Banks Not Banking On Social Media
While everyone else is rushing to jump on the social media bandwagon, taking advantage of the client-provider interaction and PR opportunities that SM has to offer banks are either slow to look into the opportunities or have no intention of grasping this valuable piece of PR at all. But heck knows they could use it.
Notwithstanding the fact that there is precious little consumer confidence in retail and corporate banks it’s been found that sixty percent of them have no intention of using social media in any way. Currently only 6% of retail banks have a social media presence through which they are able to deal with customer queries and only 1% more say they have any intention of doing so in the foreseeable future.
While the feedback and PR aspects are generally left unexploited by banks 14% do use social media for marketing and advertising with another 12% expecting to follow suit by the end of 2012.
In this era of poor public confidence, mistrust and unpopular bonus schedules we should see banks engaging with their customers. Banks which don’t have a social media strategy are making their position vulnerable in comparison with their competitors who have looked into their SM strategy and realised that it can play an important role in their business in the future.
Those banks that have started using SM, Facebook, Twitter etc are still feeling their way about without any cohesive strategy; security and privacy concerns as well as internet fraud and identity theft are all issues that the banks competency and compliance divisions have to thrash out before any moves can be made making the banks look slow and lumbering as they try to move into SM.
The banks that have adopted a social media presence have been widely lorded as groundbreaking industry leaders but there isn’t universal acceptance that SM is going to be a big part of business in the 21st century. Some regard it as irrelevant, unimportant or unsuitable for retail banks.
Those that can see the opportunities that social media has to offer are using it not just as a marketing resource but also to manage their understanding of their customers, deal with feedback and general inquiries. Customers also are not resistant to receiving marketing messages via social media or to using it in order to create a dialogue with their banks when it comes to issues not specific to their personal account, issues such as policy, functionality, offers, rates etc. Banks which ignore this opportunity to rebuild bridges between themselves and their customers are missing something that is desperately needed in these days of austerity, poor PR and lack of confidence.
Dan Cash used to be a financial researcher who now develops social media strategy. He loves sexy new coffee machines and coffee makers
Posted in Social Networking. Tags: business, finance
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