Facebook and LinkedIn become central social media channels for the financial sector worldwide
In its latest report, "Social Media Trends for Financial Service Providers 2018," social media platform Hootsuite examines which social networks financial service providers will use to expand their digital strategies this year.
According to the study, LinkedIn and Facebook are the top priorities for decision-makers when it comes to customer networking and engagement, while YouTube is becoming increasingly important for interaction. Instagram and Snapchat, on the other hand, have not yet arrived in the industry.
According to the current study, the social media presence of banks and insurance companies and the strategic use this year is distributed among the individual channels as follows:
LinkedIn boosts customer networking
LinkedIn is becoming the central social media channel for companies in the financial services industry. As of today, 98 percent of Forbes Fortune 500 companies are already represented on LinkedIn. The tools for creating videos, Google Hangouts and for peer-to-peer communication as well as geofilters for events and conferences are particularly popular. The topic of customer data will be particularly exciting for financial service providers: Industry experts assume that LinkedIn will expand CRM integration with Microsoft's cloud products. Decision-makers will then be able to more easily attribute LinkedIn activities to an increase in sales. Therefore, the number of financial companies on LinkedIn will also increase this year.
Facebook is used for direct customer contact
When it comes to customer data, Facebook is at the top of the agenda for banks and insurance companies. Financial services providers will increasingly use Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences in 2018 to learn more about their clients. As Facebook will invest in AI in 2018 to motivate users to join groups, the network will also become increasingly important for the financial industry. Banks and insurance companies will increasingly use Messenger to scale one-to-one communications with customers. There is also a trend towards branded Facebook groups dedicated to private financial and career planning.
YouTube creates interaction through content
Until now, many marketers in the financial services industry have viewed YouTube as a platform for millennials. But the number of older users is on the rise: According to comScore, the age group between 55 and 64 is growing fastest among mobile device users at 26.17 percent. Thus, YouTube reaches 95 percent of all online active adults over the age of 55 on a monthly basis.
Therefore, in 2018, the financial sector is also likely to use YouTube to target potential customers through pre-roll advertising. YouTube playlists on topics such as private financial planning and investing will also become established. As the network is also seeing growing mobile device traffic, new opportunities are emerging for financial services providers to increase customer engagement via the smartphone.
Twitter improves customer service
From a global perspective, Twitter has arrived in the financial industry: For example, all insurance companies and commercial banks represented in the Fortune 500 have a presence on Twitter. In 2018, they will primarily use Twitter to support content, monitor brand mentions, respond to customer complaints, and generate new customers.
Instagram is used for targeting millennials and employer branding
With 200 million new users in 2017, Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social networks. Nevertheless, this platform has not yet arrived in the financial industry and decision-makers are still hesitant when it comes to activities on Instagram. It can be assumed that in 2018 individual providers will nevertheless use the high organic engagement of Instagram to address customers from the Millennial age group or to present themselves as an attractive employer for new employees. Furthermore, this year we can expect individual financial service providers to focus on interactions with mobile videos and advertising opportunities in Stories.
Snapchat offers opportunities for local marketing
So far, only a few financial companies worldwide are using Snapchat. The reason is that new self-service advertising tools and innovative, location-based ad formats are constantly being integrated here. For this reason, mainly local providers will rely on the network in 2018 to arrange new leads for consulting appointments with first-time customers.
"We are seeing an increase in activity on the social web for the financial industry in 2018," says Markus A. Boehm, Sales Director DACH at Hootsuite. "Banks and insurance companies may still not be active on all channels, but they are responding to the latest developments such as Facebook's AI investments or YouTube's changing target groups. For decision makers, this creates a whole new set of opportunities for how they can engage their customers and showcase their content on social media."
The report, "Social Media Trends for Financial Service Providers 2018," is based on an internal analysis of Hootsuite customers in the financial services industry, qualitative interviews with 15 industry specialists, and analysis of globally collected data from Juniper Research, Forrester, Accenture, and ComScore, among others.
