This document discusses first direct bank's strategy to develop a social media presence. It explains that first direct will focus on providing both financial and life advice to customers by combining topics like money, banking, and finance with lifestyle stories and tips. The strategy also involves working with bloggers to share lifestyle content. An example campaign for first time home buyers is described that aims to create engaging visual content for Facebook to inspire both current and potential customers. In summarizing the benefits, the document states that this social media focused approach can help first direct more deeply engage customers, strengthen advocacy of the brand, and support both retention and acquisition of new customers.
7. Our new focus…
We needed to go from being a bank that
delivers world class customer service that
our customers love, to creating social
presences people want to engage with
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8. first direct -‘life enabler’
Financial
advice
first direct
advice
(the sweet spot)
Life
advice
We will find the sweet spot in the middle by combining finance
advice WITH life advice.
Most financial
advice is created
by investors and
bankers. The
‘industry’ stuff.
Money tips for the
consumers come
from life coaches,
life hacks and
motivational
speakers/sites
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10. What this looks like
The brand (ring 1), money+ finance + banking + tips (ring 2)
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11. Working with bloggers to tap into lifestyle stories
(Ring 3)
Campaign Objective
To bring to life our mortgage campaign in the Social Space, with a particular focus on
First Time Buyers
Social Objective
To create highly shareable content, primarily for use on Facebook, which builds an
association between first direct and first time buyers
Considerations
•Bespoke content for first time buyers is limited on the current first direct site
•Time restrictions meant we needed to be creative – we can’t create new content for
the site, but we can stimulate conversation with our existing communities on
Facebook
•Content needs to inspire existing and potential customers, both current homeowners
and prospective
•Visual content works best on Facebook, long bits of copy can turn people off
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12. The benefits
By taking a content focussed approach to our social activity we have.
•Gone beyond the standard marketing message and truly connecting with your
customers and providing added-value
•Driven deeper engagement with our customers
•Turned a fantastic reputation for being the most recommended bank into an
actionable retention AND acquisition tool
•Given customers the platform to share their advocacy of the brand
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When social started brands just went out there looking for love, wanted to be told how great they were, things then moved on and brands realised they need to entertain their audiences and crazy cat videos rules the internet. Things have now changed and brands are realising that there is a need to create a mutually beneficial relationship that delivers for both the consumer and the brand
We are all clear on what our companies value proposition is, why customers should by products from us this needs to translate this into a social value proposition
By creating a social value proposition that ties back into our Brand vision, Brand Value proposition and Business objectives we can ensure we have a clear story to tell and we can ensure that we are implementing a strategic business minded social strategy
It helps to consider what areas you want to own as a business this highlights the 4 key areas that most social content fall into
At first direct we have focussed on a very utility led strategy with focus on customer care and being seen as a thought leader and expert in finance
However we knew we needed to expand our focus, we needed to go from a bank…
We didn’t want to lose our focus on service and for sharing our knowledge and expertise in finance but we wanted to expand our story into both interest and participant led area. We know that finance often sits at the heart of all the activity we want to do whether its planning a wedding, getting a new car, going for a trip of a life time. Having looking at the content that is available there is a lot of finance advice and lots of life advice, for us the sweet spot is the combination of the two – for us its about enabling our customers to have the life they want.
Proximity mapping is a great way to work through what you as a brand will talk about and how this will play out into a content strategy. This has helped us to map out the areas in which we can have a right to talk and the lens through which we can talk about it.
Having the right to talk about the topics in the content ring furthest removed from your brand can be hard – you don’t want to shoe horn your way in. One of the best ways we have found to move into these areas is through partnering with relevant content providers and bloggers. One of our most recent campaigns was a first time buyer campaign in which we worked with 3 interior design bloggers.