By Bryan Segal
Dealing with finances is a personal and emotional subject for many. It is important for retail banks to gather insights into behaviors, feelings, wants and desires of the consumers they serve. Social media is an avenue for banks to listen and build stronger consumer relationships and humanize their brand, by responding to questions and encouraging brand conversations, both on and offline.
The recent Total Social data rankings for the top U.S. retail banks on Facebook and Twitter and through offline word of mouth (WOM), found that many of the banks put their focus on responding to consumer inquiries on social media. For example, SunTrust, the number one ranked bank on Facebook, implemented a successful social media response strategy by answering their followers’ questions and comments in a timely manner which increased their overall responsiveness score.
On Twitter, TD Bank, Regions Bank and Wells Fargo significantly improved their responsive to customers over the last six months. For instance, TD Bank responded to their followers in an average of 37 minutes. By leveraging Twitter’s real-time platform and providing quick responses, the brand demonstrated its commitment to its consumers. Additionally, the bank personalizes its responses by signing off with the name of the administrator, furthering the brand’s commitment to creating an online in-branch experience.
When looking at what consumers are talking about, we found that the banks that had a robust response strategy on social media also were the most-talked about offline. Regions Bank and TD Bank were the top ranked for offline positive sentiment, demonstrating that the brands are propelling conversations both online and offline.
With consumers constantly having conversations about brands both online and offline, it’s essential for brands to have a “Total Social” understanding of how their customers are engaging with them on and offline.
Bryan Segal is the CEO of Engagement Labs, a technology and data company that enables marketers to track, measure and benchmark the conversations happening around their brand.
Online training in digital, mobile and social media from ABA.
