Social media marketing and using social media to connect with customers is going to change the way we do business in the months and years ahead. What I mean by that statement is that there is “a lot” that needs to develop and “a lot” of ramifications based on these developments for social media and marketing.

Social media is no doubt on its way to becoming a new significant force in marketing (much like search did) in the not too distant future. What shape that will take is based on the evolution of the technology ecosystem and customer behavior as it matures in terms of using this new medium. In terms of the ecosystem, we are already seeing significant attention to the ad serving platforms and the presence of third parties to help better track and monitor performance. Google is talking of social search and the potential that brings.

Then there is also the mobile internet which is growing at a phenomenal rate combining the power of social networks with location based services. Add to all of these the fact that at some stage these platforms need to monetize and that will in my opinion drive inevitably convergence with a few global and a couple of local winners. These combined with consumers and businesses defining standards of what is kosher or not in terms of content through a trial and learn phase, which we are in, will result in a very rich form of communication and marketing to customers in dynamic system that will allow us to target, measure and listen to our customers like never before. This transparency and instant feedback will also challenge us to manage brand and marketing together like never before where reputations will be built and occasionally destroyed in real time.

Aman Narain is the Global Head of Remote Banking (Internet & Mobile) for Standard Chartered’s Consumer Bank and is sharing his personal views on Banking and Social Media as a guest blogger with Asian Correspondent.

It is important that we establish that social media is about having a conversation with your customers, not about being cool. Too many companies and brands are using social media to be seen as “cool” without understanding it and inevitably coming out of the exercise as pretty “uncool.” Allow me to give you an analogy. If we meet at a party and strike up a conversation during which I proceed to tell you all about myself and the wonderful things I am doing while letting you talk briefly while I scan the room for the next person to speak to, chances are you are not going to want to engage in another conversation with me anytime soon. This same analogy holds true for a brand and how it interacts with its consumers using social media.

The challenge for the banking industry is more acute given it’s proclivity to one-way conversations and product monologues much like the analogy above. These monologues tend to also be focused on the products and services focused on managing your money. Instead the customer really is interested in what that money does for them. Until we engage customers in what they want their money to do for them rather address their money needs in this perfunctory way we will not lose the “uncool” tag, nor will we effectively be able to use social media.

However I am hopeful for our industry and can see the “green shoots” to suggest we one day may be able to be “cool”, but it’s a long journey. My measure of when we have achieved that would be when a customer would be as comfortable wearing a banking brand on their t-shirt as they would ‘Vespa’ or ‘Coca Cola’. I know what you are thinking, not a hope in hell. But then not long ago nobody would have bet that the next design icon would come from something as commoditized as the computer manufacturing industry.

I think social media can work for any business that “gets it.” Certainly there are challenges around regulation and security in industries like banking or medical services, but I think more often than not these are used as excuses for not wanting to change from the status quo rather than genuine constraints. 

Aman Narain is the Global Head of Remote Banking (Internet & Mobile) for Standard Chartered’s Consumer Bank and is sharing his personal views on Banking and Social Media as a guest blogger with Asian Correspondent.

Despite this I believe the foundation of effectively marketing to customers has not changed in the internet age. Now more than ever we need to make sure we know who we are communicating with and provide them with both relevant and contextual messages. What will need to be different going forward is the use of mediums and manner in which we send messages to our customers. 

In an increasingly interconnected world knowing which channels you have used to reach a customer and giving them the choice to choose what and how you communicate with them is going to be vital. Trying to push the same product or service with a telesales call, direct and electronic mail as well as when they visit your outlet in an uncoordinated manner will simply be unacceptable going forward (much like spam mail today). Therefore investing and using technology effectively to allow the customer to decide how and when they want to be contacted is of paramount importance to help avoid turning off customers.

The message and how we present ourselves also needs to change. Increasingly customers are becoming weary of brands that take themselves too seriously and seem more interested in engaging their customer by waving their flag with a brand first, message later approach. A lot more humility and a little more humor seems to be the way forward.

Granted this is hard to execute effectively but those who get this right are seeing the results. Finally involving the customers in a dialogue and having a bit of fun is proving to be a winning combination. I found a great example on the web recently where the breakfast cereal “Shreddies” re launched the same product, this time calling it “Diamond Shreddies.” Now a Diamond Shreddie is no different from a Shreddie, it just involves you turning it 90 degrees and looking at it in a new way. The company put together a microsite which made fun of how the new Shreddies tasted so much better and even launched a mixed bag option.

The ability to laugh about this with the customer and then invite customers to vote and have their say is dynamite. I don’t have the stats right now but this simple twist in approach is in my opinion the way forward, with customers drawn in to participate rather than slapped with a standard message of “look at how wonderful we are”.

Aman Narain is the Global Head of Remote Banking (Internet & Mobile) for Standard Chartered’s Consumer Bank and is sharing his personal views on Banking and Social Media as a guest blogger with Asian Correspondent.

That said, connecting effectively with the right people can be difficult. Nevertheless, I think social media can work for any business that “gets it.” Certainly there are challenges around regulation and security in industries like banking or medical services but I think more often than not these are used as excuses for not wanting to change from the status quo rather than genuine constraints. 

Effective social media campaigns that go viral are arguably the best form of publicity you can find these days. There are a number of successful social media campaigns that I personally admire though emulating them wholesale per se would negate the whole concept of being original which is what drives their success. Five of these that spring to mind are:

1.Starbucks “My Starbucks” blog which I mentioned earlier and is great integration of using social media to make a difference offline and online.

2.Heinz “Top This TV”, which is a bold move to let customer and fans make the next Heinz commercial, opening up elements of the brand with excellent results.

3.Queensland (Australia) State Government’s “best job in the world”, which was an innovative way to draw attention and applicants while promoting the Great Barrier Reef.

4.Cadbury’s “Dancing Eyes” campaign for having fun with its customers and using humor.

5.Toys’R'Us for their recent “Black Friday” campaign which has commercialized their Facebook page with phenomenal growth of 40,000 to 95,000 fans added per day.

However, one recent social media campaign for me that stands out above all was the Obama for President campaign. It was one of the most comprehensive (they were everywhere from Facebook, Twitter, blogs, widgets, iPhone you name it) and well executed social media campaigns to date. If you are looking for measures of success, seven million Facebook fans, the 44th Presidency of the Unites States and Nobel Peace Prize are pretty impressive.

Aman Narain is the Global Head of Remote Banking (Internet & Mobile) for Standard Chartered’s Consumer Bank and is sharing his personal views on Banking and Social Media as a guest blogger with Asian Correspondent.

Today, we can build on what we know about our customers (the who) by having rich conversation with them combining their transactional behavior (the what) with geographical and location specific information (the where) along with their social commentary and expression (the why) to really modify and change products and services to meet their needs often in real time. This combination of the who, what, where and why about our customers gives us the most powerful array of tools and opportunities to transform customer sales and service.

What’s particularly powerful about this new opportunity is that it is not just restricted to products and services that are available online but also offline as well. Two recent trends that really demonstrate this are Co-Production and Mass Customization. The first, which involves business working with their customer to produce goods and services is really taking off. A good example of the this is Starbucks which made a bold move to start a blog where customers gave the company feedback on how to improve its products and services resulting in a storm of suggestions leading to everyday innovation like a using a coffee stirrer to also plug the hole on the latter you grabbed on the way to work. This particular approach is not unique to Starbucks alone with Dell launching a similar initiative called IdeaStorm. Mass Customization, where customers create their own bundles and propositions rather than selecting from a standard set, has existed for some time but is really being brought to life with new social media tools. A good example is the credit card business where few card providers have started to offer customers a rich set of tools allowing them the create their own card from making trade off’s on what they value (rates, rewards etc) to designing the look and feel of the card and even sharing that all in real time.

The confluence of these factors is definitely orienting us to using the internet and increasingly mobile not just as a highly effective sales channel but also a very engaging servicing channel.