Tweet

Social media, financial services and customer driven markets

Guest post by: Jo Stratmann

Article Overview: Find out how social media is giving rise to customer driven markets.

Social media, financial services and customer driven markets

The current situation With the rise of social media, financial service businesses have started to think less about controlling their brand and more about how they manage their presence on the social web.

Social media and online communities have given consumers the opportunity to easily discuss online what they want, and don't want, from a product or service. In this way, the consumer is slowly but surely influencing the market place.

In general, financial services brands have been somewhat slow on the uptake when it comes to letting their consumers dictate their offering. There is one area of the industry that has taken this on board, though it's a relatively new emergent in the market - social lending.

Social lending sites like Zopa and Prosper are consumer focused online marketplaces. Members of these communities borrow and lend money to eachother, avoiding traditional banks and ensuring that the consumers themselves have more control over the transaction, as well as giving competitive interest rates.

Zopa, for example, also has a place for members to meet up and discuss all things Zopa - be it lending tactics, where they see Zopa going in the future, or even what they don't like about the site. This allows Zopa to tap in directly to their customer's needs, helping them shape their offering based around the demands of the customer.

What does the future hold?

More and more financial services brands will learn to embrace their customer's opinions and realise that they are shaping the market place.

Reviews, blogs, forums, and tips and advice sections will appear more frequently on both branded and non-branded sites and the financial services industry will realise the value of not just listening to, but also acting on their customer's conversations and suggestions.

Sites like Zopa are already challenging and reducing the market place of the more traditional lenders. As more and more social-based entrants emerge, this reduction is likely to continue unless financial service institutions get more creative in how they address the needs of their customers.

A good example, from another industry, of where things are heading for financial services could be the Patientslikeme site. Patients like me is an independent community for patients who are suffering from illnesses. It is a place to share information about their conditions and treatments, providing support for other patients. Traditionally this advice comes from hospitals, doctors or other traditional medical sites like the NHS, not an independent community of people.

What's more, with over 80,000 unique visitors a month and 65,000+ members, patientslike me is used by pharmaceutical companies as a source of reliable consumer insight; it is helping to shape the pharma marketplace.

Could something like patientslikeme be the future direction for financial services brands? Perhaps independent communities of people, where the site is built by the community itself, discussing, say, loan options, will influence the financial services market place by providing valuable, actionable consumer insight to financial services brands. It remains to be seen...

Our next blog post will look at the issue of transparency in relation to social media and the financial services industry.

Related Articles
  Social media: Risk and regulation in the financial service industry
  How to develop a European Social Media Strategy
  The danger of over-responding on Twitter
  Social Media Optimization and Marketing with Web 2.0
  Resourcing B2B social media
  Social Media Principle 4 – Relationships Come Before Sales
  Financial services: Transparency through social media
  Are you paying people to update their Facebook profile?
  Are you anxious about using social media in your business?
  ••••••>Take Advantage of Twitter and other Social Media Options for SEO
  Getting in Social Media Marketing
  Is It Alright to Invest Money in Financial Markets Any Time?
  Social Media Marketing for Accelerating Your Business
  “Should I or shouldn’t I”
  Succumbing to EVIL Shortcut-ish Temptations and Forgetting the “Social” In Social Media
  Warm Market Research
  10 Steps to a Sustainable Social Media Strategy
  How to maximise your sales account opportunities
  Social Media is NOT about Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin
  Customer engagement via Social media

Article Tags: customer driven markets, financial services, freshnetworks, social media, social media agency freshnetworks



Related Forum Posts
Re: I thought social sites were a waste of time. How wrong I was - According to my point of view Social media sites play vital role in online promotion. You can interact with your customer and improve your services and even you can spread your business everywhere through social media sites. Now days people use social media sites to interact with their friends, family and everyone. Below are the famous Social media sites: 1. Facebook 2. Twitter 3. LinkedIn 4. Myspace 5. Google+
Re: The Boom In Social Media - Great Post!! terriz I also agreed that now days social media sites play vital role to promote website products and services. You can directly communicate with your customer and improve your services. As you are improving, automatically your brand name and profit increases day by day. If you have more about Social media please post next time.
Re: Best Internet Marketing Strategy - According to my experience Social Media is the best strategy for internet marketing because social media sites play vital role to promote website products and services. You can directly communicate with your customer and improve your services. As you are improving, automatically your brand name and profit increases day by day.
Re: I thought social sites were a waste of time. How wrong I was - Social media websites have a great potential when it comes to advertising your services.
Re: Advantages with Social Media Sites - I also agreed that now days social media sites play vital role to promote website products and services. You can directly communicate with your customer and improve your services. As you are improving, automatically your brand name and profit increases day by day.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Fighting the Saw-Tooth Affect

Qualities of Leadership Part 1

Are You Fulfilled

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.