Chris Skinner's blog

Shaping the future of finance

Social Media Survey

Chris Skinner Author Avatar
by

Brett King, author of the new book Bank 2.0 - which I can recommend to those of you working with social media in finance as a focus – has worked with me in the past few weeks, analysing the inital and general results from our social media survey.

Almost 450 folks responded to the survey (thank you all) and here are a few fast facts:

  • the majority of the participants would participate in social media before making a decision on a financial service provider
  • 93% of participants consider social networking will be worthwhile or critical for banks in the next five years
  • 78% said social media is worthwhile or critical for corporate banking relationships today
  • the majority of customers would go first to independent community discussions before coming to the brand itself
  • Facebook and Twitter scored as the highest value social media channels for retail banking engagements
  • LinkedIn, Blogs and Privately Managed Online Communities scored as the highest value social media channels for business interactions
  • 74% said their use of social media organizationally will increase over the next two years, whilst only 1% said it would decrease

For the full 30-page report analysis:

Our conclusions

93 per cent of the 443 respondents to the Financial Services Club survey indicated that a focus on social media would be essential to the future of financial institutions over the next five years. Only 1 per cent of the survey group said that they feel their institution would be likely to decrease their use of social media in the next two years...only 1 per cent! All indications are that this is a hot topic for pretty much every service organization out there which is surprising as so few firms are doing anything about it!

Adoption rate of social media is scary. Two years ago Twitter was unheard of. Although Twitter started beta testing their concept in 2006, it is largely agreed that it didn’t formally launch till April 2007. Since then Twitter has taken off by storm – globally, in the USA and in Australia, Twitter ranks as the 12th most popular website by traffic, in the UK it ranks in the top 10, and in most of the EU it ranks in the top 30 or 50 websites. It took Facebook 4 years to achieve the same impact; so social media adoption is definitely speeding up, not slowing down.

Given the rate at which Facebook, Twitter and other such social networking sites have impacted popular culture, it should come as no surprise that financial service providers are starting to think about integrating social media into their business. However, the path to integration of these new media tools into the institution is a tough challenge. Firstly, organizations understand that this is an issue requiring total commitment across the organization, but achieving such is difficult because finding someone who can garner that support is a challenge. Secondly, brands in general are starting to understand that social media is a medium they can’t ‘spin’ – that is customers are largely in control – and that is worrying, particularly in the current environment where FIs are facing significant perception challenges at large.

The real conclusions of our research show that individually we know that it is inevitable that social media will be integrated into our business, but our organizations are looking for direction. The difficulty is that there is no one size fits all solution. Each of the popular social networking sites works in different ways, so we need strategies that reflect this. The survey showed, for example, that LinkedIn is a far better tool for business-to-business discussions and for promotion of services to professional individuals, such as priority banking and wealth management. For general brand marketing, Facebook is an effective tool, but our respondents wouldn’t use Facebook for banking contacts or LinkedIn for private and personal socializing. So banks must target effectively if they are to get the socialization of finance right. The strategy needs to be localized and involves pay-per-click embedded advertising as well as sponsored groups and consumer support.

Twitter as a tool is an excellent research tool. We would say that this medium in its current form would probably yearn more data than your best of breed focus groups and customer satisfaction surveys if it can be harnessed correctly. When it comes to Twitter it is all about listening. Our survey showed that consumers would use social media first to ask other customers about their experience with your brand, rather than engaging with your brand directly.

The survey shows the biggest missed opportunities for banks and financial service providers are more in respect to their own properties. Banks need to be using blogs to give more of their own voice to the social discussions, along with privately owned social networks embedded into the customer website experience. If you are not sure what privately owned social networks mean, think say Amazon’s product recommendations and rating system, PayPal’s Blog, and Wells Fargo’s Stagecoach Island?

Our survey essentially shows that most banks are missing a key development in customer engagement – both at the consumer and, more importantly, at the corporate level – by not deploying and utilizing this media effectively. For example, respondents are familiar with some of the key bank provided B2B networks, such as those from Bank of America and HSBC, but these examples are few and far between. This is the case even though most consumers and corporations feel this is critical to the future!

There needs to be an immediate and concerted effort to integrate social media into your organization today. More than that, this needs to be a cross-discipline, multi-department effort and it’s going to be difficult, but not necessarily expensive. If used properly, the bank will improve delivery, revenue and customer engagement significantly.

For the full 30-page report analysis:

Chris Skinner Author Avatar

Chris M Skinner

Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...

What is the future?

Learn more

Learn more about Chris

About Chris Skinner

The Past, Present And Future Of Banking, Finance And Technology

Fintech expert Chris Skinner: countries need digital transformation to remain competitive

Join me on Linkedin

Follow Me on X!

Hire Chris Skinner for dinners, workshops and more

Learn directly from from one of the most influential people in technology, gain insights from the world's most innovative companies, and build a global network.

Chris’s latest book

Chris Skinner’s ‘Digital For Good’ Book Launch Event – CFTE

Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on FinTech 2023

Chris Skinner
Commentator, CEO of The Finanser and best-selling author at The Finanser

Thinkers360 Thought Leader

Contact Me

Global Awards

Lifetime Achievement Award

Global 100 - 2024 Winner

Chris Skinner - Financial Markets Advisor of the Year - The Finanser - UK 2023

Best Financial Markets Advisor of the Year 2023

30 Best Regtech Blogs and Websites 2023

Kids creating the future bank | TEDxAthens

Captain Cake and the Candy Crew

Captain Cake Winner of a Golden Mom’s Choice Award

TWO-TIME WINNER OF A MOM’S CHOICE GOLD AWARD!

Alex at the Financial Services

Gaping Void's Hugh MacLeod worked with the Finanser