As usage of social networking sites continues to rise, Adèle Gritten, Head of Media Consulting at YouGov, questions whether financial services firms need to do more to engage with online customers.
The digital decade has been and gone. While social networking has transformed the ways in which people interact with friends, family and colleagues, it has also transformed the ways in which brands, products and services interact with their customers (and vice versa) and the consumer generally. This article draws on various YouGov surveys conducted over the past two years, with a focus on how the social media landscape has changed exponentially during that time.
The current social media landscape
First, we review how the social media landscape has changed in just two years. In 2009, only 4% of our social media online survey sample were registered users of Twitter; that figure had increased more than eight-fold to 34% by March 2011. 51% of our sample were registered users of Facebook in 2009; that figure had risen to 67% by March 2011. Only 13% were aware of LinkedIn in 2009, rising to 33% by 2011. Awareness is of course all very well, but usage is what really matters to advertisers and content providers. Good news, then, that the number of registered users for Faceboook, YouTube and LinkedIn also increased between 2009 and 2011. Facebook saw an increase of 16% points between 2009 and 2011, while YouTube and LinkedIn each saw an 8% point increase.
These figures are somewhat irrelevant in isolation, but they all point towards a distinct trend of a global, interconnected, urgent need for collective and instant knowledge search, collaboration and exchange, as well as rapid communication and the resolution of web-based queries, for example. Some companies have embraced and leveraged this heightened connectivity, although others have lagged behind with a pre-digital approach to marketing and communications.
If we take the financial services industry, the sector most persistently loathed by consumers since 2008, our data shows how disengaged this sector still is compared to how consumers interact with each other in the real world. 81% of respondents from our March 2011 online survey about financial services and social media had not seen any activity recently by financial services companies or providers on any social networking sites, including blogs or forums. A further 14% were at best unsure (meaning that current activity is clearly failing to cut through). Only 5% of a sample of 2195 could recall seeing anything recently.
Whilst some financial services brands might argue that social media is not the most appropriate way of engaging and communicating with existing, lapsed and/or potential customers, ignoring consumer trends that show YOY exponential growth in terms of engagement with, and usage of, social media across all ages and demographics is surely just burying one’s head in the sand. The biggest area of expansion for social networking sites in general – and for Facebook in particular – has been amongst the older generation. According to our recent survey, almost half of those 55+ using social networking sites have been registered users for less than 2 years (49%). We also identified that 28% of all Facebook users are 55+, further debunking the myth that social networking is a phenomenon of the younger generation, or a mere digital flash in the pan.
A recent report quoted in the Telegraph highlighted how the majority of FTSE 100 companies have failed to embrace social media activities fully, and thus risk being overtaken by smaller and more agile firms.
Certainly, to use the financial services industry as a scapegoating example, it is by no means easy for retail financial services customers to find out in detail about products and services, whether about current or savings accounts, general insurance, pension products etc. online. All too often, even the pioneers of online customer interaction (e.g. First Direct) still ask customers to contact them by phone when they are seeking the best savings rate etc. For the younger generation (the under 24s in particular), who would prefer to engage with companies in an online dialogue, companies must start to question whether they are truly geared up to service consumers in the most appropriate way. 15% of 18-34 year olds from our financial service and social media survey said that they had used social networking sites to complain about financial products or services. That figure was only 8% for the 35+ cohort.
Ultimately, consumers want to engage with their favourite brands, products and services online, and they want to do so on their own terms, i.e. when it is convenient, whether in the middle of the night or in early morning, whether from the office in their lunch hour, the smartphone on the train on the way home from work, or from the laptop or tablet in bed on a weekend morning. More people interact with Facebook when they are at home in bed or on the go than when they are at work, for example. 16% of Facebook users already engage with brands on the social networking site, with that figure rising to 18% for Twitter users.
Don’t distract the customer
Yet very few brands from all advertiser categories have fully embraced this shift in how consumers want not only to transact, but to also find out which products, brands and services are available to them. Financial institutions which still champion the call centre as the best, fastest and most cost-efficient way of interacting with their customers are simply at odds with how society is rapidly evolving. As landline penetration continues to erode and as smartphones become the norm, consumers increasingly want digital access to their money. The mobile-wallet phenomenon is already starting to revolutionise the way in which consumers are able to pay for items and receive monies owed to them. People want the ability to try and buy at their fingertips. They increasingly do not want a sales pitch about ‘other’ products or services they might be interested in when they’ve simply called to take out one very specific product that they have already painstakingly researched online, sought forum or blog advice on, then compared and contrasted with the closest competitor offer.
This view is further corroborated when looking beyond our own in-house research. A survey by TNW social media showed that over half of Facebook users will purchase the brands they follow on Facebook, while over two-thirds of Twitter users (67%) will purchase the brands they follow on that platform. However, if one takes a look at the Facebook pages of many of the world’s largest brands, they do leave a lot to be desired, relaying little more than company credentials with an overtly corporate focus, rather than consumer-orientated content. Very few offer a ‘Buy now’ or ‘talk to us online right now’ functionality – the instant access consumers increasingly need. Very few provide engaging, compelling, truly interactive content showcasing their brands/products/services in the most honest and transparent light. Very few advertisers have cottoned on to the fact that, with the right tone, they could have 30 minutes of direct contact with individuals each day (Facebook users from our survey indicated that they spend around half an hour daily on the site). They could focus on delivering high-impact, high-quality and specifically targeted messages that traditional media planning and buying can only dream of. However, few brands are really harnessing social media as the legitimate, value-added communications vehicle it can be.
Furthermore, aside from the functional and transactional requirements of how consumers want to talk to 21st Century companies, brands need to think much harder and smarter about how they manage (rather than supress or ignore) any negative messages that online can deliver.
Get it right
Some companies, of course, have had greater success in the social media space than others. Burger King, for example, ended up pulling a campaign surrounding its use of ‘Whopper Sacrifice’, essentially asking Facebook users to delete 10 of their friends in order to get a free Whopper. The campaign was deemed a viral success on the one hand, but was halted due to privacy issues on the other. Companies like Starbucks have embraced the concept of collaborative dialogue with ‘My Starbucks’ – essentially empowering the consumer to vote on suggestions for improvements and to monitor how seriously Starbucks is acting upon the feedback given. Graco harnessed and humanised offline marketing in the form of community gatherings with pictures from consumer meet-ups posted to Flickr, while Dell cultivated one of the better examples of cross-platform communities by maximising Twitter, a network of blogs and an active Facebook presence. Dell, in fact, is one of the few companies to publicise its return on investment from Twitter.
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
The number of friends per person on social networking sites has grown significantly since 2009, from an average of 80 to the current 140, while men typically have more friends or contacts across such platforms than women. And while music, TV and sports - followed by food, drink, then travel - are the most followed categories across all social networking sites, men and women follow different things, with women much more likely to track fashion and beauty and men to follow music, sports, newspapers and radio.
Men are also more likely to be influenced by what they read on social networking sites, with more men visiting a website, clicking on a link, reading a news story, attending an event, researching a product or service and downloading an app than women. Younger people are more likely to comment upon or ‘recommend/like’ things on social networking sites, particularly with regard to the entertainment category, namely TV, film and music. Younger people are on average also more likely to share personal information on social networking sites (particularly the under 34s), including personal photos, date of birth, school/university information, events they are planning to attend and their current location. However, they are also more likely to restrict access to this personal information on social networking sites.
Women are more likely to share photos and information on relationship status compared to men, whilst men are more likely to allow everyone access to their personal information. Although this only scratches the surface of the privacy and security issues surrounding social media, brands should be questioning whether they are fully utilising the - often free - information about individuals that is readily available to them, and whether they are using such data to maximum effect for efficient marketing and targeting purposes. Twitter, for example, has recently developed a system to provide advertisers with the ability to create ‘geo-relevant’ ads, i.e. targeting audience by geography. It has also launched ‘The Follower Dashboard’ to assist users in analysing their own audience of followers. Ultimately, all this enables marketers to better understand audiences and refine campaigns accordingly.
Conclusion
People of all ages and demographics are embracing social media, with online increasingly becoming the accepted, normal way of interaction: and not just with peer-to-peer, but also in terms of peer-to-brand. This does not mean that every company needs a twittering CEO and staff bloggers. It does not mean companies having a Facebook page (often a crass ‘cut and paste’ from their corporate website) just for the sake of it. The winning brands are the ones using social media purposefully, efficiently and creatively, in line with their brand identities. They are in the advertiser categories most suited to an online environment, for example, music and entertainment, sport, FMCG, technology and travel. They are the brands using social media both to listen to and respond to what consumers want. They are the companies aiming for transparency and honesty in terms of client interaction. And they are using social media to engage with consumers in real time. They value their customers and understand the power of the collective voice online.
