How does Social Media Utilization Impact the Financial Services Industry?

Social media platforms offer a wealth of user data and interaction ripe for utilization by financial service providers. As social media use proliferates across the globe, and solutions for utilizing the available platforms emerge, financial service providers must seize the opportunities.

The future of social data utilization is bright, especially in the financial services realm. Let's look at a couple of examples:

Samantha notices a strange charge on her credit card account. Her bank regularly monitors its social media accounts to identify opportunities to engage customers who are unsatisfied or looking to find information regarding a product or service. After sending a general message regarding transaction to the bank’s social media account, Samantha is contacted directly by an agent. The agent offers Samantha the assistance she needs, without Samantha having to invest time or effort into contacting the bank via traditional channels. The interaction seamlessly fits into Samantha’s day, allowing her to focus on her regularly scheduled activities.

Justin and his buddies take a golf trip every year. He creates a private group on his favorite social media platform to allow attendees to communicate and share their thoughts on the coming trip’s destination and schedule. His bank works with the social media platform to support financial transactions, making it easy for Justin to collect each attendee’s funds and send them securely to the hotel, golf courses and rental car companies, all within the platforms framework. This takes the complexity out of collecting funds individually and tracking their distribution.

The use of social media platforms offers many potential benefits to financial services organizations and their customers, including:

• A wealth of data: Social media users share a great deal of personal and demographic data daily. When users authorize the collection and distribution of this data, its use can dramatically shape the way financial services providers market and communicate to customers and prospects. Such a deeply personal and regular stream of data is unparalleled.
• Additional interaction channels: Social media platforms present a wide range of interaction opportunities, both real-time and not. These interaction channels present added opportunities for communication between customers and their financial service providers, and vice versa.
• Longer relationships: As the newest generation of youth advances throughout their formative years, social media is likely to play a large role in their personal lives, education and career. The more financial services providers can penetrate social media platforms, the more comfortable users will become with the idea of conducting business via the channel. And, since social media platforms seem to be here to stay, the length of relationships with users should be considerable.

As social media platforms evolve, so too do their potential impact on the financial services realm. Maintaining a detailed knowledge of current and emerging platforms, and their potential uses, will prove beneficial to financial providers for years to come.