Web Design, Digital & Social Media Marketing in Singapore

Banking & Social Media in Singapore

// July 14th, 2009 // Social Media Marketing

I chanced upon an article shared via Twitter a couple of days ago. It is called ‘Social Media and the banking Industry’. The article touches on statistics on the adoption of social media as part of the banks’ digital strategy as well as some examples on how they were implemented. I was just talking to a good friend whom runs a financial institution in Singapore about the use of social media for banks. This blog post is for you bro.

The use of blogs for knowledge sharing with fellow team members across organizations has been adopted by many corporations for years. However, for the banking industry, we have yet to see blogs as a form of social media marketing tool being embraced by banks and financial institutions. I’m going use Wells Fargo as an example to showcase how blogs can be part of banks or financial institutions’ digital strategy.

Wells Fargo was the first bank in US to launch a corporate blog in March 2006. It has now expanded the use of corporate blog as a key platform in listening, understanding and communicating with its customers. It takes courage within the hierarchy of a bank to do this and they have my deepest respect.

The roles of the blogs run by Wells Fargo is to communicate. To communicate in a personal, non-intrusive way. To enable a conversation between the bank and the customer. To allow the bank to listen and know what the client wants and expects.

In the case of a merger between Wells Fargo & Wachovia, the blog not only allows merger news and information to be disseminated, comments from the ground are also heard and addressed. If such concerns are widespread, the following blog post will address them in greater detail. Adopting a blog approach in their digital PR strategy in this case facilitated listening and allows ‘questions’ from turning into ‘issues’.

The blog also focus on specific products like the student loan. It engages potential customers with good and useful content,  allowing banking relationships to be build from college years. That relationship is eventually the key factor in more businesses when the student graduates.

Banks need to wake up to the call of groundswell. There are numerous forums and online communities in Singapore that are talking about banking products and services. Choose to ignore gets you out of trouble momentarily, choose to listen allows you to learn insights of market demands, choose to engage will give you the leading advantage over the rest of the pack.