gordons
11-05-2011, 10:56 AM
By Penny Crosman
With the help of social media analytics tools, savvy banks including Citi, SunTrust, ING Direct and First Tennessee are listening to and gleaning useful insight from social media conversations.
Frank Eliason thinks of social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn as customers' living rooms. "You have to wait to be invited in," says the SVP of social media at New York-based Citi. "You want to deliver content that's important to your fans. As you follow what they're sharing and commenting on, that tells you which content is working and which is not."
Dan Marks, chief marketing officer at First Tennessee in Memphis, views social media as a big cocktail party. You want to go and listen, find out what people are saying, maybe jump in with a comment or a witty quip once in a while -- but you don't get to control the conversation or pitch products, he says. "It's a great indicator of word of mouth."
The point is, on social media sites, thousands of conversations are going on, and some of them are about your bank. (Actually, it's often more of a random spewing of personal opinions, thoughts and article links to an audience that may or may not be listening.) Within this mass of communication lies a wealth of useful information for banks -- insights into where they're falling short in customer service; which products, websites and mobile apps customers love or hate; what their share of voice is compared to competitors (that is, how often they're mentioned versus their competitors); and how their marketing messages are coming across.
Banks such as Citi, SunTrust, First Tennessee and ING Direct not only are listening to the conversations and chiming in where appropriate, they're analyzing the conversations to uncover ways to improve their business, with the help of monitoring and analytics software. "A year ago, banks thought their customers might be in social media sites and that there might be a few people talking about their banking experience online, but it wasn't enough to necessitate a strategy," observes Zach Hofer-Shall, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Now, just 12 months later, it's big, and a lot of banks are doing something. But a lot of what they're doing is behind-the-scenes research or measurement."
With the help of social media analytics tools, savvy banks including Citi, SunTrust, ING Direct and First Tennessee are listening to and gleaning useful insight from social media conversations.
Frank Eliason thinks of social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn as customers' living rooms. "You have to wait to be invited in," says the SVP of social media at New York-based Citi. "You want to deliver content that's important to your fans. As you follow what they're sharing and commenting on, that tells you which content is working and which is not."
Dan Marks, chief marketing officer at First Tennessee in Memphis, views social media as a big cocktail party. You want to go and listen, find out what people are saying, maybe jump in with a comment or a witty quip once in a while -- but you don't get to control the conversation or pitch products, he says. "It's a great indicator of word of mouth."
The point is, on social media sites, thousands of conversations are going on, and some of them are about your bank. (Actually, it's often more of a random spewing of personal opinions, thoughts and article links to an audience that may or may not be listening.) Within this mass of communication lies a wealth of useful information for banks -- insights into where they're falling short in customer service; which products, websites and mobile apps customers love or hate; what their share of voice is compared to competitors (that is, how often they're mentioned versus their competitors); and how their marketing messages are coming across.
Banks such as Citi, SunTrust, First Tennessee and ING Direct not only are listening to the conversations and chiming in where appropriate, they're analyzing the conversations to uncover ways to improve their business, with the help of monitoring and analytics software. "A year ago, banks thought their customers might be in social media sites and that there might be a few people talking about their banking experience online, but it wasn't enough to necessitate a strategy," observes Zach Hofer-Shall, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Now, just 12 months later, it's big, and a lot of banks are doing something. But a lot of what they're doing is behind-the-scenes research or measurement."