Breaking Banks

Chapter 4How the Crowd Is Changing Brand Advocacy in Banking

Social networking and platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr are changing the way we share and interact. Unlike traditional broadcast channels, these new channels encourage participation, feedback, and dialog; but in an environment steeped in traditional processes that discourage transparency, banks are sometimes finding the shift toward a more socially engaged brand a challenge. How do brands coexist in a world where as a consumer I trust the crowd more than I trust what the “brand” tells me about its own products and services?¹

SOCIAL MEDIA IS JUST GETTING STARTED

In 2012, Facebook hit 1 billion users, and today it is approaching 1.5 billion. It has been reported that the average Facebook user spends 75 minutes per day using Facebook. Globally, smartphone growth year-on-year was at 50 percent in 2013, with 34 percent penetration in the top 15 countries, but more significantly, with most developed economies expecting more than 70 percent smartphone penetration by 2016. This has also led to massive increases in Internet and social media use over mobile. Wei Xin (WeChat in the Western World), a new social mobile network powered by TenCent in China, took just 14 months to reach 100 million users, and then just over six more months to reach 270 million. Snapchat, based in the United States, is sending 60 million mobile-initiated photos per day, or five billion snaps in little over a year, with ...