1. Columbia Business School Alumni Club of New York 3/23/14, 10:23 AM
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Social Media and Financial Services: What’s
Next?
The marketing of financial services always seemed to be quite different. This
opinion was formed during a 1995 interview for an agency that advertised
IPOs.
At the time this involved placing a tombstone in a financial services trade paper.
Forward to 2013 and many things have changed.
To discuss these changes the Columbia Business School Alumni Club of New York
hosted an event on November 19th, "Social Media and Financial Services:
What's Next?" Taking a look at the 3.0 of financial services in the Internet age was
moderator Gadi Benmark, President and General Manager of McKinsey Social and
panelists Paul Michaud, SVP and Head of US Social Media at Citibank, Jennifer
Grazel, Global Head of Category Development - Financial Services of LinkedIn,
the Vice President Product Development US Direct at MetLife, Lewis Goldman,
and Stephen Elliott, Special Counsel of Intellectual Property and Technology
Development at Sullivan & Cromwell, LLP.
Key takeaways from this panel were:
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2. Columbia Business School Alumni Club of New York 3/23/14, 10:23 AM
Key takeaways from this panel were:
- Social media marketing for financial services (or any industry) does not have to
be about the product. Citibank created a LinkedIn Group called Connect as an
online community for the professional development of women in financial services.
In addition to being an image builder this community most likely helps Citibank with
recruiting.
- The LinkedIn Influencer program recently provided a publishing platform for well-known
business luminaries such as Jamie Dimond, Ryan Holmes of HootSuite, Bill
Gates and Richard Branson. LinkedIn is aiming to become the go-to site for
business content. (In the future every LinkedIn member will have the ability to long
form blog.)
- MetLife has four key marketing priorities and social media plays a role in two of
these. The first is focusing on customer centricity and the other amplification of the
MetLife brand message. MetLife is very proactive in using social media as a
customer service platform. Their goal is to respond to customer complaints within 2
hours. To meet this requirement customer service agents are empowered to solve
problems. As for amplification of the MetLife brand, the company uses social
media listening to help creators use the correct name for MetLife Stadium as
opposed to former names for the venue.
- Several of the speakers recognized that their companies are struggling with
social media ROI as well as the appropriate uses of customer-generated content. A
great example of customer-generated content is the recent Prudential advertising
campaign that asked people to share the number of people who they knew who
are over 100 years old. (For another interesting Prudential project, check out their
Bring Your Challenges Facebook page.)
- As for additional issues on the horizon customers will soon expect content to be
integrated across all media types. The same messages on print and television
should be seen on social. Hashtags can even now be seen in print and television.
Marketers must also learn that not all platforms work for all brands. MetLife doesn't
see a place for Pinterest in their social media strategy.
- Another objective for future consideration will be creating the ability to control and
monitor the message at every level of the organization. Much as voice and chat
communication from financial firms must be monitored and recorded, social will
also need to be monitored and recorded. Currently, companies such as HearSay
Social are helping financial service firms with compliance as individual agents sell
products on social. At some point the ambiguity around social media regulation
from regulatory entities will need to be more clearly defined. As it is now, the risk is
sometimes not worth the reward. (This may be why some of the financial service
social media campaigns are not product centric.)
- As for regulation financial services companies need to be cognizant of and
compliant with a veritable alphabet soup of regulations (FINRA 2210, FINRA 2211;
SEC Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4; NASD Rule 3010; among others) when leveraging
social media. Many utilize third party platforms and other vendors to help them
make their way safely through this “soup” – with mixed results. Others have cross-functional
compliance initiatives. It’s risky but necessary territory, as both business
and consumer customers now expect their financial services institutions and
agents to have a social media presence.
- As social media is increasingly used for business communications, a survey of
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3. Columbia Business School Alumni Club of New York 3/23/14, 10:23 AM
- As social media is increasingly used for business communications, a survey of
marketers who feel that content marketing is important has grown from 19% to
35%.
- On a final note it was concluded that social will increasingly be used in innovative
ways. This could include the crowdsourcing of business problems as well as the
use of social within social. (Global companies such as Citibank should use social
platforms to share social best practices and improve collaboration on their social
initiatives across geographic and product markets.)
Many thanks to event planners, Kate Hartnick Elliott, Liz Harrison, Ilene Moskowitz,
Marjorie Churgin and the hosts, Sullivan & Cromwell, LLP.
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