Social Media in Finance: Process Is Key
In social media, conventional wisdom dictates that campaigns should be reactive, impulsive, and fun. However, for financial institutions and insurance companies, this type of approach can seem riddled with risk -- the antithesis of normal business practice. Then how should financial institutions and insurers do social media? The answer is process and strategy.
A process-driven social media campaign is not to be confused with something that is pointless or disengaged. By process-driven, I mean the social media campaign is shaped more by an overarching detailed strategy and less by impulse. All actions should be aligned with what is effective for the business rather than arbitrary goals such as Facebook likes. Top of mind should be the reduction of risk and the prioritization of customer satisfaction.
Many financial institutions currently have an ambivalent relationship with social media. From a business development perspective, it isn’t generally seen as a strong avenue of customer acquisition. Many firms have recognized social media’s importance for direct customer relations. However, the risk of making an embarrassing mistake often puts companies off from further investing in social media.
One of the most straightforward steps that financial institutions often neglect is analyzing what their customers are saying on social media. This goes beyond having a social media manager monitoring Twitter and Facebook, and actually necessitates using software to measure the sentiment of customers, key words, and pinch points. Many insurers, for example, would be shocked by the divergence between what traditional customer service surveys tell them and the very negative reception many insurers receive online.
[Humana Lets Customers "Check Out" Premiums at CVS.]
Social media represents the world’s largest focus group. There is nothing that insurers do that should preclude them from tapping this information to better understand their customers. What is needed within these organizations is a change in mentality. Taking social media seriously and getting C-level buy-in is essential.
Social media management should not be the sole preserve of the customer service team or a social media manager. By making social media a company-wide responsibility that is overseen at the highest level, a comprehensive strategy aligned with the organization’s business goals can be implemented. This strategy will allow the development of set procedures that mitigate risk and ensure actions are aligned with the company’s core aims.
Of course, setting up a strategy should be more than a tick-box exercise. Real investment needs to be made. Software that manages, listens to, and analyzes all of a company’s social media channels can help to establish order to the process and allow tangible goals to be set. For example, an insurance company’s social media program can be divided into three segments:
- Sales. Insurance agents can use social media to learn more about the prospects that they are reaching out to in order to help secure new sales.
- Customer service. The companies should use social media as a way to interact with, listen to, and help their current customers.
- Trends. Every insurance professional should be using social media to pay attention to what is being said about the industry to understand what trends are happening now or will be in the near future.
How these three segments are utilized during a social media campaign can be an indication of the relative success or failure of an insurance company’s overarching social media plans.
While a social intelligence tool is valuable for any insurance company, there is one thing that you must remember before you take a deep dive into the social media world: Compliance is key. In an industry that is so heavily regulated, you need to make sure that everything you are doing is executed exactly to plan. This means making sure that you have the right tools to:
- Provide a social media archive for at least the past three years
- Allow you to control permissions throughout your organization to adhere to your company’s social media policy
- Provide an audit trail for your entire workflow, including internal notes that will allow you to track all communications
Developing these processes using social media technology and establishing clear goals make social media an intrinsic part of an organization’s business -- not a haphazard chase for likes or followers.
All signs indicate that in the coming decades social media will become the only way consumers interact with brands. Insurers will not be excluded from this trend. To ensure that your company is not playing catch up, it is important to start taking social media seriously now.
Leah is responsible for leading strategic marketing activities at Synthesio including branding, positioning, product marketing, communications, go-to-market strategy, and all aspects of demand generation. Prior to joining Synthesio, she served as director of Global Marketing ... View Full Bio
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