Social Media Bringing Change to Financial Services
Social media sites are changing the way companies market in most American industries. For financial services, the change might be even more dramatic. Forrester has issued a new subscription-only report detailing the many possibilities for the industry.
A number of websites have gone beyond using peer-to-peer websites simply for marketing purposes, by taking advantage of the new web formats to provide new service products.
These products also serve as a powerful source of brand differentiation. “The point,” according to the report, “is that in a commodity industry, small service differentiators will make or break customer loyalty and advocacy.”
Bank of America, ING DIRECT, Royal Bank of Canada and Wells Fargo have noticed the consumer need for -and differentiating power of- social media and have started to experiment.
Customers of banks are more likely to engage with social media than are customers of investment firms. Bank of America, Capital One and Citibank have the most engaged customers, with roughly one-third of their customers stating that they create and share content online, according to Forrester.
Bank of America’s investment customers are the most engaged in that category and E*TRADE is the only other institution consistently above average.
Forrester’s report, Disruption Looms for Financial Services, includes recommendations for how banks can best exploit social media.
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