Internet Marketing Blog of KeChange

Digital Marketing 101 for Financial Services

Somewhere between the hype and the compliance-driven stigma lies the truth about social networking for the financial sector: technology and social media provide the industry an opportunity to reach out and engage potential clients and maintain a loyal base with current ones. Over the last few years, client and prospect habits have evolved along with the growth of the internet, and they will no longer tolerate being treated as a number in your mailing list or continue to be fed with direct marketing propaganda. Instead, your newly empowered customers will rely on information online, whether it is on websites, blogs or social media sites.

It’s often said that it can cost up to seven times more to acquire one new customer than to retain an existing one. However, according to a recent study released by the Loyalty Guide, costs are significantly higher in the case of the financial industry. With a growing ease of switching and the vanishing boundaries between company and consumer, relying on inertia is no longer an option for maintaining your customer base. Financial service institutions must proactively build relationships and engage their clients if they hope to stand a chance in today’s highly competitive market. Put simply, to ignore social media, is to ignore your customers.

It’s important to understand that the reason why the financial industry has been slow to embrace social media has mostly to do with the heavy legal liabilities associated with sharing too much or inaccurate information on the web. These liabilities, and the lack of understanding on how to maneuver around them, have been the primary road blocks for the financial sector. Nevertheless, there ARE companies who have mastered the delicate balance between liability and transparency. The following are excellent examples of financial institutions who have figured out creative ways to integrate social media to into their overall marketing strategies:

Wells Fargo

• Wells Fargo became the first financial institute to adopt social media when it launched its first corporate blog in 2006. It was used by hundreds of employees to brainstorm with each other and interact with customers.
• That same year they launched StageCoach Island, an online virtual world where you can connect with friends and learn smart money management through tasks and chores.
• A Wells Fargo Twitter account was set up and used as their online reputation management tool. They now boast more than 6,000 followers.  

Bank of America

• In January 2009, Bank of America joined Twitter to assist and solve customer problems. Only a year and a half later, almost 900 customer queries have been resolved through their Twitter account.
• There is also a Twitter account with the sole purpose of posting job opportunities. It has listed hundreds of job openings since its creation.

Ernst & Young

• In an effort to reach new hires fresh out of college, Ernst & Young created a specialized Facebook page where they communicate with graduating students starting the interview process online.

Capital One

• Capital One created Slingshot, (and used their YouTube account to promote it!) a ‘yellow pages’ type of social network which allows people to connect to one another, and promote their services.

In other words, if your financial services company is not online yet, get on it as soon as you can. Start by defining a clear online marketing strategy, short-list the top websites where you should establish a presence and begin engaging your networks with valuable content!

 

Written by Ilona Lemeshov, Internet Marketing Associate

Uni-ball Makes Social Media Strategy Fun

Companies of all sizes have been leveraging social media on their homepages in an effort to establish online communities. After exploring several companies who are at the forefront of this trend, I came across Uni-ball who appears to be effectively using social media to differentiate and promote their brand. Where there once was no online community for pen lovers to share their experience, Uni-ball has filled that void by utilizing three social media networks. The company now has a solid social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, as promoted on their homepage.

There are a number of ways that Uni-ball is using Facebook to promote their products and encourage conversation. The following is a list of just some of the various ways they are engaging in online communities:

1. Scavenger Hunts - Answer questions correctly and receive awards
2. Contests - Draw a picture with a Uni-ball pen. Winners receive free pens and get their picture up on the Uni-ball Facebook page - which currently boasts more than 10 thousand fans!
3. Famous Signatures - Identify the signature and win FREE pens

A trend is apparent in how the company gets its online visitors involved; through these interactive contests and events, they are able to effectively motivate users with rewards for their social engagement. By offering free pens and prizes, Uni-ball has established an incentive for consumers to converse with one another and create a buzz for their products. 

After exploring their Facebook page, I felt compelled to inspect the company's YouTube page. YouTube is often an important component of a brand's social media strategy because it engages users by encouraging them to comment, subscribe, and post their own experiences. The videos posted by Uni-ball are informative and help differentiate them from competitors by exploring the unique benefits of using a Uni-ball pen. To maintain a dynamic social media presence, they frequently update their YouTube page with new content and regularly interact with their 50 subscribers. 

By this point, I felt so immersed into community of pen lovers that I was eager to visit Uni-ball's Twitter page. Here, I was pleased to find more contests and a following of nearly 2,300 users, many of which provided positive feedback and excellent reviews.

According to Mashable.com, internet users spent 5 hours, 46 minutes on Facebook in the month of August. That is triple the amount of time they spent on Google! It should come as no surprise then, that nearly every successful brand has established an online presence, thus revolutionizing conventional marketing approaches. Research has indicated that approximately 70% of consumers trust fellow consumer opinions that are posted online. In fact, brand websites are trusted around the same 70% level, while only 14% of consumers trust advertisements. As a result, companies have transformed their traditional advertising roles and now act as event planners, aggregators, and content providers. Uni-ball is a great example of a company that has effectively incorporated social media into their overall marketing strategy. They have managed to engage customers by creating an online community for them that had not previously existed, resulting in increased brand awareness and customer loyalty. I would like to hear from Uni-ball to further discuss their use of social media, its impact on their business, and whether my observations are consistent with their experience thus far.

By Cameron Moulton, Internet Marketing Associate

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The World Cup of Social Media

The Social Media Boom that became big during the latest Presidential Election, recent Superbowls, and now the World Cup, has taken on the responsibility of facilitating information to viewers and fans that before, may not have been so up-to-date. The 2010 World Cup has adopted social media like no other previous World Cup and quite frankly has transformed uninterested and uninformed people into knowledgeable soccer fans. Bloggers predict that the World Cup will be the biggest event, (not just in sports), to ever hit the Twitter/Facebook wires. What is most interesting is how FIFA is using social media to promote the World Cup and turn the so-called "apathetic Americans" into futbol gurus. It's no secret that Americans place little value on soccer, while the rest of the world lives and dies by the game. But with the emergence of social media, heads are beginning to turn on the sport that is currently bringing the world together, for a month at least.

So how is FIFA utilizing social media during one of the biggest sporting events in South Africa? FIFA created the CLUB which has generated over 1.6 million users, but FIFA isn't exactly capitalizing on the event like SONY Ericsson has managed to do. SONY has created the TWITTER CUP which is a stream of tweets from teams in the World Cup. In comparison, SONY seems to have adapted to the already existent social network of Twitter, unlike FIFA who has created their own social network. That's a goal well-played by SONY and a missed freebee by FIFA. What FIFA doesn't understand is that the stage has already been set for a social media explosion. If FIFA had adopted a Facebook application, they could have gained attention on a global platform rather than investing in an expensive microsite. Missed Penalty Kick by FIFA, who should know best that there is no need to reinvent the wheel when Facebook and Twitter have already set up a golden opportunity.

I am curious to see what will transpire from this global event and how the rest of the world is using social media to attain their information. With each national and global event that takes place, there will be losers and winners on the social media front. What we have already learned is that Facebook and Twitter are dominating social networking, so why try and create your own social network? Go with what already works, create a Facebook application that can reach over 400 million users. It will be very interesting to see how companies emerge as leaders in new media and who is left jogging behind the highly-productive offensive schemes put in place by companies such as SONY.

By Cameron Moulton, Internet Marketing Associate

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How to Incorporate ShareThis into your Internet Marketing Strategy

 

 

What are your thoughts on Facebook's advertising opportunities? Have you given it a shot? Found it to be successful?

Or maybe you wish there was a better way to truly target your audience on the giant social media platform. Well now there may be, if utilized correctly. ShareThis, a tool that easily allows you to post relevant links from your browser right on to a blog or Facebook page, has now inverted this valuable way to share content by creating the ShareStream. The stream is an application that allows users to view any and all content friends and/or followers have posted, essentially serving as an RSS feed for what your social sphere deems cool and interesting. The application gets it data from roughly 130,000 sites that use its "sharing button," reaching over 430 million unique visitors a month. ShareStream also comes available as a widget, so links of shared content can be viewed by visitors to your blog or web site.

So just how could this help your online advertising efforts as a way to share your value proposition? Facebook, despite making unbelievable strides in its search tools and connectivity between users, has yet to really offer a way to - in great detail - target your audience when purchasing adspace through them. Others may disagree, but with our few attempts, we feel this is a much more efficent way to identify a niche group, or groups, that we want to target with an advertisment (hint: millions and millions and millions of users is too many).

With ShareStream, if you're able to keenly monitor the interests of your fans and followers, then there's a good chance you can leverage this information to find a true niche before making your adbuy.

By Nick Fasulo, internet marketing manager

Beware of the Anti-Brand Fan

By Nick Fasulo

We all know that the conventional, one-dimensional television or print ad campaign is about as stale as that bag of chips still sitting in your kitchen from last Friday night. Campaigns are designed to hit targeted markets through multiple mediums and platforms. But you already know that.

So in today's world, a consumer controlled media world, ad campaigns that aren’t unanimously lauded as fabulous from each and every demographic can be criticized, visible to everyone, and creative media firms must begin to take heed of assumed backlash. Anyone with an internet connection and a beef can become - as Edward Boches points out – an anti-brand fan.

To the consumer: did you catch something while watching television recently that peeved you due to its horrible production value? Create a Facebook group page declaring your disdain, and watch your allegiance of people that echo your sentiments grow. Got a problem with a new ad because it’s degrading to a specific sub-culture? I hear spoof videos can draw thousands of hits a week on YouTube if they’re clever and uploaded in a timely manner.

Boches articulated this growing trend that producers must be cognizant of, by presenting a “contrived case study” based around a 1960s model Volkswagen Van. The hook? “Do you have the right wife for [a VW Van]”? Essentially, Boches is asking men if they are intelligent enough to pick a wife that fits in their ride. Not a terrible ad but surely something that the female population could be peeved by, and subsequently take to the Facebooks, Twitters and Blogs (the 21^st century soapbox) to air their laundry list of grievances.

There’s no real way to police the anti-brand fan. In fact, we’re all one to some degree and this growing trend gives even stronger legs to the idea that social media and user-generated content isn’t going anywhere. We’ve learned that opinions and views shared between your group of friends are probably being heard in many other circles across the country, and this digital age helps to bring both the self-proclaimed #1 fan or the indignant hater together to share their thoughts.

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