Facebook: still a match for banks?

• Author: Kincy, Jason
• Position: SOCIAL MEDIA

LIKE MANY BANK MARKETERS, a major social media focus for me over the past few years has been to build brand presence and engagement on Facebook. The rapid growth and business-friendly interface and relatively low cost made it a great fit for banks wanting to connect with customers via social networks.

Have recent changes to Facebook along with changing customer needs reduced the importance of Facebook? Over the past few months, I've begun to doubt, or at least question, the future of Facebook as the must-have social network for the small and mid-size bank.

Not all the changes are positive

I recognize this is modern-day marketing heresy, and it may be premature, but there are troubling signs on the lacebook road ahead that suggest you need to consider investing efforts in additional social strategies to reach your audience. If social media is truly another layer in your bank's marketing and advertising efforts, it should be treated as such and adjusted over time.

The only thing constant with the Facebook platform is change, and not all of the changes are positive. The most visually striking change recently took effect at the end of March with the introduction of Timeline, which required banks to do some cleanup and restructuring of their page or risk looking out of step. Aside from the visual changes, the way Facebook allows brands to engage users is also constantly evolving, including many reports about recent limits allowing only an average of 16 percent of a brand's content to reach their fans. This is bad news for small-and mid-size banks that already have a limited number of fans. An additional concern is the dramatic shift in how consumers access Facebook. More and more customers--reported in late 2011 at 33 percent of all traffic and growing--are solely using a mobile platform to access Facebook. This limits a brand's option for free engagement. Facebook has been quiet on many of these statistics as of late as the...