Accenture Interactive Point of View Series

Moving Beyond Listening

and Monitoring
Social Media Marketing for
Financial Services

Dont just listen; learn and earn

Social Media Marketing
for Financial Services
Today, financial services
consumers have moved beyond
just using the Internet as an
information-gathering tool,
to using both the Internet and
mobile channels for an interactive,
even social, experience.
Social networks are growing at
pace; by 2017, the global social
network audience is expected
to total 2.55 billion.1

In the UK, the percentage of customers

willing to give personal information to their
bank online in exchange for better value
or tailored services more than doubled
from 2012 to 2014.2 And recent Accenture
consumer research shows that nearly a
third of consumers use information from
social media sites when evaluating retail
banking products and services. While still a
minority, many consumers want companies
to get directly involved in contributing to
discussions on social media, and nearly one
in four are more likely to do business with a
company that they know they can interact
with in a social media environment.3
Many financial services firms have responded by
using social media to listen to their customers
and monitor their brands. However, they are
not yet using it to generate tangible business
benefits. With advances in optimization tools,
analytics and software, social media is now
much more a science than an art. It can be a
very effective means to build a community and
engage with the consumer in a more personal
way. By harnessing the power of analytics and
integrating social media insights holistically
into the companys marketing strategy, financial
services firms can drive growth, increase
operational efficiency and reduce risk.

1 

Social Networking Reaches Nearly One in Four Around the World, eMarketer Inc., June 18, 2013. Retrieved September,
8th 2014 from: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Social-Networking-Reaches-Nearly-One-Four-Around-World/1009976

2 

Winning the race for relevance with banking customers, Accenture 2014, Retrieved September, 8th 2014 from:
http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-UK-Financial-Services-Customer-Survey.pdf

3 

The Digital Customer: Its Time to Play to Win, Accenture Global Consumer Pulse Research 2013. Retrieved September,
8th 2014 from: http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-digital-customer-play-to-win-summary.aspx

Social innovation
Leading financial services companies are increasingly using social
media marketing with strong results. American Express pioneered
several successful online initiatives that monetized the unique
features of social media, such as location check-ins for discounts
with Foursquare (Sync, Explore, Save) and discounts through
Facebook (Link, Like, Love).4 These programs worked by linking the
individuals American Express cards to their Facebook account and
delivering deals and offers based on Facebook activity, pages that
were liked and shared, as well as the activities of Facebook friends.

With just one click, the discount was attached to the users account.
When the related transaction occurred with the corresponding
Amex card within a specific time period, a statement credit was
automatically applied. The promotion offered customers an
integrated way to earn rewards for using their Amex card, promoting
loyalty and affinity with the brand. What was the benefit to American
Express? A positive response and greater sharing of content by users
due to highly tailored offers both leading indicators of greater
customer satisfaction and retention.

Social innovations getting results:

Launching a competition to make consumer engagement
more robust
Launching an innovative digital campaign allowing new
customers to choose their relationship manager
Launching a stock trading application to attract the
new class of retail investors
Providing customers with a wide range of products, offers,
and initiatives via social media
Using e-commerce offers to promote the online branch
Offering personal customer alerts and customer care
Creating dedicated accounts for any customer segment or
topic to enable followers joining live discussions around
several areas of interest.

4 

American Express Launches Link, Like, Love on Facebook, American Express, July 2011.
Retrieved August, 28th 2014 from:http://about.americanexpress.com/news/pr/2011/link.aspx

Getting real results

While most financial services firms are using social media to some extent, the vast majority
is stopping short of using it to engage customers leaving substantial business benefits
unrealized. Social media marketing is no longer about passively listening to customers or
conducting stealth experiments. A successful social media program hinges on:
Understanding the relevant social audience and the organizations goals and limits
Mapping customer needs to a social experience that the organization can deliver
Enabling the organization with the right capabilities to execute.
Financial services firms have the opportunity to build on their market presence, brand awareness
and marketing expertise to drive significant business impact through social media (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Tangible Business Results from Social Media

Drive organic
growth

Increase operating
efficiency

Reduce risks

Increase customer
acquisition

Lower cost to sell/

cost to serve

Manage brand
reputation

Optimize marketing
spending/effort

Innovate risk
management/fraud
prevention

Improve cross
selling/SoW
Increase customer
retention
2014 Accenture. All rights reserved.

Driving organic growth

Social media offers new customer information
such as personal attitudes, hobbies and needs
that could help acquire customers and nurture
existing relationships, both of which drive
organic growth. This new customer information
can enhance customer intimacy and customer
insight and move marketing toward delivering
personalized sales and service experiences.
An enriched customer profile can help identify
sweet spots in existing segments, select microtargets and launch personalized cross selling
and acquisition campaigns.
In this way financial services firms can gain
actionable insight on customer needs (using
such techniques as interest graph analysis
and activity feed analysis) and life events
at an individual, friends and family level.
They can also leverage marketing automation
and campaign management platforms to
deliver personal marketing campaigns.

For example, they can identify individual

customers through connections on LinkedIn,
position personalized interest/hobby related
offers based on Facebook likes and directly
initiate customer dialogues using Twitter.
Gamification is another key tactic to enrich
the customer experience, as well as to design
products whose properties evolve according
to social sharing. And financial services
firms are able to design experiences with
network dynamics in mind. A significant
part of the buying decision process now
happens in review and comparison sites,
communities or crowd sourced content
services. In this environment, financial
services firms can extend their sphere
of influence through proactive analysis,
outreach and relationship management
activities, and by enticing loyal customers
to spread their influence.

Social In Action
In 2013, Indian bank ICICI launched
Pockets by ICICI Bank, an app allowing
customers to access their accounts
and conduct a wide variety of banking
transactions directly from its Facebook page.
This social media strategy targets the more
than 82 million Facebook users throughout
India, 40 percent of whom are under age 30.
Since launching its Facebook page the bank
has amassed more than three million likes
and continues to build out new Pockets
capabilities to make banking simpler and
easier for its customers.
Source: http://www.informationweek.in/
informationweek/news-analysis/282804/icici-banklaunches-facebook-app-allows-customers-pay-friendssplit-expenses?utm_source=reference_article

Increasing operating efficiency

Social media can be harnessed to improve
the basics including lowering cost to sell
and cost to serve and optimizing marketing
spending. By seamlessly integrating current
customer service workflows with social media
components, financial services companies
are already able to leverage the crowd effect,
exploiting the potential of user-generated
content such as in Q&A platforms.
Financial institutions can also employ a
resource sharing approach, converging
different media and channels. In this way
skilled customer service workers can provide
services through different channels achieving
higher efficiency at a lower cost.

From a brand awareness perspective,

traditional marketing techniques, such as
word-of-mouth and member-get-member,
might increase their power by leveraging
greater reach and resonance of the marketing
message, where a single commercial meme
could reach a huge audience instantly.
The famous Oreo tweet during the XLVII
Superbowl You can still dunk in the dark
generated more than 500 million impressions
with 0 dollars in media spending.5
While the Oreo tweet is impressive in the
reach and impact it achieved, these kinds of
successes are opportunistic. Social now needs
to be much more of a science, orchestrated to
seek success without requiring a spontaneous
moment or event. In a data-centric way, social
can methodically drive operating efficiencies
and optimized spending.

Social In Action
The Barclaycard Ring MasterCard, offered
by global financial services provider Barclays
PLC, is the first credit card to be designed
and built through crowdsourcing. The Ring
community platform allows community
members to share ideas with Barclaycard and
to help each other on a variety of financial
questions. Customers are engaged in the
product design and enhancement, building
loyalty, peer-support and word of mouth.
Combined with other voice of the customer
initiatives this program has decreased
customer complaints by 50%, and increased
customer retention by 25%, resulting in an
annualized benefit of over $10 million.
Source: Barclaycard Ring, Barclaycard, Retrieved
September 8th 2014 from: http://www.barclaycardring.com/
The Barclaycard Story, Lithium. Retrieved September, 8th
2014 from: http://www.lithium.com/why-lithium/
customer-success/barclaycard

Reducing risks
A big component of the financial services
business is about sizing, anticipating and
managing risks. For insurance companies,
risk is a core component of the value
chain; for banks it is a long-term bet and
for capital markets it is a driver of higher
returns. Furthermore, Accentures consumer
research showed that brand reputation and
trustworthiness are key satisfaction drivers
among customers.6

By identifying early signals and acting

on (not just gathering) intelligence from
consumer and business social data, social
media could help to dramatically innovate
reputational risk management. Looking at
the customer within this broader network
of relationships would introduce new
approaches to help prevent fraud and
better assess risk profiles.
Banks are already starting to understand local
businesses by analyzing bill payments, money
transfers and evaluating the micro-market
from an economic standpoint to better assess
default risks and capital requirements for
specific loans. Through social media marketers
and risk managers will have an extended
view of customers within their network.

Dunking in the dark, 360i, Retrieved August, 28th 2014 from: http://www.360i.com/work/oreo-super-bowl/

6 

The Digital Customer: Its Time to Play to Win, Accenture Global Consumer Pulse Research 2013. Retrieved September,
8th 2014 from: http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-digital-customer-play-to-win-summary.aspx

Social In Action
UBS, a leading global financial services
provider, observed that understanding what
is being published in social media is vital to
effective communications, risk management
and brand protection. Working with Accenture,
UBS built a more functional social media
monitoring capability delivered through global
standardized services, scalable technology
and methodology. The service operates in four
different languages utilizing native speakers
with industry backgrounds to eliminate
mundane postings, spot irony and understand
context. UBS gets a more comprehensive view
and may conduct campaign-related monitoring
at short notice and at a relatively low fee.
Through this new capability, UBS has a holistic
perspective in the digital social world and may
fulfill important business objectives in the area
of reputation management and customer trust.
Source: UBS: Outsourcing Social Media Monitoring,
Accenture. Retrieved September, 8th 2014 from:
http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/
success-ubs-social-media-monitoring.aspx

Making social pay

To build the right social media marketing approach, companies have
to start by deeply understanding their social media readiness across
all aspects of the organization, procedures, processes and technologies.
In particular, the organization has to be aligned with the social media
marketing strategy and have a group responsible for social media activities.
Procedures have to be adapted to incorporate social media as a
possible channel through which the prospect and customer can
interact with the organization. Specific processes need to be in
place in order to guide the execution across all customer-facing
touchpoints. The right technology must be available. Not only
specific social media marketing components, but also more
traditional components need to be social media ready.
While every journey will be different, social media pioneers have
followed four basic steps to improve the potential of social (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Steps to Harness Social Media

Define

Experiment

Extend

Expand

Define the social

media marketing
strategy

Execute the social

media marketing
first pilot

Add targeted
outcome segments
and tactics

Transform social
media into a new
growth engine

Defining the social media

marketing strategy begins
with identification of social
media marketing goals, and
understanding the brand and
product characteristics that
can drive value in the social
media context. A personalized
social media marketing strategy
answers four key questions:
What is the goal?
Which tactic is more
suitable to achieve the
selected business results
given the companys
particular DNA
(e.g. brand perception)?
Who are the target
customers/ prospects?
Through which social
media platform?

There are benefits to dipping a

toe in the water before taking
the plunge. By experimenting a
company reduces IT investment
and runs a simple social media
marketing pilot to gain the
overall marketing organizations
buy-in before planning the
bigger moves. This could be
done based on already available
technology or through a
managed service approach.

With strong results from the

pilot, companies can develop
the business case to extend
the social media marketing
approach. This may involve
broadening programs into
additional targeted segments,
expanding the number of
tactics utilized or adding new
social channels, depending
on the targeted business
outcomes the firm is targeting.

When the due diligence is

complete, financial institutions
can scale their social media
marketing strategies and may
be able to transform social
into a new growth engine.
A scaled program has
numerous components
from listening and planning
to engaging and measuring.
Key prerequisites for
successful expansion include:

Financial services firms

should do deep technological
due diligence and, based
on the defined strategic
goal, adapt the social media
platform, introducing new
components or services
available in the market.

Full-time active social

media monitoring is
underway and a process
is in place to inform
strategy and tactics.
Efficient social processes,
policies and actions are
aligned to the
organizations digital
strategy and there is
enterprise-level funding
and ownership
There is high engagement
and social activity across
all desired properties
and experiences
Robust key performance
indicators are defined,
including both social
and business metrics.

2014 Accenture. All rights reserved.

Laying the foundation

Every financial institution has its own business priorities and
unique types of customer interactions it wants to conduct.
Accenture has identified 11 fundamental social media tactics
companies can consider when building personalized customer
relationships. Each tactic involves detailed and customized decisionmaking to help achieve the targeted outcome, but the schematic in
Figure 3 provides a high level roadmap of the tactics available.

In considering the combination of tactics to deploy, financial

services firms should recognize that these tactics dont exist in
isolation. Social media marketing must connect to the firms digital
strategy holistically, including mobile apps, website, and email,
as well as its customer service channel, to begin to achieve the
scale and impact desired. A lack of integration of social channels
with established customer interaction channels can result in
conflicting messages being sent to consumers and a bumpy,
frustrating customer experience.7

Figure 3: Roadmap of Social Media Tactics

Figure 3: Roadmap of Social Media Tactics

Social Media
Tactics

Description

Revenue Growth
Customer Cross
Acquisition Selling

Clustering

Build communities around interests and hobbies

to attract prospects and acquire customers

Gamification

Increase community engagement around products/

education content

Sales

Push personalized offers and transform into a

sales engine

Banking
platform

Perform transactions and retrieve product information

Seeding/
demand leverage

Increase social word of mouth, leveraging viral network

effects by targeting key community influencers

Listening and
monitoring

Monitor, respond, ask and promote offers

Crowd sourcing

Leverage the communities to foster product and

service innovation (feedback management)

Content

Use people as a brand/product advocate

(and marketing agency)

Branching

Complement physical with social presence

Collaboration

Introduce new tools to stimulate internal collaboration

and to spread best practices through the organization

Customer
service

Add another channel to provide service

Operating
Efficiency
Churn
Mgmt

Cost to
Serve

Risk Mitigation
Efficiency

Brand
Risk

Impact
Very High

High

Moderate

Some

2014 Accenture. All rights reserved.

7 

For more information, see Talk With Me not At Me: Playing to Win with Social Media, Accenture, 2014.
Retrieved September, 8th 2014 from: http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Playing-Win-Social-Media.pdf.

Fraud

Listen, learn, earn

Social media is in many respects an unstoppable cultural forceubiquitous and
powerful. For financial institutions it has vast potential beyond listening and monitoring.
A methodical, data-centered, approach to social media marketing gives financial
institutions the opportunity to increase customer acquisition, improve cross selling,
drive customer retention, deliver operational efficiency and reduce risk.
But to capture these benefits firms must make social media a comprehensive and integral
part of the companys marketing efforts. It begins with determining the appropriate
social media marketing strategy based on specific business goals the target market,
tactics and channels. It involves experimenting through pilots. It requires flexing and
extending capabilities.
In the words of a senior executive of social media for a major international bank, One risk
is not being open enough to social media, actually knowing its role in business and culture.
I still hear stories of executives in the industry not taking social media that seriouslythat
its just a nice to have. But there is great power in it. This can be negative, given the speed
with which issues spread on social media. But it can also be extremely positive. It can foster
better relationships or create additional touchpoints in the digital marketing space.8
Even more significant, social media can become a new growth engine that is integral
to the financial institutions business.

8
A Comprehensive Approach to Managing Social Media Risk and Compliance, Accenture 2014,
http://www.accenture.com/microsites/insight-social-media-risk-management/Pages/index.aspx

To learn more about how to evolve your social media

solutions to deliver high performance, contact:
Aneesh Desikan
aneesh.desikan@accenture.com
Marco Magnini
marco.magnini@accenture.com
Shailen Salvi
shailen.salvi@accenture.com

About Accenture Interactive

Accenture Interactive helps the worlds leading brands delight their customers
and drive superior marketing performance across the full multichannel customer
experience. As part of Accenture Digital, Accenture Interactive works with over
23,000 Accenture professionals dedicated to serving marketing and digital clients
to offer integrated, industrialized and industry-driven digital transformation and
marketing services. Follow @AccentureSocial or visit accenture.com/interactive.

About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing
company, with more than 305,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries.
Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all
industries and business functions, and extensive research on the worlds most
successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become
high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net
revenues of US$30.0 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2014.
Its home page is www.accenture.com.

Copyright 2014 Accenture.

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