Social networks in FS – Facebook remains the best option

Guest blog post by Stephen Dunnigan, Country Manager UK & Ireland, MicroStrategy

I can empathise with some of Scott’s recent FStech blog on the use of Twitter and Facebook in FS. We have all seen too many ‘amusing faces in the pub’ photos, but I just can’t agree with the idea that Twitter has replaced Facebook as the social network of choice in FS.

Of all the social networks, Facebook has by far the highest number of active users – around 900 million at the last estimate – and also the richest data on its users. Using that data, the potential for targeted and relevant marketing is huge. Users can be segmented based on their  interests, psychographics, demographics, preferences and likes. Segments can be targeted with personalised content, special offers, and recommendations based on who they are, where they come from, and what they like.

The best way of doing this is via closer integration of IT and marketing to forge social CRM strategies. At last year’s MicroStrategy Social Media Marketing and iCommerce Summit, Facebook’s Tim Campos spoke about how organisations can monetise their Facebook data by converting the site's social graph data structure into a relational data structure, enabling the use of existing Facebook data for enterprise applications. These apps enable personalised messaging based on the rich and constantly updating Facebook data – ideal for customer engagement and building brand loyalty.

The Corporate Insight research cited by Scott last week does reveal that 88 per cent of the FS companies surveyed were on Facebook and 92 per cent on Twitter. Yet so many Twitter accounts are inactive or spam and the user numbers do not come anywhere near to those on Facebook. And the nature of Twitter – 140 characters per update – means that the users it does have do not reveal much of substance that could be used by FS marketers. I do not mean spam, but relevant, targeted and personalised offers based on that user’s profile and interests.

While many of the status updates may seems trivial, only Facebook allows FS firms to engage with customers and prospects in a meaningful way, so the odd un-flattering picture of a friend in the pub is a price worth paying.

Twitter steals march on Facebook in FS sector

Has Facebook had its day? That was the question I put to my many (ahem) Twitter followers recently. "Timeline looks clunky and there are only so many pics you wanna see of friends pulling amusing faces in the pub," I tweeted.

It certainly seems to be on the slide in the financial services sector. According to analysis from Corporate Insight, Twitter has overtaken Facebook to be become the top social network for FS firms. It covered 90 companies in its report, 57 per cent of which used Facebook in 2010 and 51 per cent Twitter. But by the end of 2011, 88 per cent were on the former and 92 per cent on the latter.

At one point, Facebook could do no wrong, but it's no longer a media darling. Take, for example, the bemused response to the $1 billion purchase of Instagram, perhaps best summed up by a spoof news piece in the latest Private Eye. Sample quotes: "Instascam's business model was founded on the belief that if we had a trendy name and could show that we had no way of generating profit, Facebook would eventually buy us for some ridiculous price." And: "Mark Zuckerberg denied he'd overpaid for Instascam saying he'd been impressed by the way the company had generated huge amounts of hype in the past two years."

For more info on the Corporate Insight research, click here.

Flip-flopping on social media

Investment information portal, assetinum, recently examined the world's 50 biggest private banking and wealth management institutions' social media activities, scoring them out of 100. The results weren't great.

A third of those under examination did not have an active Facebook profile and that included Facebook investor Goldman Sachs. D'oh! (insert muppets joke here).

Further info on the research at the FStech website.

F-commerce on the rise

PayPal has unveiled Send Money, an application on Facebook which lets users send e-cards and money to friends. It's a move which seems like a no brainer, given that the site has more than 750 million users and a large percentage of them have active PayPal accounts.

It'll be interesting to see how many more businesses will take advantage of f-commerce. It certainly looks like an idea whose time has come. Twelve per cent of social media users have made a purchase from a Facebook store after seeing something on the site, according to the latest eCustomerServiceIndex (eCSI) results from eDigitalResearch and IMRG.

The results show an 8.8 per cent growth in f-commerce over four months as more and more retailers import their website functionality into the social networking site. The study also found that 25 per cent of online consumers now log onto Facebook more than once a day. Meanwhile, 97 per cent plan to log onto the internet this Christmas to browse and buy gifts. Twenty seven per cent will access the internet from their smartphone to browse and buy, whilst another nine per cent will use their tablet devices to do the same.