As social media’s popularity keeps rising with no end in sight, financial institutions have been working round the clock to take advantage of this growing target market. Patrick Brusnahan talks tactics with some of the most ‘liked’ institutions on Facebook to see the secrets of their success

With 1.23bn Facebook users, 757m of them logging on daily, it would be ludicrous for the financial sector, or any sector, to ignore this pool of potential clientele.

Topping the table for the second year in a row are Visa and MasterCard, taking advantage of the publicity their respective sponsorship deals bring them.

Surprisingly, some huge international banks have so far failed to gain a significant following in this area. RBS (29th), Natwest (62nd) and Lloyds (97th) are three examples of banks with large numbers of clients and assets under management, yet without a strong presence on Facebook.

Successful banks tend to use Facebook as an engagement tool rather than part of their marketing and advertising. Users see straight through pitches on social media. A blatant marketing ploy could even put visitors off pages if all they see is an advertisement for a new product.

Approachability is key with social media experts. Unveiling a different side to a ‘faceless’ banking corporation is crucial in not only gaining likes, but keeping them.

How well do you really know your competitors?

Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.

View profiles in store

Company Profile – free sample

Thank you!

Your download email will arrive shortly

Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample

We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form

By GlobalData

Submit

UK USA Afghanistan Åland Islands Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Democratic Republic of the Congo Cook Islands Costa Rica Côte d"Ivoire Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and McDonald Islands Holy See Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati North Korea South Korea Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territory Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Réunion Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and The Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and The South Sandwich Islands Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates US Minor Outlying Islands Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela Vietnam British Virgin Islands US Virgin Islands Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Kosovo

Industry * Academia & Education Aerospace, Defense & Security Agriculture Asset Management Automotive Banking & Payments Chemicals Construction Consumer Foodservice Government, trade bodies and NGOs Health & Fitness Hospitals & Healthcare HR, Staffing & Recruitment Insurance Investment Banking Legal Services Management Consulting Marketing & Advertising Media & Publishing Medical Devices Mining Oil & Gas Packaging Pharmaceuticals Power & Utilities Private Equity Real Estate Retail Sport Technology Telecom Transportation & Logistics Travel, Tourism & Hospitality Venture Capital

Tick here to opt out of curated industry news, reports, and event updates from Retail Banker International.

Submit and download

Visit our Privacy Policy for more information about our services, how we may use, process and share your personal data, including information of your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications. Our services are intended for corporate subscribers and you warrant that the email address submitted is your corporate email address.

Staying ahead of the curve

Bradesco, 4th in the rankings for the second year in a row, chooses to gain Facebook likes by being at the forefront of the market. With over 5m likes on only one page, it is easy to say that this strategy is a successful one.

Mauricio Minas, executive vice president of Bradesco, tells RBI: "Social media for us is basically a new standard for human behaviour. That’s how we see it. At the centre of this strategy are people. We think that our customers do have needs and we understand, through social media, what kind of interactions they have with us and, through Facebook, we can capture some of their desires."

Through this, Bradesco has been ahead of many banks in Brazil and even South America. It was the first bank to launch on Facebook to over 90m Brazilian Facebook users. It operates its Facebook 24 hours a day and has a guarantee to respond to customers within five minutes, no matter the circumstances.

It also makes sure to keep all of its Facebook interaction on Facebook without any links to other sources to keep customers engaged. As a result of this, Bradesco launched their F.Banking application. This app enables customers to access their account through Facebook. Since launch, it has had over 1m people accessing the platform.

With regards to appearing suitable for social media, Minas says: "We’re very efficient in using the language of social media in interacting with our customers. That means we’re not only promoting our brand because we felt that would be a mistake. Branding would be destroyed instead of built."

Bradesco, however, refuses to rest on its laurels as it continues to innovate. With regards to the future, Minas says: "We’re going to have all the financial services available on other channels also available on Facebook.

At this point in time, we’re almost there. What I see as, not a disruption, but an innovation, is to use things particular to social media in financial services. For instance, crowd funding and sharing information across communities. That will be the future; products orientated towards communities rather than one-on-one relationships."

Interconnectivity

Barclays chooses to interlock every aspect of their bank to transform it into a part of its core daily offering. It has become part of the key business metrics of the company through engagement, servicing, brand and reputation. The end goal is to be ‘prescient’ in that environment.

Mark Brayton, director of interactive marketing at Barclays Personal & Corporate Banking, says: "Intimately, we’ve been on quite a steady focus period around social media for the last eighteen months to two years. The first thing is acknowledging that many of our customers are there within social media and therefore we need a presence and we need a representation within that environment."

The bank ensures that all fans of the page are well aware of upcoming developments in services. This is particularly with regards to mobile innovation as the vast majority of consumers are now able to access social media via mobile devices. The trick is listening to customers to stay relevant. This is idealised by Barclays’ ‘Your Bank’, an ideas platform for the public to recommend improvements to services, as well as presenting how these recommendation have been taken on board.

With a number of sponsorships, including the English Premier League, Barclays was already given a ‘wide reach’ on Facebook. This is situation that cannot be taken for granted. Brayton says: "I think it’s really important, as a brand, to understand your relevance within social space, no matter what the subject is in context. Those brands that do best are the ones that understand what customers within social media really want to hear about, rather than just blanket communication from just another marketing channel."

Putting a face on a corporation

Santander delivers a personal touch to Facebook interaction. The end result, according to the bank, should be a closer relationship between customer and corporation. The main delivery method is through content, which is ‘at the heart’ of what Santander does.

Keith Moor, chief marketing officer of Santander UK, says: "I don’t think people should use Facebook because they think it’s something they should do. I think you should only use them if there’s something useful you can add to people’s lives."

The variety of content is broad. Santander, similar to Barclays, also has sponsorship deals with sports ambassadors such as Rory McIlroy and Jessica Ennis. This allows it to use events that the ambassadors are involved in to generate interest in its own content.

Moor says: "Banks aren’t fundamentally interesting, but sportspeople are. I can’t speak for my competitors, but we find having sponsorship assets useful in generating content. The thing is you can get overly obsessed with then. I wouldn’t want to build my entire content strategy around my ambassadors.’

Information related to finance is issued regularly via Santander’s Facebook page, ranging from money management tips to the cost of sending a student to university. This could be a straight post or an interactive tool.

Running parallel this are weekly competitions, such as ‘1-2-3 Thursday’ where fans of the page can win £123. The key aspect is that it is not a sales massage, just helpful advice from the bank to avoid being thought of as a ‘faceless monolithic high street organisation’.

This strategy has seen convincing results with the bank seeing an engagement ratio of 16-17%, over double their nearest competitor in the UK, Halifax with 7%. This has come from a foundation built over a long period of time, ‘a good few years. It hasn’t happened overnight.’

A big disadvantage of being content-heavy is how quickly content is replaced online. Moor says: "Content is dead pretty quick and keeping up-to-date is an active process. At the same time you can’t afford to spend lots of money on doing it. It’s the quality of the idea that’s key. It comes from an appreciation of the audience and having an idea."

Keeping up with trends

ING, a bank with a 135% increase in Facebook likes over the last year, has had to stay current on Facebook. The reason being that India is a very young country. The average age is 29-years-old. Therefore, there has been an explosion in India in terms of social media adoption and usage.

Sonalee Panda, chief marketing officer for ING Vysya, says: "Definitely, Facebook is exploding. We put a lot of effort and analytical tools into studying our customers. We used to lose about 18% of our likes a month, but with analytics, we’ve dropped the amount of attrition on our likes, in the last six months, from 18% to 3%."

The Indian bank has found Facebook to be an incredibly helpful addition to the internet. Since 2009, ING had been launching microsites to give an online presence to different sections of the bank. With social media sites, not only Facebook, but Twitter and Vine as well, focus can be narrowed on those platforms to create a greater sense of identity. Its brand promise, ‘ING makes banking easier’, is incorporated into all of its content online.

Panda says: "We primarily target customers who are 25-32 years old for Facebook. We spend a lot of time trying to understand what’s trending in terms of conversations and topics in that segment. We then look at how that’s relevant from a banking perspective and how do you connect that in a way that’s a bit quirky, a little lateral, but somehow brings out a savings element."

One example is a recent competition ING held to find the most affordable breakfast across all of India’s 25 states; a move which received responses around the country. Movements like these help avoid the stereotypical advertising ‘like a boring banker’.

The social media platform is also used as a customer service outlet. Queries have steadily increased and ING have promised to respond within 48 hours. Panda says: "We service a lot of our customers online. Unlike many brands who mask whatever problems they may have, we leave them there and we solve them.

This allows us to really demonstrate that they can come and talk to us and we will not shy away from it. Sometimes, when there is personal information that needs to be shared, we tell the customer to talk offline, but we always come back and say, ‘Hey, we solved your problem.’"

A crucial aspect to ING’s growing success in the online field is that it is seen as ‘an online bank’. Panda says: "It’s in the DNA and that’s definitely an advantage for us. We’re slightly more edgy, more experimental. The team driving the Facebook program for us are a very young bunch, unlike what you’d see in a bank."

In terms of challenges, it comes largely down to ‘understanding what’s trending and being relevant.’ ING, however, is working hard at that with their latest innovation. Panda says: "We’re on the verge of launching a series of banking solutions which will be using social media. That’s a bit confidential, but we’re trying to do that in the next 30-45 days."

Most improved institutions

Sign up for our daily news round-up!

Give your business an edge with our leading industry insights.

Sign up