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Finding Social Media ROI is like Hunting a Unicorn (Part I)

March 8, 2012 By Mark Zmarzly Leave a Comment

This is the first of a four part series written by Mark Zmarzly (see below for his full bio). Stay tuned for the remainder of the series.

I’ve been intentionally not posting on my blog for a good reason – O.K., that’s not entirely true but I’ll talk more about that at the end of this post – but the intersection of four interesting items all surrounding social media have caused me to violate my posting moratorium.

Here is a list of the four items in the order I encountered them:

  1. Post on The Financial Brand titled “Confessions of a Social Media Skeptic”
  2. Post on Snarketing 2.0 about how “Banks and Credit Unions Can Forget Twitter for Marketing”
  3. A question on a bank marketing board asking other participants for “ideas to help drive people to our Facebook page.”  URL intentionally not shared to protect the innocent and not so innocent discussion participants.
  4. An article by Dave Martin on American Banker’s Bank Think titled “Your Staff’s Time is as Valuable as the Customer’s”

I’ll give you a quick bit of background on my own foray into social media and then quickly move on to some comments about these four interesting items and my thoughts on how they are all related.

First, my background on using social media within the banking industry:

  1. It all started when a man by the name of Al Gore and I invented the Internet
  2. Most of my involvement in using social media within the financial services industry would be traced back to my use of LinkedIn in 2008.  An innocent invite from a friend in the technology field introduced me to this professional networking site.  Since that time I’ve grown very fond of LinkedIn; have used it to advertise industry webinars, publications, speaking gigs, etc; and have found it to be a very valuable source of industry credibility.
  3. In May of 2009, I started the Twitter handle @BankMarketing.  This project started from a small observation: that I read a sh*t ton of articles about banking and bank marketing, which many others in our industry don’t see.  I started the account the first night I was at the ABA School of Bank Marketing & Management after mentioning Kasasa  and nobody had heard of it yet.  (Confession: a Google alert on a competitor was how I knew about this product before they had done a large formal launch).  My tweets mainly consist of broadcasting what I’m reading within the industry.  The byproduct is that I’ve connected with a ton of people in the financial industry, increased by industry reach and credibility, and been exposed to a lot of writings that I might have missed.
  4. In late December of 2010 I started the now rarely maintained blog/website www.ihelpbanks.com.  My intentions for this site were to have a presence on the web outside of my employer – both at the time and the new one I was about to join – and to start advertising my speaking services within the industry.  The blogging portion of my site is underutilized because of the main point of this entire post: ROI (Return on Investment).  More correctly, I’d say ROSMI (Return on Social Media Investment).

About Mark Zmarzly: Mark Zmarzly is VP of Financial Services at ACTON Marketing, and an accomplished marketing, business development, banking, and creative professional with demonstrated success solving customer acquisition, marketing, and profitability problems. He has worked with financial institutions from 1 branch up to 1,700+ branches in the areas of marketing, copywriting, account management, consulting, teaching, social media, and business development. You can find his insights on issues facing the financial industry at www.ihelpbanks.com and on Twitter @BankMarketing. You can also connect with him at http://www.linkedin.com/in/markzmarzly

Filed Under Industry News, Social Media Tagged With social media, social media ROI

Social Banking

January 25, 2012 By Banking.com Staff Leave a Comment

The infographic from ZoneAlarm which we highlighted recently warns users of security concerns related to online banking and has an interesting ranking on online activities. It lists shopping at number one, followed by banking at number two, and social networking at number six.

Actually, this kind of ranking is obsolete. In the real world these activities are distinct; in the digital world, they blend seamlessly, and the sooner professionals in every field adapt to that reality, the better.

Take shopping. Real-world retailers have long been losing market share to their online counterparts, but there’s now a host of social media tools to help them to fight back. A new generation of shoppers—the one that goes shopping with an iPhone and a million applications—can be lured away from what they’ve been doing online.

You like a dress you see in a store? Tried it on, want to buy it? Take a picture, press a button, and there’s an application that tells you instantly how many stores within a one-mile radius has the same dress at a lower price. Perfect fit, instant gratification. Or let’s say you bought a dress last week, and you happen to walking past that store again—an in-store app senses you’re close by and sends you a text: “Thanks again for buying that dress last week. And since you’re so close, if you come in within the next hour, you’ll get these shoes, which match your dress perfectly, for 40 percent off.” Talk about impulse shopping.

OK, so banking isn’t shopping. But just one generation ago, when the Internet itself emerged, remember what it did to stock trading. The economy was bubbling over back then, a ton of dot-coms was galvanizing the marketplace, and people had money to invest. So everyone from Merrill Lynch and Charles Schwab to newer players like eTrade and ScottTrade got in on the action with a raft of online trading tools. Bottom line: people got into the market because they could, they did research because they could, they traded relentlessly because they could.

Social media represents the second coming of the Internet. Retailers, educators, service providers of every stripe are scrambling to offer applications that play to their specific audiences. In many cases, this means getting customers not only to what they’ve done before, but take advantage of entirely new capabilities.

So, a year from now, what will financial institutions enable their customers to do that they can’t do now? And which companies will be first out of the gate with exciting new capabilities? Let’s speculate.

Filed Under Social Media Tagged With financial institutions, social banking, social media

Social Media Statistics: By-the-Numbers, January 2012

January 18, 2012 By Banking.com Staff Leave a Comment

Below are interesting statistics on social media usage. Feel free to share your favorite social media statistics in the comments section or Tweet @bankingdotcom.

  • 52.1% of all sharing on the web is driven by Facebook, with Twitter generating just 13.5 percent of all shares. (Source: Clearsping)
  • 256% increase in mobile data usage by teens in the US age 13-17 over the past year. The average teen used 320MB of data per month on their phone. (Source: Nielsen)
  • 3% of adults say they get news and information about local restaurants, bars and clubs from social media, while 38 percent claim to use Internet search engines. (Source: Pew Internet)
  • 49,000,000 the number of US visitors to the Google+ platform in December 2011, a 55 percent increase from November. (Source Hitwise)
  • 82% of the world’s online population are reached by social networking sites, representing 1.2 billion users around the world. (Source: comScore)
  • 79% of European online adults engage with social media, 86 percent of US adults do the same. (Source: Forrester)
  • 19.7% of the total Facebook user base is located in the United States. (Source: AllFacebook)

Curious what social networks your financial institution should focus on in 2012? Check out this infographic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Graphic provided by:

Image: tungphoto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Filed Under Social Media Tagged With Facebook, Google, social media, statistics, twitter

Social Media Statistics: By-the-Numbers, December 2011

December 5, 2011 By Banking.com Staff Leave a Comment

Below are interesting statistics on social media usage. Feel free to share your favorite social media statistics in the comments section or Tweet @bankingdotcom.

  • 1,000,000+ RSVPs in the past year to events via professional social network Linkedin (Source: LinkedIn)
  • 81% of small businesses now use social media, up from 73 percent earlier this year (Source: Constant Contact)
  • 66% of US adults use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn  (Source: Pew Internet)
  • 2,400 advertising partners for Twitter, up from 600 in June 2011 (Source: Twitter)
  • 53% of young adults ages 18-29 go online for no particular reason on any given day  (Source: Pew Internet)
  • 42.6 billion videos were viewed by the US Internet audience in October 2011, an all-time high (Source: comScore)
  • 3.5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every day (Source: YouTube)
  • 60% user growth so far in 2011 for professional social network LinkedIn (Source: LinkedIn)
  • 50% of US adult cell phone owners have apps on their phones, up from 43 percent in May 2010  (Source: Pew Internet)
Filed Under Social Media Tagged With LinkedIN, social media, statistics, twitter, YouTube

Banking Industry Leaders Discuss Findings of Intuit Financial Management Survey

November 4, 2011 By Jim Marous Leave a Comment

*This blog was originally posted on Bank Marketing Strategy by Jim Marous. Jim is a marketing services leader focused on building strategic solutions for the financial services industry. You can follow him on Twitter @JimMarous or connect on LinkedIn.

In conjunction with the release of Intuit Financial Services’ 4th Annual Financial Management Survey, Banking.com hosted a Twitter Town Hall yesterday, bringing together financial industry leaders to discuss loyalty and channel migration as well as some of the challenges and opportunities facing the banking industry. The following is a recap of the very robust one hour dialogue. (The complete transcript can be found using #IFSsurvey on Twitter)

The Town Hall discussion began around the issue of customer loyalty and the finding that many consumers thought their financial provider was not ‘in touch’ with their needs. Given the events of the past week, where many large banks reversed decisions around the implementation of fees due to highly vocal negative sentiment amplified by social media and credit union trade group support, most participants believed that banks are not leveraging current insight and technology to make better decisions and provide value added service.

Tobin Lee (@Tobin_Lee), Intuit Financial Services spokesperson stated, “It is time for a banker mindset shift; cultivating deeper relationships, more meaningful engagement and stronger advocacy for growth”. Campbell Edlund from EMI (@EMI_mktg4sales) added, “These findings provide a very strong argument for a communications plan around the customer lifecycle”.


The already robust dialogue really took off as the discussion moved to the acceptance and utilization of banking channels (especially mobile and tablet banking). Bradley Leimer (@leimer) from Mechanics Bank in the San Francisco Bay area believed mobile strategy will be the key to future engagement due to the portability and ‘always on’ nature of the device. He also believed that the correlation between mobile banking and smartphone use (41% of respondents owned a smartphone) could indicate a lower engagement with financial technology in general for non-smartphone users.

Edlund added that while there is currently a higher penetration of smartphones than tablets, tablets can not be ignored by banks since Oracle found that tablet ownership is expected to increase significantly in the next year. She also warned that we need to be cautious not to get ahead of the acceptance curve. . . “we always underestimate inertia”. Brett King (@brettking), author of Bank 2.0 and founder of Movenbank went a step further stating that within 3 years all bank websites will need to be built for tablets first. He also believed that branches will continue to diminish in presence and utility (according to the study, 27% of respondents still visit their branch once a month in addition to ATM visits).

Mark Zmarzly (@BankMarketing) did not believe bricks and mortar would completely go away, but definitely felt the relevance of branches will change. “It’s easy to say branches will go away, but is that realistic? They have to evolve, but customers will never let them become 100% irrelevant.” King responded that with the drop in branch transactions, the economics of the branch are not working. I (@jimmarous) illustrated the model of Boeing Employees Credit Union in Seattle, where only 2 of the 40 branch network have tellers, while the installation of multiple ATMs at offices and around the city have an average of 10,000+ transactions each. 94% of the transactions at BECU are done electronically, according to Howie Wu (@howie_wu) from the credit union.

“Relevance is the key to banking for tomorrow,” stated King. “By 2015, mobile will be the #1 day-to-day channel, OLB #2 with the branch network being #5. The challenge for mobile and online will be developing great customer journeys”. King doesn’t believe these journeys exist today and believes the goal should be to have banking so pervasive that it is not tied to a branch, device or website, but is everywhere customers are.

Edlund pointed to the retail industry as a forerunner for what we will see in financial services. “Social and tablets will change the landscape in banking as they have in retailing”, Edlund stated. (During the Twitter Town Hall, there was even a discussion of the integration of TV as a channel for banking). Representatives from EMI in Boston (EMI_mktg4banks) emphasized that we will continue to see a blurring of all channels with social media providing some of the glue for enhanced communication. Gamification and location-based rewards were also seen as a key elements of engagement by Leimer and Edlund.

A conundrum was discussed with regard to the needs of small businesses where checks still prevail and the need for branches. King believed that we will see significant attention paid to mobile payments for businesses in the next couple years, while I added that tablet apps for business are also being developed to respond to the needs of the business community. NFC was also seen as a game changer with regard to the need for branches for small businesses. Bob Williams (@bob_williams) from Harland Clarke believed that, while check usage is definitely dropping, there are much greater efficiencies today than in the past with RDC and other electronic tools.

It was clear from the Intuit research that was just released, the Bank 2020 research released in April, and the discussion during the Twitter Town Hall today that there is significant disruption in the banking industry with regards to channel support and device utilization. The consumer movement to new banking channels is mirroring the movement to more sophisticated devices such as smartphones and tablets. Many consumers are NOT choosing one device or channel over another, but are using multiple devices depending on their personal needs.

Consumer desire for an integrated banking experience without friction will need to be supported by banking organizations in the future. Distribution networks (whether tangible or intangible) will need to support an expanding array of capabilities that may include integration within retail or social sites as opposed to standing alone.

As I stated to the participants of the Twitter Town Hall at the end of today’s discussion, “If banks are not prepared for the channel migration that is already underway, they may experience the impact of ‘Bank Transfer Decade’”.

Note: A summary of the findings of Intuit Financial Services’ 4th Annual Financial Management Survey and recently released related research is available in my previous Bank Marketing Strategy blog post.

If you weren’t able to join us, what are your thoughts around the impact of channel shift away from the branches and towards other media? Will we see the elimination of branches completely? Will another device or technology unseat smartphones and tablets?

Leave us a comment below, or Tweet at the author @JimMarous.

Filed Under Social Media, Surveys Tagged With #IFSsurvey, Banking 2020, banks, credit unions, Intuit Financial Services, survey, twitter

Banking.com to Host Twitter Town Hall on November 3rd

October 27, 2011 By Banking.com Staff Leave a Comment

In conjunction with Intuit Financial Services’ 4th Annual Financial Management Survey, which will be released next week, we’re hosting a Twitter Town Hall on Thursday, November 3rd. The Twitter Town Hall will discuss the survey results and how they tie into current banking trends, including mobile banking adoption, consumer attitudes, what consumers are looking for in online banking tools, customer loyalty and more.

The Twitter Town Hall is open for all our readers to join and participate in the conversation. To join us and/or learn more about the event, see below

Steps to Join:

  • Twitter Town Hall: Go to www.tweetchat.com. Log in using your Twitter ID.
  • Enter the hashtag to join the conversation: #IFSsurvey

Details:

  • Date: Thursday, November 3rd
  • Time: 10:00 am PST/1:00 pm EST
  • Hosted by: Banking.com Staff (@bankingdotcom) and Al Ko, Senior Vice President of Consumer Solutions for Intuit Financial Services (@financeworks)

If you are planning on attending the Twitter Town Hall and interested in receiving the key findings of the survey in advance, please email the Banking.com editors at info@banking2020.com. Additionally, if you are interested in submitting a question prior to the Twitter Town Hall, DM us on Twitter.

We hope to “Tweet” with you on November 3rd!

Filed Under Social Media, Surveys Tagged With #IFSsurvey, financial management, twitter, Twitter Town Hall

Social Media Statistics: By-the-Numbers, October 2011

October 19, 2011 By Banking.com Staff 2 Comments

Below are interesting statistics on social media usage. Feel free to share your favorite social media statistics in the comments section or Tweet @bankingdotcom.

  • $400,000,000 in ad revenue is projected for Twitter by 2013, up from $139.5 million in 2011 (Source: eMarketer)
  • 7,432,307 job changes have been tracked by LinkedIn since 2009 (Source: LinkedIn)
  • 68% of social media users go to social networking sites to read product reviews (Source: Nielsen)
  • 59% of B2B purchase decision makers use a smartphone to research potential purchases (Source: eMarketer)
  • 58% of social media users go to social networking sites to learn about or research products (Source: Nielsen)
  • 1,600 advertisers are now using the Twitter platform for advertising (Source: Twitter)
  • 53% of active adult social networkers follow a brand, while 32% follow a celebrity (Source: Nielsen)
  • 40% of social media users access social media content from their mobile phones (Source: Nielsen)
  • $1.23 billion will be spent by US advertisers on mobile advertising this year, up from $743 million in 2010 (Source: eMarketer)

Interested in hosting a giveaway on your Facebook page? Check out these tips from Social Fresh.

Filed Under Social Media Tagged With Facebook, LinkedIN, social media, statistics, twitter

Social Media Tweet Chat for Credit Unions

September 13, 2011 By Banking.com Staff 4 Comments

@SM4CU has launched a weekly Tweet chat designed for credit unions to connect and discuss social media. The bi-weekly chat, which is run by @brudaddy and @matthod, takes place on Tuesdays at 12:00 pm ET.

This week, the chat focused on select employee groups (SEGs) and social media, and discussed avenues to expand social media channels. Below are some highlights of the chat:

  • SM encompasses more than Twitter or FB and you may find more value advertising on niche forums for your SEG. #sm4cu
  • Need to make sure we are not focused on just one aspect of SM. As with all mktg it needs to be integrated into something bigger. #sm4cu
  • You must remember that SM is not for every company. You have to make sure you have a strategy before jumping in. #sm4cu
  • Great conversation going on. SM planning is key. A well thought out plan does not require zigging or zagging only execution.  #sm4cu

For a full recap of the conversation, visit TweetDoc.

A recurring theme of the chat was that social media covers an array of services, and should not be limited to Facebook and Twitter. Does your FI break out of the traditional social media channels? What channels are important for banks and credit unions to utilize? Leave us a comment below, Tweet @bankingdotcom or join the next #sm4cu.

 

 

Filed Under Social Media

Social Media Statistics: By-the-Numbers, August 2011 Part II

August 29, 2011 By Banking.com Staff 1 Comment

Below are interesting statistics on social media usage. Feel free to share your favorite social media statistics in the comments section or Tweet @bankingdotcom.

  • 1 trillion page views for Facebook in June 2011, making it the most visited site on the web (Source: Google Ad Planner)
  • 65% of adults use social networking sites, up from 61% in 2010 (Source: Pew Research)
  • 71% of companies surveyed said they block employees from visiting social networking sites at work (Source: Proskauer)
  • 54% of people surveyed indicated they feel some level of addiction to their social network of choice (Source: Webroot)
  • 44% of companies surveyed said they had policies in place to track employees’ social media use in and out of the office (Source: Proskauer)
  • 14.7% of the top one million websites in the world run WordPress, up from 8.5% in 2010 (Source: WordPress)
  • $3.08 billion will be spent by US marketers to advertise on social networks in 2011, a 55% increase over 2010 (Source: eMarketer)
  • 16,000,000 mobile users in the US watched TV or video on their mobile phones in June 2011 (Source: comScore)
  • 69% of women use social networking sites while 60% of men do the same (Source: Pew Research)

Last week’s earthquake on the East Coast created a Twitter frenzy. Here is an animated map of the Tweets from Tuesday, August 23.

Filed Under Social Media Tagged With Facebook, social media, twitter, WordPress

Social Media: Hype or a Financial Services Reality?

August 16, 2011 By Brad Strothkamp 2 Comments

By Brad Strothkamp, Vice President, Principal Analyst – Forrester Research

No topic has straddled the chasm of hype versus ROI as social media has done. The last few years have been a never-ending array of social media success stories as well as pundits questing the validity and value of the social area. The financial services industry is increasingly playing a role in the social space, and the last two years have also provided clarity to its value.

Like other industries, the majority of efforts in the financial services social space were initially focused on marketing. But as it has grown more widespread, at least four areas have shown promise for social outside of pure marketing:

  • Product development and innovation. Who better to ask about new product development or product enhancements than existing customers who own and use the product? Firms such as Chase tap social communities to drive product innovation that starts with the customer are using social very effectively.
  • Community support. While financial decisions may be a personal activity, the path to these decisions is often steeped in social with segments like investors or small businesses looking to one another for peer comparisons and best practice sharing. American Express, TradeKing, and most recently E*Trade are using closed communities to drive service utilization and segment engagement by getting customers to interact with each other in the social space.
  • Customer service. The bread and butter of online strategy for financial services firms have traditionally been customer service, and that aspect is seeing an opportunity in the social space. Twitter can be a hotbed of customer concerns and questions, and a litany of financial services companies are listening and proactively helping these clients. Wells Fargo and Citibank have been leaders here in proactive outreach customer service strategies via Twitter.
  • Online sales. Recommendations from family and friends play a key role in how consumers start the process of choosing a new provider. Social has a logical role here as social is about sharing experiences with family, friends and likeminded individuals. This role is being played at a macro level via customer ratings and reviews that are gaining traction in financial services. USAA has been a leader in this space by harnessing the good will that exists among its member to win new ones.

The area of social media will continue to evolve in financial services, and I am thrilled that I’ll be presenting at the Intuit Financial Services Conference this fall on the topic with a focus on USAA’s social story and its tangible results. In order to make my presentation as relevant as possible, I welcome any and all feedback on the types of questions you’d like to see covered. Those questions can cover anything from process to execution including questions around gaining executive support, tying social strategy to the business strategy, and developing effective measurements.

To join the conversation, visit In:Volve.

About Brad Strothkamp:

Vice President, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research

Brad serves eBusiness & Channel Strategy professionals. He is a leading expert on eCommerce/eBusiness strategy development within financial services, as well as on best practices of financial firms for selling to and servicing online consumers. He does extensive research on how consumers use the Internet to research and purchase financial products — regardless of the channel — as well as the seamless cross-channel customer experience financial firms need to develop and deliver in order to maximize sales.

In his research, Brad covers such eCommerce and finance-oriented topics as the use of interactive help technologies (including online chat), the use of analytics to drive site development decisions, the ways in which financial services customers make product decisions, the role the Web plays during the product research process, and case studies and industry rankings of leaders in financial services.

Filed Under Industry News, Social Media Tagged With financial services, Intuit Financial Services, social media
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