10 STEPS

TO A SUCCESSFUL
STRATEGY FOR
FINANCIAL SERVICES
BANKING ON
OCIAL LISTENING
Understand The Landscape
Find out where your community lives. Do your customers and prospects engage on twitter,
blogs, forums or mainstream news? What keywords do they use the most? Maybe theyre discussing
banks, credit cards, investments, equities or brokers.
A listening platform will help you seek out these conversations to give you a rm understand-
ing of who your community is, and where they are this information will be key when youre ready to
engage.

Cover All Channels And Languages
Start by casting a wide net. Youll start noticing where most of the conversations are happening.
Pay attention to those forums. Social media is bigger than Twitter and Facebook. For your brand, its
wherever people are creating and sharing content. It could be anywhere blogs, forums, message
boards, LinkedIn, or niche online communities. For some industries, the best place to be, may still be
forums and message boards. For others, it could be LinkedIn or niche online communities.
When you start drilling down on zeroing in on the insights that matter most to your brand, picking
the right keywords and in native languages will increase the eectiveness of social media
monitoring. Like online search, the right keywords used will help direct the company to right
conversation channels.
Pick the wrong keywords or going too broad and youll miss out on critical chatter or pick up too much
noise. This applies to picking keywords in the right language too, as the world is not at and languages
play a big part in various markets.
Introduction
When customers have a bad experience with their bank it often generates an emotional reaction
money is a personal subject. Social media has provided consumers with a magnied voice that
can have a huge impact on a banks reputation and responding to your customers and communitys
negative experiences quickly and eciently can turn a bad situation into a winning customer experi-
ence.
Unfortunately, many Financial Services companies are still hesitant and slow to adopt and embrace
the lucrative opportunities of social media, on account of the hefty industry regulations.
Rules around what information can be shared, how it can be shared, archiving engagement and
more, have kept many Financial Services organizations at bey in the social space. Meanwhile, they are
missing out on a powerful opportunity to integrate social into customer service, marketing,
crisis/reputation management, sales and HR initiatives.
Its not hard to see why many Financial Services organizations are lagging behind in the social
marketplace faced with the hurdles of complying with the rigid SEC and FINRA regulations but,
with the right education and technology, Financial Services companies can tap into all the benets
and rewards social media has to oer.

Build A Community Around Your Brand
Social media monitoring platforms provide the opportunity to get to know your community inside
and out. When youve understood their past preferences, youll give them a richer experience in the
future. Youll also discover who is the most inuential in conversations surrounding your
nancial services brand. These loyal supporters will spread your message even further throughout
the social web.
Engage With Customers And Prospects
Reach out to your customers and prospects at their point of need and use their feedback to enhance
your services.
Even despite the heavy regulations around the industry, some Financial Services companies have
been eectively leveraging social to attract a new generation of social customers. Charles Schwab, TD
Bank, Fidelity Investments, Vanguard, American Century and American Express and New York Life all
use social media for customer service, thought leadership and keeping their brands front of mind.
Archive Content And Engagement
The Financial Services regulator, FINRA, requires all social media content to be stored for at least
three years. Last year, the SEC announced a risk alert on the use of social media by nancial advisors,
which emphasized the importance of compliance policies including record-keeping and third-party
content. Its imperative for Financial Services organizations to leverage a social listening solution to
archive all company posts and engagement to ensure you and your team stay inline with industry
regulations.


Align Social Monitoring With Business Objectives
Dening the right parameters plays an important role in maximizing insight
on social media conversations. One of these is to ensure the social media monitoring
strategy is aligned with the company's business objectives.
This can be achieved by identifying the business objectives then evaluate how social media can
contribute to accomplishing these goals. A business-aligned social media strategy helps to justify the
business case for investing in the right social media monitoring and engagement tool that is critical to
its success.
Develop A Strong Social Media Policy

Its important that everyone involved in your companys social media eorts thoroughly understands
the social media compliance regulations. If youre using a listening platform, make sure your team is
fully trained on your tools, and how it can help your company stay compliant in the social space.
Create An Engagement Playbook
Your social media playbook should be a how-to book for employees, built on the fundamentals
of your social media policy. Provide clear examples of information that can be shared on each unique
social media channel, and information that needs to be shared out of the social media sphere.
Your playbook should also outline a detailed process around when to take communication with your
customers oine and route them to the right customer support representative. Include a validation
process to respond as quickly as possible to your consumers, and prioritize engagement around
negative feedback

Be Prepared For Escalating Crises
Dene what a crisis is for your company, and build a crisis response chart with several levels
of severity this chart should outline who will be tasked with what in each situation. For example, if
your company Twitter account gets hacked or an employee sends a mistweet from a corporate handle
you need to know who will be in charge, how they will be contacted (if its outside working hours),
and how they will deal with the situation at hand.
Synthesio worked with a Financial Services client to create a social media communications plan
involving a six-tiered alert process. For each tier (level of crisis) an alert system was put in place to
ensure the appropriate employee for each tier was alerted at the time of crisis.
Measure And Report Your Success
Once the conversations start rolling in, measure your results. Tracking discussions will
enhance your social media strategy, and help you get to the bottom of whats being said. The
enterprise will also need to create metrics and key performance indicators of its social media
strategy to track success against business objectives. If not, it will waste time pursuing information
that doesn't really matter to your brand.
BANKING ON SOCIAL LISTENING
10 STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES
1
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5
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7
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In this ebook we will help your nancial services brand develop
An eective social listening strategy by you showing you how to:
Align social media monitoring with your business objectives
Develop a strong social media policy
Create an engagement playbook
Understand your industrys social media landscape
Cover all channels and languages
Build a community around your brand
Engage with customers and prospects
Archive content and engagement
Be prepared for escalating crises
Measure and report your success
1
Conclusion
The social web is changing how nancial services companies do business.
Its shifted how they communicate within their own walls, and how they communicate
with customers. It has also given customers a voice and a platform for feedback,
opinion, discussion, and collaboration that has never been seen before.
According to a recent study by Forrester, 45% of online U.S. adults who have a
Twitter account are interested in interacting with nancial services rms
via Twitter, and consumers also say they are interested in receiving promotional
alerts, nancial advice, and customer service from their nancial provider viaTwitter.
45
%
Understand The Landscape
Find out where your community lives. Do your customers and prospects engage on twitter,
blogs, forums or mainstream news? What keywords do they use the most? Maybe theyre discussing
banks, credit cards, investments, equities or brokers.
A listening platform will help you seek out these conversations to give you a rm understand-
ing of who your community is, and where they are this information will be key when youre ready to
engage.

Cover All Channels And Languages
Start by casting a wide net. Youll start noticing where most of the conversations are happening.
Pay attention to those forums. Social media is bigger than Twitter and Facebook. For your brand, its
wherever people are creating and sharing content. It could be anywhere blogs, forums, message
boards, LinkedIn, or niche online communities. For some industries, the best place to be, may still be
forums and message boards. For others, it could be LinkedIn or niche online communities.
When you start drilling down on zeroing in on the insights that matter most to your brand, picking
the right keywords and in native languages will increase the eectiveness of social media
monitoring. Like online search, the right keywords used will help direct the company to right
conversation channels.
Pick the wrong keywords or going too broad and youll miss out on critical chatter or pick up too much
noise. This applies to picking keywords in the right language too, as the world is not at and languages
play a big part in various markets.
Introduction
When customers have a bad experience with their bank it often generates an emotional reaction
money is a personal subject. Social media has provided consumers with a magnied voice that
can have a huge impact on a banks reputation and responding to your customers and communitys
negative experiences quickly and eciently can turn a bad situation into a winning customer experi-
ence.
Unfortunately, many Financial Services companies are still hesitant and slow to adopt and embrace
the lucrative opportunities of social media, on account of the hefty industry regulations.
Rules around what information can be shared, how it can be shared, archiving engagement and
more, have kept many Financial Services organizations at bey in the social space. Meanwhile, they are
missing out on a powerful opportunity to integrate social into customer service, marketing,
crisis/reputation management, sales and HR initiatives.
Its not hard to see why many Financial Services organizations are lagging behind in the social
marketplace faced with the hurdles of complying with the rigid SEC and FINRA regulations but,
with the right education and technology, Financial Services companies can tap into all the benets
and rewards social media has to oer.

Build A Community Around Your Brand
Social media monitoring platforms provide the opportunity to get to know your community inside
and out. When youve understood their past preferences, youll give them a richer experience in the
future. Youll also discover who is the most inuential in conversations surrounding your
nancial services brand. These loyal supporters will spread your message even further throughout
the social web.
Engage With Customers And Prospects
Reach out to your customers and prospects at their point of need and use their feedback to enhance
your services.
Even despite the heavy regulations around the industry, some Financial Services companies have
been eectively leveraging social to attract a new generation of social customers. Charles Schwab, TD
Bank, Fidelity Investments, Vanguard, American Century and American Express and New York Life all
use social media for customer service, thought leadership and keeping their brands front of mind.
Archive Content And Engagement
The Financial Services regulator, FINRA, requires all social media content to be stored for at least
three years. Last year, the SEC announced a risk alert on the use of social media by nancial advisors,
which emphasized the importance of compliance policies including record-keeping and third-party
content. Its imperative for Financial Services organizations to leverage a social listening solution to
archive all company posts and engagement to ensure you and your team stay inline with industry
regulations.


Align Social Monitoring With Business Objectives
Dening the right parameters plays an important role in maximizing insight
on social media conversations. One of these is to ensure the social media monitoring
strategy is aligned with the company's business objectives.
This can be achieved by identifying the business objectives then evaluate how social media can
contribute to accomplishing these goals. A business-aligned social media strategy helps to justify the
business case for investing in the right social media monitoring and engagement tool that is critical to
its success.
Develop A Strong Social Media Policy

Its important that everyone involved in your companys social media eorts thoroughly understands
the social media compliance regulations. If youre using a listening platform, make sure your team is
fully trained on your tools, and how it can help your company stay compliant in the social space.
Create An Engagement Playbook
Your social media playbook should be a how-to book for employees, built on the fundamentals
of your social media policy. Provide clear examples of information that can be shared on each unique
social media channel, and information that needs to be shared out of the social media sphere.
Your playbook should also outline a detailed process around when to take communication with your
customers oine and route them to the right customer support representative. Include a validation
process to respond as quickly as possible to your consumers, and prioritize engagement around
negative feedback

Be Prepared For Escalating Crises
Dene what a crisis is for your company, and build a crisis response chart with several levels
of severity this chart should outline who will be tasked with what in each situation. For example, if
your company Twitter account gets hacked or an employee sends a mistweet from a corporate handle
you need to know who will be in charge, how they will be contacted (if its outside working hours),
and how they will deal with the situation at hand.
Synthesio worked with a Financial Services client to create a social media communications plan
involving a six-tiered alert process. For each tier (level of crisis) an alert system was put in place to
ensure the appropriate employee for each tier was alerted at the time of crisis.
Measure And Report Your Success
Once the conversations start rolling in, measure your results. Tracking discussions will
enhance your social media strategy, and help you get to the bottom of whats being said. The
enterprise will also need to create metrics and key performance indicators of its social media
strategy to track success against business objectives. If not, it will waste time pursuing information
that doesn't really matter to your brand.
BANKING ON SOCIAL LISTENING
10 STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES
2
1
2
3
Conclusion
The social web is changing how nancial services companies do business.
Its shifted how they communicate within their own walls, and how they communicate
with customers. It has also given customers a voice and a platform for feedback,
opinion, discussion, and collaboration that has never been seen before.
In a recent aba banking journal blog post, ceo of beyond the arc,
Steven J. Ramirez noted that the best way to decide which negative
comments to respond to is to simply follow a process similar to a
hospital triage. First, x whats obviously broken. If there is a
serious complaint, engage those customers quickly.
First things rst. Before you dive into listening and engaging, cover your bases.
Develop and implement a strong, clear social media communications policy to
share with your employees and nancial advisors, that will leave no question around
what company information is acceptable to share and how engagement is recorded
and archived.
Understand The Landscape
Find out where your community lives. Do your customers and prospects engage on twitter,
blogs, forums or mainstream news? What keywords do they use the most? Maybe theyre discussing
banks, credit cards, investments, equities or brokers.
A listening platform will help you seek out these conversations to give you a rm understand-
ing of who your community is, and where they are this information will be key when youre ready to
engage.

Cover All Channels And Languages
Start by casting a wide net. Youll start noticing where most of the conversations are happening.
Pay attention to those forums. Social media is bigger than Twitter and Facebook. For your brand, its
wherever people are creating and sharing content. It could be anywhere blogs, forums, message
boards, LinkedIn, or niche online communities. For some industries, the best place to be, may still be
forums and message boards. For others, it could be LinkedIn or niche online communities.
When you start drilling down on zeroing in on the insights that matter most to your brand, picking
the right keywords and in native languages will increase the eectiveness of social media
monitoring. Like online search, the right keywords used will help direct the company to right
conversation channels.
Pick the wrong keywords or going too broad and youll miss out on critical chatter or pick up too much
noise. This applies to picking keywords in the right language too, as the world is not at and languages
play a big part in various markets.
Introduction
When customers have a bad experience with their bank it often generates an emotional reaction
money is a personal subject. Social media has provided consumers with a magnied voice that
can have a huge impact on a banks reputation and responding to your customers and communitys
negative experiences quickly and eciently can turn a bad situation into a winning customer experi-
ence.
Unfortunately, many Financial Services companies are still hesitant and slow to adopt and embrace
the lucrative opportunities of social media, on account of the hefty industry regulations.
Rules around what information can be shared, how it can be shared, archiving engagement and
more, have kept many Financial Services organizations at bey in the social space. Meanwhile, they are
missing out on a powerful opportunity to integrate social into customer service, marketing,
crisis/reputation management, sales and HR initiatives.
Its not hard to see why many Financial Services organizations are lagging behind in the social
marketplace faced with the hurdles of complying with the rigid SEC and FINRA regulations but,
with the right education and technology, Financial Services companies can tap into all the benets
and rewards social media has to oer.

Build A Community Around Your Brand
Social media monitoring platforms provide the opportunity to get to know your community inside
and out. When youve understood their past preferences, youll give them a richer experience in the
future. Youll also discover who is the most inuential in conversations surrounding your
nancial services brand. These loyal supporters will spread your message even further throughout
the social web.
Engage With Customers And Prospects
Reach out to your customers and prospects at their point of need and use their feedback to enhance
your services.
Even despite the heavy regulations around the industry, some Financial Services companies have
been eectively leveraging social to attract a new generation of social customers. Charles Schwab, TD
Bank, Fidelity Investments, Vanguard, American Century and American Express and New York Life all
use social media for customer service, thought leadership and keeping their brands front of mind.
Archive Content And Engagement
The Financial Services regulator, FINRA, requires all social media content to be stored for at least
three years. Last year, the SEC announced a risk alert on the use of social media by nancial advisors,
which emphasized the importance of compliance policies including record-keeping and third-party
content. Its imperative for Financial Services organizations to leverage a social listening solution to
archive all company posts and engagement to ensure you and your team stay inline with industry
regulations.


Align Social Monitoring With Business Objectives
Dening the right parameters plays an important role in maximizing insight
on social media conversations. One of these is to ensure the social media monitoring
strategy is aligned with the company's business objectives.
This can be achieved by identifying the business objectives then evaluate how social media can
contribute to accomplishing these goals. A business-aligned social media strategy helps to justify the
business case for investing in the right social media monitoring and engagement tool that is critical to
its success.
Develop A Strong Social Media Policy

Its important that everyone involved in your companys social media eorts thoroughly understands
the social media compliance regulations. If youre using a listening platform, make sure your team is
fully trained on your tools, and how it can help your company stay compliant in the social space.
Create An Engagement Playbook
Your social media playbook should be a how-to book for employees, built on the fundamentals
of your social media policy. Provide clear examples of information that can be shared on each unique
social media channel, and information that needs to be shared out of the social media sphere.
Your playbook should also outline a detailed process around when to take communication with your
customers oine and route them to the right customer support representative. Include a validation
process to respond as quickly as possible to your consumers, and prioritize engagement around
negative feedback

Be Prepared For Escalating Crises
Dene what a crisis is for your company, and build a crisis response chart with several levels
of severity this chart should outline who will be tasked with what in each situation. For example, if
your company Twitter account gets hacked or an employee sends a mistweet from a corporate handle
you need to know who will be in charge, how they will be contacted (if its outside working hours),
and how they will deal with the situation at hand.
Synthesio worked with a Financial Services client to create a social media communications plan
involving a six-tiered alert process. For each tier (level of crisis) an alert system was put in place to
ensure the appropriate employee for each tier was alerted at the time of crisis.
Measure And Report Your Success
Once the conversations start rolling in, measure your results. Tracking discussions will
enhance your social media strategy, and help you get to the bottom of whats being said. The
enterprise will also need to create metrics and key performance indicators of its social media
strategy to track success against business objectives. If not, it will waste time pursuing information
that doesn't really matter to your brand.
BANKING ON SOCIAL LISTENING
10 STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES
3
4
5
Conclusion
The social web is changing how nancial services companies do business.
Its shifted how they communicate within their own walls, and how they communicate
with customers. It has also given customers a voice and a platform for feedback,
opinion, discussion, and collaboration that has never been seen before.
Bank BNP Paribas, well-known for its creative social media marketing initiatives,
has successfully tapped into a whole new community, thanks to innovative campaigns like
We Are Tennis. Looking into our Synthesio dashboard, we can see the buzz around BNP
has gone from conversations around bank services and credit cards to discussions and
posts about sports. BNP has found a way to expand their community-base and social
listening gives them the tools to seek out these conversations, drill down and engage.
And depending on the global reach of your company, it may be important to consider
investing in a tool that provides vast global coverage and language capabilities.
For example, if you have customers and prospects in China, youre missing out on a
wide range of opportunities if youre not paying attention to the Chinese sites, like
Renren, Sina Weibo and Tencent.
Understand The Landscape
Find out where your community lives. Do your customers and prospects engage on twitter,
blogs, forums or mainstream news? What keywords do they use the most? Maybe theyre discussing
banks, credit cards, investments, equities or brokers.
A listening platform will help you seek out these conversations to give you a rm understand-
ing of who your community is, and where they are this information will be key when youre ready to
engage.

Cover All Channels And Languages
Start by casting a wide net. Youll start noticing where most of the conversations are happening.
Pay attention to those forums. Social media is bigger than Twitter and Facebook. For your brand, its
wherever people are creating and sharing content. It could be anywhere blogs, forums, message
boards, LinkedIn, or niche online communities. For some industries, the best place to be, may still be
forums and message boards. For others, it could be LinkedIn or niche online communities.
When you start drilling down on zeroing in on the insights that matter most to your brand, picking
the right keywords and in native languages will increase the eectiveness of social media
monitoring. Like online search, the right keywords used will help direct the company to right
conversation channels.
Pick the wrong keywords or going too broad and youll miss out on critical chatter or pick up too much
noise. This applies to picking keywords in the right language too, as the world is not at and languages
play a big part in various markets.
Introduction
When customers have a bad experience with their bank it often generates an emotional reaction
money is a personal subject. Social media has provided consumers with a magnied voice that
can have a huge impact on a banks reputation and responding to your customers and communitys
negative experiences quickly and eciently can turn a bad situation into a winning customer experi-
ence.
Unfortunately, many Financial Services companies are still hesitant and slow to adopt and embrace
the lucrative opportunities of social media, on account of the hefty industry regulations.
Rules around what information can be shared, how it can be shared, archiving engagement and
more, have kept many Financial Services organizations at bey in the social space. Meanwhile, they are
missing out on a powerful opportunity to integrate social into customer service, marketing,
crisis/reputation management, sales and HR initiatives.
Its not hard to see why many Financial Services organizations are lagging behind in the social
marketplace faced with the hurdles of complying with the rigid SEC and FINRA regulations but,
with the right education and technology, Financial Services companies can tap into all the benets
and rewards social media has to oer.

Build A Community Around Your Brand
Social media monitoring platforms provide the opportunity to get to know your community inside
and out. When youve understood their past preferences, youll give them a richer experience in the
future. Youll also discover who is the most inuential in conversations surrounding your
nancial services brand. These loyal supporters will spread your message even further throughout
the social web.
Engage With Customers And Prospects
Reach out to your customers and prospects at their point of need and use their feedback to enhance
your services.
Even despite the heavy regulations around the industry, some Financial Services companies have
been eectively leveraging social to attract a new generation of social customers. Charles Schwab, TD
Bank, Fidelity Investments, Vanguard, American Century and American Express and New York Life all
use social media for customer service, thought leadership and keeping their brands front of mind.
Archive Content And Engagement
The Financial Services regulator, FINRA, requires all social media content to be stored for at least
three years. Last year, the SEC announced a risk alert on the use of social media by nancial advisors,
which emphasized the importance of compliance policies including record-keeping and third-party
content. Its imperative for Financial Services organizations to leverage a social listening solution to
archive all company posts and engagement to ensure you and your team stay inline with industry
regulations.


Align Social Monitoring With Business Objectives
Dening the right parameters plays an important role in maximizing insight
on social media conversations. One of these is to ensure the social media monitoring
strategy is aligned with the company's business objectives.
This can be achieved by identifying the business objectives then evaluate how social media can
contribute to accomplishing these goals. A business-aligned social media strategy helps to justify the
business case for investing in the right social media monitoring and engagement tool that is critical to
its success.
Develop A Strong Social Media Policy

Its important that everyone involved in your companys social media eorts thoroughly understands
the social media compliance regulations. If youre using a listening platform, make sure your team is
fully trained on your tools, and how it can help your company stay compliant in the social space.
Create An Engagement Playbook
Your social media playbook should be a how-to book for employees, built on the fundamentals
of your social media policy. Provide clear examples of information that can be shared on each unique
social media channel, and information that needs to be shared out of the social media sphere.
Your playbook should also outline a detailed process around when to take communication with your
customers oine and route them to the right customer support representative. Include a validation
process to respond as quickly as possible to your consumers, and prioritize engagement around
negative feedback

Be Prepared For Escalating Crises
Dene what a crisis is for your company, and build a crisis response chart with several levels
of severity this chart should outline who will be tasked with what in each situation. For example, if
your company Twitter account gets hacked or an employee sends a mistweet from a corporate handle
you need to know who will be in charge, how they will be contacted (if its outside working hours),
and how they will deal with the situation at hand.
Synthesio worked with a Financial Services client to create a social media communications plan
involving a six-tiered alert process. For each tier (level of crisis) an alert system was put in place to
ensure the appropriate employee for each tier was alerted at the time of crisis.
Measure And Report Your Success
Once the conversations start rolling in, measure your results. Tracking discussions will
enhance your social media strategy, and help you get to the bottom of whats being said. The
enterprise will also need to create metrics and key performance indicators of its social media
strategy to track success against business objectives. If not, it will waste time pursuing information
that doesn't really matter to your brand.
BANKING ON SOCIAL LISTENING
10 STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES
6
7
8
Conclusion
The social web is changing how nancial services companies do business.
Its shifted how they communicate within their own walls, and how they communicate
with customers. It has also given customers a voice and a platform for feedback,
opinion, discussion, and collaboration that has never been seen before.
Last year, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney granted its 17,000 nancial advisers
partial access to Twitter and LinkedIn. In order for the tweets to comply with
securities regulations, Financial Advisors are required to draw from a prescribed
archive of Twitter messages and submit LinkedIn postings for approval and in turn,
the tweeted and posted content gets archived.
4
Understand The Landscape
Find out where your community lives. Do your customers and prospects engage on twitter,
blogs, forums or mainstream news? What keywords do they use the most? Maybe theyre discussing
banks, credit cards, investments, equities or brokers.
A listening platform will help you seek out these conversations to give you a rm understand-
ing of who your community is, and where they are this information will be key when youre ready to
engage.

Cover All Channels And Languages
Start by casting a wide net. Youll start noticing where most of the conversations are happening.
Pay attention to those forums. Social media is bigger than Twitter and Facebook. For your brand, its
wherever people are creating and sharing content. It could be anywhere blogs, forums, message
boards, LinkedIn, or niche online communities. For some industries, the best place to be, may still be
forums and message boards. For others, it could be LinkedIn or niche online communities.
When you start drilling down on zeroing in on the insights that matter most to your brand, picking
the right keywords and in native languages will increase the eectiveness of social media
monitoring. Like online search, the right keywords used will help direct the company to right
conversation channels.
Pick the wrong keywords or going too broad and youll miss out on critical chatter or pick up too much
noise. This applies to picking keywords in the right language too, as the world is not at and languages
play a big part in various markets.
Introduction
When customers have a bad experience with their bank it often generates an emotional reaction
money is a personal subject. Social media has provided consumers with a magnied voice that
can have a huge impact on a banks reputation and responding to your customers and communitys
negative experiences quickly and eciently can turn a bad situation into a winning customer experi-
ence.
Unfortunately, many Financial Services companies are still hesitant and slow to adopt and embrace
the lucrative opportunities of social media, on account of the hefty industry regulations.
Rules around what information can be shared, how it can be shared, archiving engagement and
more, have kept many Financial Services organizations at bey in the social space. Meanwhile, they are
missing out on a powerful opportunity to integrate social into customer service, marketing,
crisis/reputation management, sales and HR initiatives.
Its not hard to see why many Financial Services organizations are lagging behind in the social
marketplace faced with the hurdles of complying with the rigid SEC and FINRA regulations but,
with the right education and technology, Financial Services companies can tap into all the benets
and rewards social media has to oer.

Build A Community Around Your Brand
Social media monitoring platforms provide the opportunity to get to know your community inside
and out. When youve understood their past preferences, youll give them a richer experience in the
future. Youll also discover who is the most inuential in conversations surrounding your
nancial services brand. These loyal supporters will spread your message even further throughout
the social web.
Engage With Customers And Prospects
Reach out to your customers and prospects at their point of need and use their feedback to enhance
your services.
Even despite the heavy regulations around the industry, some Financial Services companies have
been eectively leveraging social to attract a new generation of social customers. Charles Schwab, TD
Bank, Fidelity Investments, Vanguard, American Century and American Express and New York Life all
use social media for customer service, thought leadership and keeping their brands front of mind.
Archive Content And Engagement
The Financial Services regulator, FINRA, requires all social media content to be stored for at least
three years. Last year, the SEC announced a risk alert on the use of social media by nancial advisors,
which emphasized the importance of compliance policies including record-keeping and third-party
content. Its imperative for Financial Services organizations to leverage a social listening solution to
archive all company posts and engagement to ensure you and your team stay inline with industry
regulations.


Align Social Monitoring With Business Objectives
Dening the right parameters plays an important role in maximizing insight
on social media conversations. One of these is to ensure the social media monitoring
strategy is aligned with the company's business objectives.
This can be achieved by identifying the business objectives then evaluate how social media can
contribute to accomplishing these goals. A business-aligned social media strategy helps to justify the
business case for investing in the right social media monitoring and engagement tool that is critical to
its success.
Develop A Strong Social Media Policy

Its important that everyone involved in your companys social media eorts thoroughly understands
the social media compliance regulations. If youre using a listening platform, make sure your team is
fully trained on your tools, and how it can help your company stay compliant in the social space.
Create An Engagement Playbook
Your social media playbook should be a how-to book for employees, built on the fundamentals
of your social media policy. Provide clear examples of information that can be shared on each unique
social media channel, and information that needs to be shared out of the social media sphere.
Your playbook should also outline a detailed process around when to take communication with your
customers oine and route them to the right customer support representative. Include a validation
process to respond as quickly as possible to your consumers, and prioritize engagement around
negative feedback

Be Prepared For Escalating Crises
Dene what a crisis is for your company, and build a crisis response chart with several levels
of severity this chart should outline who will be tasked with what in each situation. For example, if
your company Twitter account gets hacked or an employee sends a mistweet from a corporate handle
you need to know who will be in charge, how they will be contacted (if its outside working hours),
and how they will deal with the situation at hand.
Synthesio worked with a Financial Services client to create a social media communications plan
involving a six-tiered alert process. For each tier (level of crisis) an alert system was put in place to
ensure the appropriate employee for each tier was alerted at the time of crisis.
Measure And Report Your Success
Once the conversations start rolling in, measure your results. Tracking discussions will
enhance your social media strategy, and help you get to the bottom of whats being said. The
enterprise will also need to create metrics and key performance indicators of its social media
strategy to track success against business objectives. If not, it will waste time pursuing information
that doesn't really matter to your brand.
5
BANKING ON SOCIAL LISTENING
10 STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES
9
10
Conclusion
The social web is changing how nancial services companies do business.
Its shifted how they communicate within their own walls, and how they communicate
with customers. It has also given customers a voice and a platform for feedback,
opinion, discussion, and collaboration that has never been seen before.
There is nothing worse than learning of a crisis from internal compa-
ny sources when you have a full-capacity social listening system in
place, so it is important to make sure you have the right alerts
set up. Simple KPIs will alert you at the right time - before the re
sparks, and keeps you from being overwhelmed with data at crucial
times. An easy way to do this is to base your alerting on:
Data spikes to watch for an unusual inux in negative
online conversations pertaining to your brand
Real-times alerts on your most sensitive topics
Following the Parkinsons law, leaders know that clear goals and short
deadlines are a key variable to success. This rule applies to social media
quite well. One short-term goal at a time associated with one KPI is an
eective way to keep control of your activities and teams while following
a clear roadmap to achieve your long term mission.
For example, if the business goal is to increase customer satisfaction,
your brand should be looking to measure positive sentiment around the
organization and its brands. To improve product quality, it should be
measuring the number of product-related issues posted.
Understand The Landscape
Find out where your community lives. Do your customers and prospects engage on twitter,
blogs, forums or mainstream news? What keywords do they use the most? Maybe theyre discussing
banks, credit cards, investments, equities or brokers.
A listening platform will help you seek out these conversations to give you a rm understand-
ing of who your community is, and where they are this information will be key when youre ready to
engage.

Cover All Channels And Languages
Start by casting a wide net. Youll start noticing where most of the conversations are happening.
Pay attention to those forums. Social media is bigger than Twitter and Facebook. For your brand, its
wherever people are creating and sharing content. It could be anywhere blogs, forums, message
boards, LinkedIn, or niche online communities. For some industries, the best place to be, may still be
forums and message boards. For others, it could be LinkedIn or niche online communities.
When you start drilling down on zeroing in on the insights that matter most to your brand, picking
the right keywords and in native languages will increase the eectiveness of social media
monitoring. Like online search, the right keywords used will help direct the company to right
conversation channels.
Pick the wrong keywords or going too broad and youll miss out on critical chatter or pick up too much
noise. This applies to picking keywords in the right language too, as the world is not at and languages
play a big part in various markets.
Introduction
When customers have a bad experience with their bank it often generates an emotional reaction
money is a personal subject. Social media has provided consumers with a magnied voice that
can have a huge impact on a banks reputation and responding to your customers and communitys
negative experiences quickly and eciently can turn a bad situation into a winning customer experi-
ence.
Unfortunately, many Financial Services companies are still hesitant and slow to adopt and embrace
the lucrative opportunities of social media, on account of the hefty industry regulations.
Rules around what information can be shared, how it can be shared, archiving engagement and
more, have kept many Financial Services organizations at bey in the social space. Meanwhile, they are
missing out on a powerful opportunity to integrate social into customer service, marketing,
crisis/reputation management, sales and HR initiatives.
Its not hard to see why many Financial Services organizations are lagging behind in the social
marketplace faced with the hurdles of complying with the rigid SEC and FINRA regulations but,
with the right education and technology, Financial Services companies can tap into all the benets
and rewards social media has to oer.

Build A Community Around Your Brand
Social media monitoring platforms provide the opportunity to get to know your community inside
and out. When youve understood their past preferences, youll give them a richer experience in the
future. Youll also discover who is the most inuential in conversations surrounding your
nancial services brand. These loyal supporters will spread your message even further throughout
the social web.
Engage With Customers And Prospects
Reach out to your customers and prospects at their point of need and use their feedback to enhance
your services.
Even despite the heavy regulations around the industry, some Financial Services companies have
been eectively leveraging social to attract a new generation of social customers. Charles Schwab, TD
Bank, Fidelity Investments, Vanguard, American Century and American Express and New York Life all
use social media for customer service, thought leadership and keeping their brands front of mind.
Archive Content And Engagement
The Financial Services regulator, FINRA, requires all social media content to be stored for at least
three years. Last year, the SEC announced a risk alert on the use of social media by nancial advisors,
which emphasized the importance of compliance policies including record-keeping and third-party
content. Its imperative for Financial Services organizations to leverage a social listening solution to
archive all company posts and engagement to ensure you and your team stay inline with industry
regulations.


Align Social Monitoring With Business Objectives
Dening the right parameters plays an important role in maximizing insight
on social media conversations. One of these is to ensure the social media monitoring
strategy is aligned with the company's business objectives.
This can be achieved by identifying the business objectives then evaluate how social media can
contribute to accomplishing these goals. A business-aligned social media strategy helps to justify the
business case for investing in the right social media monitoring and engagement tool that is critical to
its success.
Develop A Strong Social Media Policy

Its important that everyone involved in your companys social media eorts thoroughly understands
the social media compliance regulations. If youre using a listening platform, make sure your team is
fully trained on your tools, and how it can help your company stay compliant in the social space.
Create An Engagement Playbook
Your social media playbook should be a how-to book for employees, built on the fundamentals
of your social media policy. Provide clear examples of information that can be shared on each unique
social media channel, and information that needs to be shared out of the social media sphere.
Your playbook should also outline a detailed process around when to take communication with your
customers oine and route them to the right customer support representative. Include a validation
process to respond as quickly as possible to your consumers, and prioritize engagement around
negative feedback

Be Prepared For Escalating Crises
Dene what a crisis is for your company, and build a crisis response chart with several levels
of severity this chart should outline who will be tasked with what in each situation. For example, if
your company Twitter account gets hacked or an employee sends a mistweet from a corporate handle
you need to know who will be in charge, how they will be contacted (if its outside working hours),
and how they will deal with the situation at hand.
Synthesio worked with a Financial Services client to create a social media communications plan
involving a six-tiered alert process. For each tier (level of crisis) an alert system was put in place to
ensure the appropriate employee for each tier was alerted at the time of crisis.
Measure And Report Your Success
Once the conversations start rolling in, measure your results. Tracking discussions will
enhance your social media strategy, and help you get to the bottom of whats being said. The
enterprise will also need to create metrics and key performance indicators of its social media
strategy to track success against business objectives. If not, it will waste time pursuing information
that doesn't really matter to your brand.
6
BANKING ON SOCIAL LISTENING
10 STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES
Conclusion
The social web is changing how nancial services companies do business.
Its shifted how they communicate within their own walls, and how they communicate
with customers. It has also given customers a voice and a platform for feedback,
opinion, discussion, and collaboration that has never been seen before.
Are
you listening
to what your
community is saying
about your nancial
services organization
and your
competitors?
Whats your
strategy to
becoming
compliantly
active in
social media?