The battle for online popularity this year has seen some financial institutions build on their Facebook success while others are still slow to adopt social media as a marketing tool. Billy Bambrough looks at the RBI 2012 top 50 financial services organisations on Facebook.
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Chase has come out on top with over 4.3m ‘likes’ in the contest for the top position on Facebook among financial services firms, an increase year-on-year of 51% from 2.9m.
Visa has experienced a massive increase in 2012 social media activity and has become the second most popular financial services firm on Facebook with an increase of over 1,200% in their Facebook likes since last year with 4.1m.
The Turkish banking sector continues to make innovative use of social media and retains two banks in the top ten: Akbank and Garanti. Both lenders continue to use Facebook as a way to engage with their customers and update their pages with news of financial products and marketing promotions.
The biggest winners in the 2011 RBI Facebook rankings were the financial institutions who distanced their online presence from any financial product or information focusing instead on charitable and sports sponsorship. While banks with this approach are still achieving growth in popularity, others have had success via different methods.
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By GlobalDataBrazilian lender Bradesco has soared to 6th place in the 2012 ranking from last years position of 106th, an increase of 30,000% in Facebook ‘likes’ to over 2.5m.
Bradesco’s Facebook page, featuring movie recommendations and football clips amongst their more traditional marketing promotions, has proved very popular with customers.
Visa’s success this year is largely due to a concerted online activity, distributing their Facebook strategy over two separate product pages: Visa Prepaid and Visa Signature, to promote its brands and build its Facebook reputation.
Wells Fargo has shot up to the 21st spot on the table, from 91st last year, with an increase of nearly 4,000% with over 450,000 ‘likes’.
Matt Wadley, a spokesperson for the bank tells RBI: "We’ve run a campaign in which we ask consumers to like us on Facebook, which has driven the greatest number of increases in our fan numbers.
"We are focusing on value-add content for consumers; helping them to be financially successful is our goal, much more than highlighting products or services via Facebook."
MasterCard soared up the table by 14 places to rank 9th as a result of its active Facebook feed and use of Facebook promotions and giveaways. MasterCard has found its Facebook identity and is using its famous "Priceless" slogan by asking its fans such questions as, "Which Priceless city is your favourite?"
But MasterCard have not missed the opportunity to use charities in an effort to build its online reputation. Earlier this month MasterCard launched the ‘click and be generous’ campaign which was widely advertised on its Facebook pages and helped it to achieve an 800% increase in ‘likes’.
Cheryl Guerin, senior vice president, US marketing, MasterCard, says: "During the holidays we see people’s generosity and engagement with important causes increase as we all take the opportunity to appreciate the priceless moments in our daily lives.
"In support of this, we wanted to introduce a programme which enabled our cardholders to drive contributions for cancer research by simply going about their holiday shopping online as they normally would."
Barclays has dropped down two positions from 4th to 6th in the 2012 RBI Facebook rankings despite its continued sponsorship of English football’s premier league and a 63% increase in overall likes. Barclays’ own research suggests that in the next five years social network influenced sales are expected to more than double from £1.4bn to £3.3bn.
Richard Lowe, head of retail and wholesale at Barclays, says: "Shopping has always been a social activity right back to the days when people bartered rather than paid for goods. When someone you know and trusts makes a recommendation it’s extremely powerful and we’ve seen that the social shopper isn’t afraid to express online how much they want, love or dislike a product or service."
India’s second largest private sector bank, ICICI, posted one of the biggest overall increase in ‘likes’ (up by over 5,000% year-on-year) and jumped to 12th in the table from a position last year of 72nd.
Through a combination of financial advice and inspirational quotes ICICI has been able to use Facebook to press forward its brands and at the same time foster customer relations.
Some big players continue to languish in the rankings with the US’ largest retail lender, Bank of America (BofA), ranking 50th, down from 30th last year.
BofA has struggled to keep its online reputation on a par with competitors despite an active Facebook page, using online promotions and sponsorship of the Chicago Marathon.
Similarly ING dropped down the rankings, from 27th to 45th.
Related links
Facebook: RBI ranks the top 50 banks
