-1.svg "Close Icon (3)-1")
.svg "Close Icon (3)")
- Share
-
Building a solid, credible and consistent online presence that protects your online reputation, enhances your brand and positions your organisation where you want it to be is the ultimate aim of a social media strategy – in financial services as much as other sectors. Here we take a look at some dos, don’ts and best practice examples.
Once they’ve decided to invest in social media, many companies will sensibly ask: “How will our customers and targets find us? And how will they know for certain that they are dealing with us, not an impostor?”
For a financial services organisation, these are incredibly important questions to ask. The ACCC’s “Scamwatch” reports hundreds of scams involving fraudsters impersonating Australian financial services brands, often in an online context where establishing bona fides can be difficult. It’s not easy to create a fake bricks and mortar branch – but a fake Twitter or Facebook account can be created in minutes. However, you can counteract the impact of potentially damaging hits to your online reputation by building a solid, credible and consistent online presence across a variety of mediums. Think of it as staking your claim loud and clear in the online world.
In our online reputation checklist (email us for a copy) we recommend that social media channels are clearly linked to existing online brand assets. You need to clearly highlight your online voice through the channels you clearly control (such as your website, customer portals and marketing collateral) so that your customers can easily find you. Keeping consistent branding and messages across each channel builds your credibility, enhances your messages and, perhaps above all, engenders what you want in your audience: confidence and trust.
A great example of consistent branding and a clear presence is AMP. Links to its official Twitter and YouTube channels can be found on the AMP website; its social channels in turn link back to the web presence and call centre numbers. While AMP may not have the charmed blue verification badge on Twitter, you can be confident that @AMP_AU is the real deal by virtue of the links and content across the social media spectrum. Likewise, its subsidiary channels (such as AMP Fixed Income @AMPCapital_FI) have a consistent branding and appearance which reflects the broader online identity and establishes their credibility.
Clearly displaying your company’s social media presence on your website, as ANZ does, is another great way to link your channels, ensure your customers can easily find you, build trust and get your message across. The upfront and transparent approach ANZ uses is a prime example.
But it’s not just big brands that face the challenge of presenting a united and consistent social media front. There’s also the issue of personal identity for those who want to be personally associated with their organisation (and we would advise thinking this through in the of a strong social media policy before you do).
That gives rise to the question: how do you carve your personal identity on social media channels in a way that your audience can find you? It’s often easier if you are blessed with an unusual name, but what if your name is common and there’s a plethora of Google results that match you?
You can take actions to clearly connect your personal identity to your company’s online channels by including:
- Links to your profiles in your email signature
- Your Twitter handle/LinkedIn URL on your business card
- Links to your company website, blog or and/or LinkedIn profile within your Twitter biography
- Your Twitter handle within your LinkedIn profile
By keeping all mediums consistent and on message, it’s more likely that someone seeking you out will find the real you – and get the real message. And, consistent messaging across your channels means spoofers are less likely to successfully take control of your voice as your audiences will “smell a rat”.
The upshot? Investing in establishing a clear, authoritative presence across all the online channels in which you play is better than being absent or anonymous and letting others tell your story.
