Posted by Lending Club :: November 10, 2010 @ 3:16 am
A recent study by The Financial Brand shows that quite a lot of banks are trying to leverage social media: 46.4% of them are on Facebook, 34.6% are on Twitter, and 18% of them have an active blog. However, a presence in social media doesn’t necessarily mean success in this new and exciting emerging medium, and some of these banks are second-guessing their forays into social marketing.
Entering social media with a poor strategy can only lead to disastrous results. Take Bank of America, for example, that took down its blog redirecting people to their main website after failing to engage their customers and industry leaders in a meaningful way. And how about Chase Bank, whose name consistently comes up in hate tweets, and does not seem to get a break on a simple sentiment analysis. Instead of talking back and engaging its customers, Chase Bank’s twitter presence @ChaseBank was mysteriously closed down.
The main problem with most social media initiatives taken by big banks is that they lack the long term support from upper management while trying to accomplish too much. There are simply too many things most banks hope to achieve through a social online presence, and many reasons why, by and large, their efforts are failing.
Here are some common problems banks should address in their social media strategy:
1. Banks Try to Build Community but Their Content is BO-RING!
One of the main motivations for businesses across the world to go online is to bring their customers together. Banks, too, want to form a tribe of loyal, dedicated followers who will choose their services over others every time. But it’s hard to do that with the boring, generic content that most banks have on their blogs and that they post to other social networking sites.
It’s not enough for a bank to have a blog if they don’t come up with compelling, relevant content for it. No one is going to read the blog, let alone become a loyal fan of the bank, if the articles don’t provide new information, or at least a new perspective on some banking issue. Even worse are the bank blogs where content is copied from some other source. That’s badly done, indeed!
2. Banks Try to Market Themselves but Their Site is Ugly
Banks also want to find new customers via their social networking efforts. They don’t just want their current customers to become loyal fans, but they want to convert people who use other banks to their brand. It’s hard to do this, though, when they create sites that people won’t choose to stay on any longer than they have to.
Between making terrible choices in background and color schemes to making blogs that are hard to find and even more difficult to navigate, many banks might actually be turning customers away though their social media efforts instead of drawing them in. When a new potential customer sees a blog that hurts his eyes or is hard to get around (if he can even find it in the first place!), he’s less likely to utilize the bank, not more.
3. Banks Try to Serve Their Customers, Who Don’t Even Know the Bank is Online
Banks usually have good intentions behind their blogging endeavors. They want to better serve their customer base. Since they know many of their customers are online, they try to go where those people can find them. However, most banks fail to successfully promote their blogs or other social networking efforts, so no one even knows that they have the option of getting help online.
Just a quick test to prove my point: look at the images below. How many of these social media initiatives by a financial services institution are you aware of? If you recognize more than 2, I'll be surprised.
One of my favorite bank blogs is INGDirect's We The Savers, packed with fantastic content aimed at helping account holders to build up their savings. However, all that fantastic content goes mostly unread: INGDirect has failed to cultivate followers and traffic, with a paltry 2k average monthly visitors out of the nearly 2.5 million unique visitors they get on their main banking site.
A clear exception to this problem is Chase's Facebook Community Giving charity campaign, that was backed up by a formidable PR and communications plan that helped them get more than 2.5 million people to follow them on Facebook.
4. Banks Try to be Transparent but Have No Strategy or Permission
Many banks hope that their blogs and other places of social media presence are places where they can get real with their customers, where they can say what’s on their minds and talk about why they operate the way they do. This can be a Catch-22, though, if customers refuse to be pacified when they don’t get the answers or the information they want. Without a well-developed strategy for answering customers’ questions and dealing with their dissatisfaction, being transparent can add to a bank’s risk instead of eliminating it.
Also, being transparent and totally honest many times collide with the complicated and sensitive regulatory guidelines they have to follow. Don't believe me? Ask any bank lawyer what they think of social media. Or simply check out the amount of disclaimers on Citi's twitter page. Really, you can't but laugh.
5. Banks Try to Find Out What Their Customers Want but Are Slow to Respond
A lot of banks want the people connected to them via social media to share their opinions. They want to know which products their customers want, what decisions they can make to improve consumer relations, and even what they’re doing that annoys people.
Unfortunately, sometimes banks aren’t actually willing or able to do what their customers suggest, so the strategy backfires. They don’t seem to understand that they need to be willing to implement some customer suggestions, even if they’re not in the bank’s best interests. Otherwise, people won’t come back to the blog, won’t become fans, and won’t be those loyal members of the tribe.
Or worse: they will probably make their own youtube video to catch your attention, like Rockerchic4God did when she declared debtor's revolt after Bank of America raised her credit card rate to 30% APR without notice or apparent reason:
6. Banks Do Not Understand Community Engagement
Let's face it: most of banks are led by a previous generation of management workforce, one that is used to think of customer interactions as transactions. And It's hard to blame them, since a bank is, first and foremost, a guardian of money transactions. The problem is that the new generation of customers puts experience over features and sometimes convenience. Social media exacerbates the issue by giving this new generation the tools and outlets to engage and interact with their favorite brands, services and products. But are banks ready to engage as well?
Another trend that seems to be working for big companies is to put a face to the organization. A small number of bank personalities have ventured themselves into social media with full thrust, such as June Walbert from USAA, whose twitter presence serves as a direct connection to customers of USAA, or Peter Aceto, CEO of ING Direct in Canada, who engages customers, associates, and partners via his twitter stream or his INGDirect branded personal blog, properly entitled "Direct Talk $$$".
And it is not just about engaging customers, how about bank employees? Deutsche Bank recently jump-started an initiative to use social media to unite employees.
7. Innovation Is Just Not Coming From Existing Banks
When was the last time banks introduced some game-changing technology or innovative product? Many people argue the ATM is probably the last significant innovation from banks... and that was in 1969! Companies like Mint, LendingClub, SmartyPig, and CreditKarma are all very innovative takes on traditional financial products. Stock picking communities, person-to-person lending, personal finance management and even credit score management tools, have emerged to serve the changing needs of customers exclusively served by traditional banks.
But what do these innovative companies have in common? For starters, they all started outside of the traditional banking system, filling the void. But the more interesting part is that their growth is in part due to how they have seamlessly integrated social media and networking into their products and communication strategies.
Bonus: Banks Don’t Understand How Social Media Works
To be fair, social media is friggin' hard. The emerging social media revolution is just starting, and there is an explosion of platforms and outlets that make it confusing and costly (at best) to create an integrated social media strategy. This makes is even more confusing to the bank's marketing head sitting in his/her 26th floor corner office in the financial center. Even the social media gurus are figuring it out as we go along: Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas have tried, repeatedly, to visualize and explain the social media landscape to glass-eyed top management figures while Celent's Jacob Jegher has put a good effort to demystify social media to banker types. Establishing, managing and fostering conversations over social media takes time and dedication.
Social Media Landscape by @briansolis @jess3
What has been your experience when dealing with a bank’s social media presence? Do you think they can survive the paradigm shift in customer engagement, or should they focus their marketing budgets elsewhere?
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45 Comments
Nice and memorable points you share. More presence in social media
means more customer loyalty and therefore more business. Banks must
have to think again about their social promotion policy. They could
hire good SEO managers and apply their pre-social media wisdom that
can help them increase traffic, and subsequently profit or revenue.
I would argue the social media failure by the Too Big To Fail banks
or multinational banking establishments is because their efforts
are largely fake and/or inorganic. Probably why a few of them are
beginning to hire experienced bloggers to work for them. But it
seems like a near impossible situation for them because it's
difficult to be passionate, unless you pay them tons of money,
about a corporation that gets to borrow from the Fed discount
window for free (or a few basis points above zero), or by all
normal business rules, extinct but deemed too big to fail. I
suppose that's why they continue to buy spots to insert their brand
logo (e.g. major sport team's camera backdrop to show how cool they
are), when we all know it's an old school gimmick to keep their
logo in front of customers.
"[...]that helped them get more than 2.5 million people to follow
them on Facebook." Which in turn provided what?
Lots of interesting examples and good illustrations in this
article. As you know, The Financial Brand completely agrees:
http://thefinancialbrand.com/15465/11-reasons-social-media-is-a-waste-of-time-for-financial-institutions/
There are a lot of problems and challenges that require a
significant investment of time, resources and energy. Considering
the other things financial institutions should be doing but aren't,
social media represents an opportunity cost that is too high. FYI -
I don't think the @ChaseBank Twitter account was an "official"
account. I've discussed this with Jim at Netbanker, and it seems
like it might have been a rogue mortgage banker, because the
account really only ever spewed home loan interest rates.
Rob, Banks approach social media like they approach banking which
is - let us build this thing and get our customers to come to it
(i.e. the branch). What banks really need to start thinking about
is how customers are behaving and where they (and their social
media initiatives) fits in that context, instead of 'hey where a
bank, if you want our stuff come here...' That's why Square,
PayPal, LendingClub, etc are working fantastically right now,
because they are exploiting behaviors. Banks won't get social media
right till they get over their love affair with 'the bank' and
start rethinking their place in the value chain... Brett King
Author - BANK 2.0
The real reason the banks have failed in their social media
endeavors, is that they are an industry reliant upon the masses NOT
having the tools that social media provides. Social media will
provide the same incentives for banks as websites provided to the
news media. It will only make them bleed more. Somewhere...deep
down...they know this.
Excellent and timely post. As you point out, social media is hard.
Even Twitter and Facebook are still trying to figure it out. One
thing is for sure, these new tools, particularly social tools
online, have made *everything* personal. Today, it's too easy to
hit the "back" button or close a browser tab. You can't win online
by simply being the loudest or biggest presence on the web (the way
it works offline). Instead, you have to create a personal
relationship with people by being authentically human in order to
succeed. I think the truth is, traditional banks are just out of
practice. It's been a long time since they had to rely on personal
relationships with their customers. They have gotten big by scaling
operations in impersonal ways and don't really know how to do it
any other way. This translates into major failures online where you
have to be personal to succeed. ING is a good example. Their core
business is done completely online yet every interaction I have had
with them directly (phone/email) somehow feels more personal than
interacting with a teller offline at my local bank. They figured
something out pretty early on...
This reminds me of when I received an answer from BOA on twitter
after tweeting about a downtime on their site ... Dumb integration:
that's how they think about it. Why not leverage social media to
make it more personable?
Is the web ready for hyper engagement anyways? or the banks for
that matter?
I gotta say, this was a funny yet sad post to read. You chose your
words well. The insights you're providing to bankers here is what
social media gurus are charging consulting fees for to these banks.
Great examples BTW. -CFM
Somebody had to say it: banks suck at social media. Thanks a lot
for posting this article.
Useful information ... for banks. Are they listening? I bet you
very few bankers with influence on social media strategy (if any)
will ever read this post.
[...] Garcia von Lending Club bringt auf dem Weblog des in den USA
führenden Peer-to-Peer-Kreditportals die grundlegenden Fehler der
Banken im Social [...]
Banking is fundamentally personal, social media clearly is not.
Does one go with the other? Or should that be banking as we (and
the banks) know it. For social media to be an integral part of
operational banking (this is the banking we really want, not self
promotional 'marketing banking') then banking needs to change. The
past, where we supposedly would have known our tellers, enabled
personal face to face relationships that were discrete, whereas
social media is not. But we all still expect that discretion about
our money. The immediate challenge is how to take social media
off-line and then go back on-line to show that the issue has been
resolved and the customer is happy tell everyone.
Your post is really on the money... made me think about how banks
are becoming less "relevant" because they are not in the "social
conversation" like other brands are.
The success of a social media campaign comes down to two things -
relationships and authenticity of the brand. If the public
associates a brand with unscrupulous behavior, cultivating a
relationship with their customer and projecting an authentic
"personality" will be impossible - unless that financial
institution can find a sincere way to relate to their customers and
provide genuinely helpful services beyond simple checking, savings
and loans. The majority of the public is, financially, very
anxious. That gives banks an incredible opportunity to swoop in
with tools that help the average person manage and grow their
finances. But, here's the catch, those tools and services (like
telephone customer support) actually need to work in order for them
to be beneficial.
Trying to be transparent, private, neutral, and open all at once is
like walking on a greased floor covered in eggshells and carrying a
grenade. At some point, something is bound to break.
I would agree with several folks above who talked about the social
media presence by the bank needing to feel authentic, and how it
needs to actually engage with the customer -and not just try to
shove a bunch of marketing junk down their throats. I don't think
there are a lot of banks and financial institutions that are doing
it well on the whole. I found Bank of America's to be very
corporate, although I will say i had a couple of good experiences
with their twitter support. Companies doing it well in my opinion?
Perkstreet Financial, and Lending Club - they both have pretty
widespread presences, and they actually engage with the customers,
with bloggers and with others. They feel very real, and they seem
to try and add value - not just get something out of their
customers.
Cool. Awesome. But in reality, no banker, even if they read this,
has the power to effect a change in their bank's digital and social
strategy. You're wasting your time helping bankers see the value of
social media.
Just as you have written; either banks don't get it or they are too
afraid to go all-in.
Nice informative examine of banks' attempts to communicate via
social media. I had spent a lot deal of my time looking for some
ways to convince internal bank management to invest in this area.
The problem is ROI is hard to show.
I wonder if the problem is not that people are not reading bank's
blogs but that the reason people don't engage is that they don't
post comments because they think they might not be taken care of or
even read by the bank. That even though you might like what someone
writes, you're not sure your comment is looked at.
Hope that someday, banks will realize their mistakes in ignoring
social media. However, you seem to be a little tough on these guys,
remember they're still trying to figure out how to clean their
names out of the financial crisis.
[...] - Seven reasons why banks have failed at social media. [...]
It is a challenging venture to calculate the specific return on a
bank initiative to foray into social media. Actually, any company
for that matter. We're human beings after all.
Banks are failing at it because their culture is far, far away from
where it needs to be to 'get' social media. As many commentators
above have said, almost all of the banks efforts are 'fake' or the
rather obvious and slightly embarrassing results of someone in
Marketing thinking "oh we better get on Twitter" in the same way as
many years ago they said the same re having a website. Its taken
most until now to even just get the web delivery basically right
for what the customer wants and needs - and even now its a pretty
mediocre performance. My client favourite client - Zopa.com here in
the UK - (so declaring an interest here!) has embraced the social
thing very well, and quite naturally given that the fundamental
business model is very social (peer to peer lending). But the
reason they have used it so successfully is really because the
business has been built from day one recognising that TRUST is the
most crucial factor if they are to succeed, and the only way to
build that in their circumstances, is to be uniquely open and
trasnparent with their members, and anyone else out there who is
watching. It's a huge challenge if you are not built that way. Zopa
is, so it all works extremely well through the social channels.
Their discussion boards - totally open and 'policed' only by
volunteer members - and increasingly Twitter are used to service
customers - often members answering Qs rather than staff - and Zopa
benefits from a stream of suggestions for contunuous small
improvement through to very early warning of anything that has gone
wrong or needs an urgent fix. It also helps of course to build the
community feeling that is a big attraction to many of peer to peer
lending. But turning to banks again, almost all have entire
buildings full of things they want/need/are very used to keeping
hidden away from customers and the outside world. Smoke and
mirrors, incredibly misleading marketing and advertising claims
that would make make even a politician blush are all sadly core
aspects of current banking culture. Until that changes, from the
inside (regulation is very unlikely to fix anything) their attempts
at using social media look very much like all that marketing
nonsense they continue to pedal. The inner culture and design of
these businesses has to change radically before they will really
succeed or even be able to just breath in the white hot spotlight
of Twitter etc. There are some exceptions to my rather sweeping
generalisations here of course - and praise be to those champions
of cultural change that are trying hard to make things better from
within in their own banks. But it's got a long, long way to go.
Interestingly, the fortunes of the banks on social media will be a
very good indicator or window into the extent to which banking
culture really is changing or not. So whilst many of their attempts
to date are laughable and actually hurt them, let's hope they stay
in that spotlight so we can see how their journey down the road to
redemption is progressing. These are only my views btw, I am an
external adviser to Zopa. Martin Campbell
As an industry, banking has failed to join the social media
conversation. It is unfortunate because banks could provide a real
service to their customers by active engagement. You touch on many
of the reasons why banks that venture into the social media arena
fail. In short, they just don't seem to get being social.
Hopefully, your post will be a wake-up call to those bankers who
truly want to connect with their customers. It would benefit us
all! Well done!
Banks suck at social media because for the most part banks suck.
Let's start with no interest checking. I'm lending money to the
bank and not getting anything in return! Just think about this for
a second. It used to be that you gave your hard earned money to the
bank so they can lend money to others for a fee. They gave you
interest on the money you lent them, albeit a smaller interest than
what they charged someone else to use that same money. the
difference was their profit. That's gone, I don't know how or why.
People much smarter than me know that. It's those same people that
purchase credit swaps and bad loans pushed on willing consumers by
mortgage brokers for a quick buck, but sorry I digress. No, banks
are not built on relationships, it's a joke if you think they are.
Banks have a relationship with numbers, credit reports,
regulations, stockholders, they don't have a relationship with you.
It's rare if you find one and it will never, and I mean never be
different. This is one area with social media zealots are drinking
the Kool Aid for sure. Banks can provide valuable content via
social networks, and in doing so be viewed as a resource, but
that's where their socialness ends.
These are some great points! Unfortunately, it also applies to
Banks in other countries, not just the US. There is a global
epidemic, it seems.
Seems like everybody is jumping on the social networking wagon
lately. Many banks should focus on SEO in this area if they want to
compete long term. I know I choose who I want to do my banking with
via comments on Twitter...
Bah! Social media is friggin' overrated. I do not want to share my
financial woes or investing tips with everyone else. I have started
enjoying success with trading stocks. Quiet honestly, it's the
individual mental aspect of investing that is the key to being
profitable, not the "community" and herd mentality.
I work at a small bank and I tell you, even though things move
faster around here (compare to big banks), they still don't see the
value of social media. I'm printing this article and taking it to
my next strategy meeting. I'm lucky I found this because now I've
got a whole new perspective on this. Social media is becoming so
important and so universal to engage with customers, you'll be left
out if you don't jump in.
Excellent post! What's amazing to me is that it always takes an
"outsider" and innovator to change any industry. Revolutionary
changes do not come from inside, and the banks are no exception. If
a bank is smart enough to find this post, and recognize social
media as part of their future, they should be getting on the phone
right now and try to hire you, Rob
Great stats and observations. As an interactive media specialist
focused on executing social strategy for many smaller community
banks, I agree with the reasons mentioned here. I just want to add
tha a little market research to see if social media will be viable
for a bank brand or any brand can go a long way and should be
required. It's not a good idea to be active in the digital space
for the sole purpose of just being there, which unfortunately seems
to be the motivation for many. If it's not a right fit then don't
do it, but also don't be afraid to learn and explore possibilities
first, either.
Rob et al. This is all very insightful and (sigh) true. One thing
When comparing banks with non-banks I think that what
I'd contribute as a practitioner is that big banks (think TBTF) are
in a place where attorneys, compliance and security are dictating
strategy due to the need to be "boy/girl scouts" of industry. I can
say first hand that there were months/quarters where every tweet
was reviewed by legal & compliance-- tough to meet a 15 minute
service level, when there's a daily approval process. Of course,
that's after someone ignores all the legalese on the twitter home
page
we're observing is similar to early internet sites. Amazon
retailing (comparisons, ratings/comments), was quite different than
Sears (electronic catalog) but over time there was a convergence.
The challenge for banks is who can take the Bank 2.0 approach by
not just asking customers "how would you like us to..." and take a
few chances with new product/service introductions that integrate
the mobile/social behaviors with requisite banking needs.
This is really a great post, but I disagree. The fact that Chase
and Citi have invested so much money in people and customer service
integration into social media, they seem to be more advanced in
this space than you think. But I do appreciate you calling
attention to the problem, sharing this with my contacts in the
space. There is lots more to be done.
I used to work for the banks. There is a lot of folks in there that
want to do it, but the bosses and the lawyers do whatever they can
to keep it down... too much of a risk because tehre is no clear
rules and laws around social media. For instance, what
disclaimer/disclosure can you effectively provide in a 140 tweet?
Crazy.
That's what I'm talking about! Wonder how many banks will have the
guts to comment on your blog post. assuming that they'll ever find
it. If we don't see Wachovia, Citibank, Wells, Chase, or any of
those guys comment, that tells you something doesn't it?
Rob: it is clear that you love doing what you at Lending Club and
that your passionate about financial innovation. Don't let the
passion die down, but also don't take it against the banks
either... I think they are looking for ways to get social media out
there, but just can't in this environment. With time, I think they
will be strong in this space, and will show us what they have in
store for us.
Arianne: Great point. There are amazing individuals and teams that
have made tremendous progress at Citi and Chase. I look forward to
those teams and individuals becoming part of an integrated social
media strategy with support form the top.
Solid. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this topic. I am very
fascinated by the decline in the US economy and the effect it is
having on consumers and banks, especially how they are reacting in
ways that prevents them from innovation. I guess we will soon find
out how banks fair out of this mess! Thanks!
Great post. You should also showcase some of the "small" victories
from banks in social media.
Well, I have to disagree on some of this info. Some banks are
trying hard (albeit making a fool of themselves in cases). However
I still really liked your post.
[...] zijn. Voor de liefhebbers is er er ook nog een artikel van
Rob Garcia van de Lendingclub, die 7 redenen geeft waarom banken
gefaald hebben met social [...]
thank you for bringing this up. Honestly, I don;t think the banks
will ever care, unless they can get customers out of it.