Warming up to social media

According to a Nielsen report published earlier this year,social media is growing by 100 per cent annually and is likely to touch 4.5 crore users by next year – almost equal to Spain’s total population. One third of India’s 4 crore online consumers are aware of the brands that have an online presence; over 50 percent perceive brands that have a social media presence as being “innovative”. The sheer numbers can make any marketing team to sit up and build a strategy around social media marketing. However,most of the financial services firms in India,especially wealth management and banks,have not been able to fully tap the potential of the medium. 

The feedback on social media is almost immediate,be it on the brand,services,products or trustworthiness. This feedback coming directly from the horse’s mouth must be valued by the company and taken with utmost seriousness. This drill would help them align with the client expectations,improve customer service more proactively and ensure a strong customer retention program. However,some firms are seen overdoing the usage of social media for brand awareness. “Companies must not indulge in overt marketing in every tweet or post. It gets tiresome after some time. In social media there has to be a judicious blend of quality and quantity”,says Jayant Pai,vice president,Parag Parikh Financial Advisory Services.

Usage by financial services firms

Although social media is becoming an important part of majority of online Indians,its use by the financial services companies is still limited. They are currently using it more to register their presence and push their company news on the fast growing social media. “It is more of an engagement tool rather than an acquisition tool so far,but the landscape is changing”,adds Pai. Not only India but firms operating in entire Asia-Pacific region are not leveraging the medium to its full potential,according to a study. “Companies in Asia currently lack the perspective and resources to develop and protect their brands in a strategic,structured and measurable manner using social media”,says Charlie Pownall,Burson-Marsteller’s – a global public relations and communications firm – lead digital strategist for Asia-Pacific,in a new study on social media.

It provides a comparatively much cheaper option for the marketing and CSR spends,than the traditional medium like television and print. However,India is yet to see a hugely successful social media campaign run by any financial services firm and hence companies rely more on the traditional formats. “The investment in this medium will only increase and with few success stories of mass brands,you will see a full bandwagon of financial services companies following it”,opines Ajay Kakar,chief marketing officer,Aditya Birla Group Finance Services. “It is time wealth managers take more interest in social media and not regard it as a playground for juveniles. Wealth managers and banks urgently need a much more focussed strategy for defining their presence in this interactive phase of internet’,says Ashwinder Raj Singh,Head – Mass Affluent Business and Regional Business Head for North,Fullerton Securities.

Users be careful

As companies become aggressive on the social media and engage customers,one has to be careful on not being swayed by the number of “likes” on Facebook,“followers” on twitter,“connections” on LinkedIn or “readers” on blogs. Being discerning with the information being thrown at them on these platforms would help users.

For example,there has been mushrooming of financial bloggers,over the years,who claim to be “spreading financial education”. Though some of them have spent long time into the financial services industry,many do not have enough experience to comment and analyse complicated financial products. Given the reasonably large number of ‘hits’ their blogs get,it raises alarm. Readers would do well to be careful and check the background of such bloggers,or those that start Facebook “fan” pages,before following their advice,as the question of paid write up – by some financial services firm – remains open. There are no free lunches in the practical world and in search of “free advice” you may end up buying a product from the blogger/ company and then repent several years down the line.

There are companies which under the pressure of ever increasing competition in the financial services space,access the huge database of online users and start discussion forums and send bulk emails. One must be smart enough to filter out genuine comments,status updates,and tweets from the ones that are deliberately plugged to gain attention and help in acquisition of clients.

It is only a matter of time when the wealth managers in different banks and financial planning firms would aggressively start pitching their services and products on various social media platforms. There is a tremendous experimentation going on in the said space and the day is not far away when you would be bombarded with a lot of “offers”.  

While it may be easier to learn about the bigger corporates,some homework is required before you decide upon taking the services of smaller ones. They can be judged by their parentage,number of years of existence in the country,business model,customer feedback and their total experience.

ritukant.ojha@expressindia.com