Social media has made it to the big leagues though financial institutions do not yet place a high level of importance on social media compared with other points of contact with customers. Launching and maintaining a financial institution’s social media presence is daunting but it has become imperative to converse with consumers on their terms, which increasingly include social media conversations. Building a strategic plan for developing and deploying a financial institution’s social media presence can be divided into four steps: 1) planning, 2) monitoring, 3) contributing, and 4) measuring.

1. Developing and Deploying a Social Media Strategy for
Financial Institutions
Consumer Insights Brief
October 2011
Paul McAdam, SVP of Research and Thought Leadership, FIS
Mandy Putnam, Director of Research and Thought Leadership, FIS
www.fisglobal.com

2. Developing and Deploying a Social Media
Strategy for Financial Institutions
The Social Media Imperative
Social media has made it to the big leagues. Most days and most newscasts can’t go without at least one story
about Facebook, a YouTube viral video, or some new announcement a celebrity or politician made via Twitter.
Only Google tops Facebook and YouTube for pure number of Internet visitors (Figure 1). Social media consumes
22 percent of all time online.1
Figure 1: Top Social Channels in the Internet
Sources: Alexa.com, July 2011 and Google Ad Planner, July 2011.
Just like the general population, banking consumers are spending time in social media, too. Overall, 70 percent
of banking consumers are using Facebook, and 27 percent are using YouTube — the two most popular sites
among banking customers (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Top Social Channels by Banking Consumers
70%
69%
Facebook 67%
72%
74%
29%
26%
YouTube 24%
23%
34%
20%
17%
MySpace 18%
18%
29%
17% Top 10 banks
13%
Twitter 12%
10%
19% Banks 11 to 50
12%
11% Credit unions
LinkedIn 6%
9%
6%
12%
Community and small regional banks
14%
Classmates.com 14%
13% Other FIs
9%
Source: FIS Enterprise Strategy, “Consumer Mobile Banking Research,” February 2011, n=4,002.
2
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3. Developing and Deploying a Social Media
Strategy for Financial Institutions
Despite the rapid adoption of social media across consumer segments, financial institutions do not place a high
level of importance on social media channels compared with other points of contact with customers. Less than
one in five executives recently interviewed by FIS™ Enterprise Strategy rated social media as important (Figure
3).
Figure 3: Importance of Channels to Financial Institution
(top 2- box score on 7-point scale)
Online banking 93%
Branches 71%
ATM machines 70%
Call Center (live rep) 55%
IVR / Automated telephone banking 48%
Mobile banking 43%
Social media 18%
Self-service kiosks and/or video banking 6%
Source: FIS Enterprise Strategy, “Voice of the Customer,” August 2011; n = 351
However, results from a November 2010 survey by Aite indicated that 79 percent of banks have at least begun
efforts in social media. Facebook is the most popular social media site for financial institutions, followed by
Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.5 Most banks use a selective mix of social media sites (Figure 4).
3
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4. Developing and Deploying a Social Media
Strategy for Financial Institutions
Although the list includes only large financial institutions, social media can be used effectively by smaller banks
and credit unions to connect with customers. In fact, reports show that smaller banks and credit unions have
significantly more success getting their customers to “like” them — one “like” out of 50 customers versus one
“like” out of every 710 customers for banks overall.6
If you are involved in launching or maintaining your financial institution’s social media presence, you have a big
task ahead of you. The social media landscape is massive and constantly changing. Consumer preferences are
evolving and their demand for meaningful interaction online is ever-growing. But, it has become imperative to
converse with consumers on their terms, which increasingly include social media conversations, in order to
capture value especially from younger generations.
“Deciding whether to get involved means deciding if you want to be part of the
conversation…There will be a conversation with or without you…If you don’t
use social media, then your business will go elsewhere.”
– Hadley Stern, Vice President at Fidelity Labs, a division of Fidelity Investments
4
© 2011 Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. and its subsidiaries.

5. Developing and Deploying a Social Media
Strategy for Financial Institutions
Building a strategic plan for developing and deploying a financial institution’s social media presence can be
divided into four steps (Figure 5). Your program will start at step one and continue on, but all four steps should
be constantly reviewed and reiterated as necessary:
Figure 5: Steps in Building Social Media Presence
1.
Planning
4. 2.
Measuring Monitoring
3.
Contributing
Source: FIS Enterprise Strategy, July 2011.
Planning a Social Media Strategy
Determine business objectives
As with any other business initiative, a social media strategy should begin with goals. When looking at the social
media playground, it’s easy to begin building goals that are tailored to the social media’s strengths, e.g. “People
can ‘like’ our Facebook page. Let’s build up to 1,000 ‘like’s’!”
But goals like those put the cart before the horse. The objectives of your social media program must be tied
directly to your overall corporate goals, or else they have no meaning. What does your financial institution care
most about: customer satisfaction ratings? Loyalty? Involvement in the local community? Your social media
goals should feed directly into those goals.
Aite found that the most common business objectives of the social media programs of financial institutions are
engaging customers (63%), building brand awareness (58%), building brand affinity (57%), retaining customers
(41%), and managing corporate reputation (40%).7
How will your social media presence help your institution reach its goals? To maximize success, look at the ways
that your consumers want to interact with you online. Forrester surveyed more than 2,500 consumers and
found the top ways that they would like to interact with their banks on social networking sites:8
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6. Developing and Deploying a Social Media
Strategy for Financial Institutions
1. Alert me about upcoming products or special offers
2. Offer financial advice
3. Offer customer service (e.g. help with questions, complaints, etc.)
4. Present relevant financial service promotional offers to me
FIS and the Babson Consulting Alliance Program surveyed Generation Y consumers about specific ways that they
would be likely to interact with their bank and found the following (Figure 6):
Figure 6: Potential Ways for Gen Y Members to Interact with Banks
Social media activity % likely to
participate
Use mobile applications to access your financial information 60%
Read reviews of your bank 33%
Follow your bank on Twitter 19%
“Like” your bank on Facebook 15%
Post reviews of your bank 15%
Subscribe to a savings social network 15%
Watch a YouTube video from your bank or financial institution 13%
Discuss your bank or financial activities on a blog or community 8%
forum
“Check into” your bank on Foursquare 7%
Source: Babson Consulting Alliance Program survey, 2011. n = 70.
A “social media audit” is a great tool for building a plan for reaching your social media goals. A social media audit
covers both internal and external resources to find information such as:
 Social media channels already in use by individual business units
 Competitor social media strategies
 Benchmarks for the social media program
 The social media channels that are best suited to meet the business objectives
 The role social media will play within the current marketing, sales and customer service strategies
Address compliance and security
After getting a clearer picture of the social media goals and channels to be used, the next issue to be addressed
before any social media communications begin is regulation compliance and security. Two regulations have
specifically addressed social media:
 SEC rule 17a-4 and NASD Rules 2210, 2211, and 3110 require retention of all business-related electronic
communications for a minimum of three years, including social content.
 FINRA (Financial Regulatory Authority) issued Regulatory Notice 10-06 to broker-dealers to emphasize the
importance of extending good governance practices to social media.
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7. Developing and Deploying a Social Media
Strategy for Financial Institutions
The SEC regulation can be covered with a few meetings with your IT department to make sure any social media
channels you participate in are recorded and stored. The FINRA regulation, though, is both broader and more
impactful. It only applies to broker-dealers who are under SEC regulation, but it is being seen as a bellwether for
the direction of any other regulation that is to come.
Forrester Research studied the FINRA regulation and found three particular themes from its guidance:9
 Where possible, the rules you follow in other media should apply to social media.
 Customer posts are not attributable to financial services firms.
 Firms can engage users in real-time social conversations without compliance preapproval.
Before beginning any social media initiatives, double-check on the latest regulation guidance to come out and
with your own legal department to make sure your parameters for operating in the social media space are
defined.
Also, communicate proactively to consumers to inform them that their personal financial information is kept
separate from social media communications. For example, Bank of America notes in its disclaimer on Twitter:
“Bank of America will never ask you to disclose your social security number, financial account information or PIN
via Twitter.”
Monitoring the Social Media Landscape
Listen to the conversation
Conversations about your bank are already happening. People are already posting comments on Twitter, blogs,
and review sites about your institution. American Banker reviewed social media in the fourth quarter of 2010
and found the number of times some of the biggest financial institutions were mentioned:10
Figure 7: Conversations in Social Media
Networks, October − December 2010
1. American Express 81,084 mentions
2. Citibank 80,903 mentions
3. Bank of America 75,167 mentions
4. Wells Fargo 48,498 mentions
5. Capital One 12,402 mentions
6. U.S. Bank 6,931 mentions
7. JP Morgan Chase 4,368 mentions
Source: American Banker, Q:4 2010.
7
© 2011 Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. and its subsidiaries.

8. Developing and Deploying a Social Media
Strategy for Financial Institutions
The first thing your institution needs to do is hear what is being said. This will allow you to:
 Know what is on the minds of your consumers, the things they care most about, the problems they are
currently having
 Prioritize your communication, when it begins, on the channels where your customers already have their
strongest presence
 Eventually, to respond to questions, complaints and comments that get posted
Use tools like Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts) and Twitter Search (search.twitter.com/advanced) to find
these conversations. In addition to your institution name, you should set up searches for product names,
searches within a local radius, and other keywords that go to the heart of your bank’s offerings and goals. If your
bank is a larger institution, you may want to look into social media monitoring tools such as Radian6 that will not
only find the conversations, but help you analyze the sentiments they express and summarize the opinions being
discussed.
Once you’re listening, then you can begin to participate and to offer your own content in the social media world.
Contributing to the Social Media Conversation
Focus on engagement versus selling
Participants in social media expect to interact informally and “authentically” with each other, whether those
participants are people or corporate representatives. “Authentic” is a key term in social media that summarizes
this expectation that people have. Hard-core, direct-sales messaging is a big turn-off.
This is one of the ways that a social media audit is very useful: to get a look at the programs and messages to
which your consumers respond the most favorably.
Some of the more effective ways to communicate in social media channels concentrate on:
 Two-way conversation
 Information that is relevant to the audience
 Simple, conventional language
 Photos and videos that give a face/a “personal touch” to an institution
 Storytelling
A great way to engage customers is through simple loyalty gifts that surprise and delight customers. USBanker
found that North Shore Bank in Brookfield, Wisconsin gave $5 Subway gift cards to the people who had become
Foursquare “mayors” (checked in at the locations most often) at each of its branches. The unexpected gesture
generated so much good will that some blogs picked up on the happy responses and wrote stories highlighting
it, providing the bank with a big return on its small investment. 11
Use social media to facilitate responsiveness
Social media can be used to respond more quickly and cost-effectively to customer questions, concerns, and
complaints. This is the most basic way to participate in social media and is an imperative for modern companies.
As one financial eBusiness coordinator told us, monitoring social media can help mitigate the impact of
potentially damaging publicity.
8
© 2011 Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. and its subsidiaries.

9. Developing and Deploying a Social Media
Strategy for Financial Institutions
“Social media has more opportunity than risk. Better to be out there than not. We can
listen: the good, bad or otherwise, we can address it. If we weren’t out there, then
there’s no telling how big or how far something negative may be able to spread if we
couldn’t participate.”
– eBusiness coordinator from financial institution
Everyone has heard the stories of customer complaints that went “viral,” creating huge headaches for the
company and damaging public reputation. And on the other hand, companies that want to promote their
responsiveness and service have unprecedentedly powerful tools in Twitter, their Facebook pages, and
responses to review sites.
Execute targeted social media programs based on core competencies and customer expectations
“Social media” encompasses a stunning array of websites and communication channels (Figure 8), most of which
allow the freedom to communicate and build campaigns that are bounded only by your creativity.12 It’s not
possible to have a “social media presence” everywhere. Your program must selectively choose where and how
to get involved.
Figure 8: Social Media Channels
Source: www.fredcavazza.net, 2011.
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© 2011 Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. and its subsidiaries.

10. Developing and Deploying a Social Media
Strategy for Financial Institutions
This is where you will use the assessment of your business objectives and your social media audit to build the
strategy that will target your objectives and your target audience. Choose your campaign programs wisely: it is
far better to excel at one or two presence points than to try to take on too many channels and not really
succeed at any.
Your social media audit of your competitors and social channel opportunities will help you get an idea of
program possibilities. Some examples include:
 Citigroup offers a social media platform called Women & Co. (www.womenandco.com) to target its female
audience with blogs, events, newsletters, and discussion tools all geared toward financial education and
issues.
 ING offers a blog called “We the Savers” (www.wethesavers.com) with life stories, advice, and
encouragement for saving money. Multiple writers contribute to the blog to provide a variety of
perspectives and life situations.
 Bank of America has a strong presence on Twitter, featuring multiple accounts for service, news, careers, etc.
Its primary focus is on the service (www.twitter.com/BofA_Help), offering a Twitter-based customer service
line that is staffed to receive and look for questions to answer.
 American Express promotes “Small Business Saturday” through a Facebook page
(www.facebook/com/SmallBusinessSaturday) to emphasize the importance of small business to the
community.
 Currency Marketing created the Young & Free campaign (www.youngfreehq.com) as a vehicle for credit
unions to reach young consumers by offering them pertinent information about finances for members of
their generation. Communications are conveyed in an informal, non-patronizing manner that steers clear of
sales-oriented language.
Speak to corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives
Social media is especially well-suited to working hand-in-hand with your corporate social responsibility initiatives.
They’re popular to crowdsource for public involvement while providing high visibility and good exposure to your
CSR efforts. Financial institutions can use social media involvement to help decide how charitable donations are
allocated or to promote involvement in a charitable organization. For example:
 JP Morgan Chase’s Community Giving program on Facebook (www.facebook.com/ChaseCommunityGiving)
has generated more than 2.9 million “likes.” Chase continually solicits consumer voting on the winning 100
charities that will receive funding.
 TD Bank’s Twitter handle @TDFEF involves its customers in discussions about the allocation of resources for
TD’s Friends of the Environment Foundation (www.fef.td.com).
Measuring the Social Media Results
As with any corporate initiative, measurement and assessment is an important part of the social media program.
The work you did at the beginning of the program, identifying the corporate objectives your social media
programs will address and the benchmarks that they will be measured against, will help you to identify the
metrics you need to track and where you want them to be.
10
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11. Developing and Deploying a Social Media
Strategy for Financial Institutions
From the most generic to the most objective-targeted, some ideas of the metrics you might use to measure your
social media programs are:
 Traffic: The number of Twitter followers, Facebook fans, or views on YouTube will show the raw amount of
attention your programs are receiving. Increased website traffic or traffic to the company blog will show
secondary results that your social media presence can bring.
 Interaction: Customer participation demonstrates that the company has engaged its audience. Interaction
can be measured by measurements like the number of comments the blog or Facebook page has received,
Twitter replies, or participation in forums.
 Brand Mentions: Word of mouth and the viral nature of social media have the ability to drastically increase
brand mentions. Tracking the number and types (positive vs. negative or neutral) of mentions online will
help demonstrate whether your social media efforts are raising brand or product awareness. This metric can
be measured using tools such as Google Alerts, Radian6, or Trackur.
 Sales: Where possible, referrals from social media to the sales channel should be tracked. Dell tracked
referrals from its Twitter handle and found it had gained $3 million worth of sales in the two years that it
had been on Twitter.13
Summary
A social media program doesn’t end with one trip through the Planning – Monitoring – Contributing – Measuring
cycle. Measurements of results, new institution business goals, and fresh audits of the social media landscape
will constantly feed new adjustments and ideas for the social media program. A successful program will
continuously visit all parts of the developing and deploying cycle:
 Planning a Social Media Strategy
– Determine business objectives
– Address compliance and security
 Monitoring the Social Media Landscape
– Listen to the conversation
 Contributing to the Social Media Conversation
– Focus on engagement versus selling
– Use social media to facilitate responsiveness
– Execute targeted social media programs based on core competencies and customer expectations
– Speak to corporate social responsibility initiatives (CSR) initiatives
 Measuring the Social Media Results
These are the cornerstones of a successful social media program. The social media conversation is occurring
with or without your brand’s participation. It is becoming increasingly critical that financial institutions develop
and deploy a social media plan that aligns with its overall corporate goals.
11
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12. Developing and Deploying a Social Media
Strategy for Financial Institutions
Citations
1
Nielsenwire, June 2010.
2
Alexa.com, July 2011.
3
Google Ad Planner, July 2011.
4
“Consumer Mobile Banking Research,” FIS Enterprise Strategy, February 2011, n=4,002.
5
“Social Media at the Starting Blocks: A Look at Financial Institutions in Europe and the United States,” Aite Group,
November 2010.
6
“How Many Facebook Fans Can Financial Institutions Expect?” The FinancialBrand.com, March 7, 2011.
7
“Social Media at the Starting Blocks: A Look at Financial Institutions in Europe and the United States,” Aite Group,
November 2010.
8
“How US Financial Firms Should Approach Interacting with Consumers on Social Web Sites,” Forrester Research, Inc.,
October, 2010.
9
“Social Media Marketing for Financial Services,” Forrester Research, Inc., September 2010.
10
American Banker, Q:4 2010.
11
“Rethinking Rewards,” USBanker, May 2011.
12
www.fredcavazza.net, 2011
13
“Dude — Dell’s Making Money Off Twitter!,” Wired.com, June 2009.
About the Research
Developing and Deploying a Social Media Strategy for Financial Institutions is derived from a research project
conducted by MBA candidates for the class of 2012 at Babson College’s F.W. Olin School of Business and
managed by FIS Enterprise Strategy. The research findings herein are based on: 1) secondary research on social
media, 2) executive interviews with social media experts and financial institution executives, 3) qualitative
research conducted with Babson peers, 4) a 10-question survey completed by about 70 Babson students, and 5)
FIS™ Enterprise Strategy research studies.
The study’s primary objective was to determine how banks can leverage social media to capture value from
consumers, especially adult members of Generation Y (born between 1980 and 1990).
About FIS
FIS (NYSE: FIS) is the world’s largest global provider dedicated to banking and payments technologies. With a
long history deeply rooted in the financial services sector, FIS serves more than 14,000 institutions in over 100
countries. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla., FIS employs more than 32,000 people worldwide and holds
leadership positions in payment processing and banking solutions, providing software, services and outsourcing
of the technology that drives financial institutions. FIS is ranked 426 on the Fortune 500, is a member of
Standard & Poor’s 500® Index and consistently holds a leading ranking in the annual FinTech 100 list.
Developing and Deploying a Social Media Strategy for Financial Institutions was authored by Paul McAdam, SVP
of Research and Thought Leadership at FIS, Mandy Putnam, Director of Research and Thought Leadership at FIS
and Abigail Burnham and Donald Chapman, MBA candidates for the class of 2012 at Babson College’s F.W. Olin
School of Business.
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13. Developing and Deploying a Social Media
Strategy for Financial Institutions
Please contact Paul McAdam or Mandy Putnam if you have questions about the research or how the results
apply to your financial institution.
Paul McAdam
Ph: 708.449.7743
paul.mcadam@fisglobal.com
Mandy Putnam
Ph: 614.414.4207
mandy.putnam@fisglobal.com
13
© 2011 Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. and its subsidiaries.