The world is caught up in a frenzy of social interaction. People the world over are sharing thoughts and experiences with consummate ease: with friends and strangers; with colleagues and potential employees; with siblings, parents and grandparents.
The ubiquity of sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in today’s world is hard to ignore, with these brands practically redefining what is meant by the term “household name”. Unsurprisingly, organisations such as banks often seek to monetise these massive gatherings of people – sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
If a bank is truly interested in its relationships with its clients, as any private bank must be to succeed, it must listen to its clients. Some- times this involves going to where the clients are already speaking.
This is why the question,“How do we use social media?” is not the right place to begin. It’s a question that ignores the client – the private bank’s most valuable asset. The point of a private bank’s social media activity should not be to monetise the crowd, but to cater for the client.
Not all social media sites are created equal. Each has its own purpose and usefulness, so a private bank should use the site or sites that will best help it reach its goals. This may involve creating a presence on multiple sites, making best use of each site’s strength. It may in- volve determining whether a bank-wide presence or a relationship-manager-based presence is best for each site. But it will always involve listening to clients and determining which social media solution would work best for them.
Each client’s needs are different, and so a one-size-fits-all method of social media presence is unlikely to work well. However, if a private bank is familiar with social media sites and etiquette, they can adapt to their clients’ needs and enrich the private banking relationship.
It can be challenging to cut through the hype surrounding social media and see its value in clear terms. There are benefits to implementing tools that enrich interactions with clients.
However, in relationship-based banking services,“everybody else is doing it” may not be the best reason for a bank to change the way it relates to its clients. Research conducted by RFi has revealed the abilities and inabilities of social media in the private banking sphere
Continued …
To read a full version of Alan Shields’ article, get the August edition of Professional Planner.
