I remember my father gently chiding my grandfather as to his conservative approach to life. My grandfather was brought up when the world changed ever so slowly and never lived to see the mobile phone or the internet. He was a man who was very slow to adapt to change, which was common for his generation.
His conservative approach was evidenced by the “belt and braces” approach to life… If his belt broke his braces were always there to hold his pants up. My father said this was the perfect example of a pessimist!
Being slow to adapt to change is not necessarily a bad thing but if business conservatism is standing in the way of innovation and company growth then it is not a positive but often a hindrance.
Large global brands in traditional conservative industries very often see social media as a threat because they hear and see PR horror stories. They feel they have much more to lose than gain by participating and embracing “new media”.
The truth is that social media is becoming a vital asset that provides global publishing platforms with enormous reach and velocity that are searchable and available 24 hours a day.
The Crowd Sourcing of Marketing
Social networks additionally provide viral platforms that can create more stories about your brand than you could ever hope to achieve through your own advertising and marketing efforts with paid traditional marketing media.
This is because it provides “crowd sourcing” of story telling and marketing.
So how does a traditionally conservative industry sector such as financial services participate, integrate and optimize on a social web.
Here is how American Express are embracing social.
American Express knows that leveraging Facebook with its viral “many to many” social connections will create more stories about AMEX than they could ever achieve on their own as those followers share AMEX’s content including videos, images, and text articles.
In looking at the key metric on American Express’s Facebook page “Talking about this“, the number of crowd sourced stories at a particular moment in time is 13,406 (this is the number of actions such as likes, comments and shares by AMEX’s fans).
If you multiply this by the number of friends each of these stories may reach (the average user has 234 friends according to an extrapolation of the n umbers in the S1 filing) then the “potential” reach of conversations on Facebook about AMEX is 3,137,004.
American Express did not have to pay a cent to reach those 3 million plus people apart from building the Facebook network and starting the dynamic stories by publishing their content on Facebook.
It did have to participate on Facebook and it did have to actively build its network of fans that currently stands at nearly 2.5 million. Essentially you have to be in it to win it!
If you look at AMEX’s Facebook strategy, tactics and activities you will notice how they have woven Facebook into its marketing DNA because they know the power of marketing to a social network with the scale and size of Facebook.
These are the latest statistics released by Facebook and revealed by Huffington Post in its S1 Filing for its upcoming IPO that reveal the scale of the Facebook social network.
- Facebook as the worlds largest social network with nearly 1 in 2 people who are on the internet being users is the primary social channel that most brands and companies participate on.
- Monthly active users now total 901 million (up from 680 million a year ago)
- Daily active users are up to 526 million (up from 372 million last year)
- Monthly mobile users now total 488 million
- 300 million photos are uploaded to the site each day
- 3.2 billion Likes and Comments are posted daily
- 125 billion friendships are forged per day.
- Revenue for the first quarter of 2012 was $1.058 billion, up from $731 last year
Here are some key activities American Express utilize to engage with their fans on Facebook
- Their images and photos are not just about American Express but about their members and partners.
- They build their fan base by offering specials and exclusive offers to those that “like” their AMEX Facebook page. They know that a larger network gives them more reach, leverage and crowd sourced stories and marketing that money cannot buy.
- American Express understand that “entertaining” not just informing is essential on the social web and have one of their key tabs all about entertainment
- AMEX also knows that its Facebook fans need incentives to participate and one of the main reasons fans “like a page is so they can receive savings and special offers and so feature this tab in their visible tabs on their Facebook page
Americans Express also prides itself on innovation and this is evidenced by the fact that they were included in the “World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Finance Companies” by Fast Company.
American Express uses its Twitter account to distribute its content and also uses it to engage with followers and answer questions.
They understand the power of online video to engage the user and understand that an entertaining or humorous video is more likely to be shared than just a piece of text.
It is obvious from the interaction I have highlighted below that they are using a community manager to interact in real time to questions inquiries by Twitter followers.
American Express knows the value of having social networks where their target audiences are hanging out.
LinkedIn with its 150 million high earning and sizable net worth professionals are a social media network channel that is worth establishing and participating on for AMEX.
It also integrates its other social networks by linking and embedding other social networks such as YouTube.
YouTube
American Express’s branded YouTube channel reveals more about the weaving of social into their marketing strategy.
Firstly they have created videos that are made for social networks and traditional media like television.
The success and social proof evidence is shown by the sizable number of views (nearly 18 million).
Social media networks are not just about being serious but having some fun because at the end of the day they are “social” and “human” networks, they just happen to be online rather than offline!
The YouTube channel is about entertainment and lifestyle not just about a corporate message.
THey also make it easy to click through to your social network of choice by having them obvious and linked in the YouTube home page.
Foursquare
American Express are using the location based technologies of the social game Foursquare to provide incentives for merchants and customers to use the American Express card to obtain savings when they visit participating merchants and use their AMEX credit card . It uses the Foursquare mobile app to power this marketing campaign.
This strategy is also about creating crowd sourced conversations and stories on this social network of 15 million users.
By actively participating on Foursquare AMEX have built a sizeable network of over 65, 000 followers that leverages their brand. Size does matter and should be a priority in your social media marketing strategy.
What About You?
Are you integrating your social networks into the marketing DNA of your brand and business? What social networks work for you with your customers and prospects?
Look forward to hearing your experiences and stories
More Reading
- 5 Lessons from Coca Colas New Content Marketing Strategy
- 10 Reasons why Liquid Content Should be Included in your Social Media Marketing
- How To Take Your Company’s Facebook Fan Page from Zero to 40,000 Fans
- The Top 10 Brands on Facebook and What You Can Learn from them to Grow your Fans [Plus Infographic]
- Starbucks And The 4 Keys To Social Media Engagement
- The World’s 10 Most Popular Company Facebook Pages