banks, is the creation of microsites. These are standalone websites that act as a promotional device. Addison Avenue Credit Union and Umpqua Bank are two institutions I’ve recently stumbled upon that use this technique. In Addison’s case, they recently promoted a website with the URL, bankintervention.com, and asked their followers to tweet their thoughts about the big banks and include the hashtag, #bankintervention, when they send their thoughts through Twitter.
But what appears to be lacking at many institutions is their OWN content. What we don’t mean by content are advertisements or promotional sites. What we mean is meaninful, educational content that will help their customers become better at managing and investing their finances.
Mint.com, which was recently purchased by Intuit for $170M, is a good example of what we mean by this. The mint.com blog is full of helpful content that talks about managing debt, borrowing money, investing and paying for college. All this content is pushed out to their customers through various channels, especially Twitter.
When you don’t have the time or resources to write this content, you can always steer your followers to other sites like Mint. But remember, the goal is to build your institution as the place to go for answers, not mint.com.
But Twitter is in it’s infancy for banks and credit unions. Wachovia, one of the largest and early adopters of Twitter, only has 5,179 followers and a good chunk are most likely industry related (such as Truebridge) and not their actual customers. It will be interesting to follow how this will play out for banks and credit unions as more and more consumers adopt these communication tools.
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