As the most-popular online activity, social media represents a fundamental shift in the way people communicate with each other and with businesses. The gateway into social media conversations via corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives represents a relatively low-risk usage of social media by financial institutions. However, financial institutions are now borrowing from the pages of companies in other industries, as well as leveraging their core competencies, to accomplish objectives beyond gaining attention and brand-building that CSR initiatives address.

1. Creating Customer Value through Social Media
Consumer Insights Brief
October 2011
Paul McAdam, SVP of Research and Thought Leadership, FIS
Mandy Putnam, Director of Research and Thought Leadership, FIS
www.fisglobal.com

2. Creating Customer Value through Social
Media
The Social Media Imperative Cuts across Industries and their Business Divisions
Social media has surpassed fad status. As the most-popular online activity, it represents a fundamental shift in
the way people communicate with each other and with businesses.1
Social media is becoming increasingly integrated with the activities of various business divisions within
companies — most commonly in marketing— but integration remains a challenge in other business units.
Findings from a 2010 survey of 338 businesses by Econsultancy point out the high percentage (85 percent) of
respondents who indicate at least a “somewhat integrated” relationship between marketing and social media
(Figure 1). Social media is only somewhat integrated with other divisions within companies — customer service,
sales, CRM/customer data, product development and human resources (the latter typically using social media
sites such as LinkedIn for employee recruiting) — to create value and/or reduce costs.2
Figure 1: Integration of Social Media Activity
with Other Business Functions
0% 50% 100%
Marketing 33% 52%
Customer Service 10% 39%
Sales 7% 48%
CRM/customer
data
6% 31%
Product
32%
Development 5%
Human Resources 2% 24%
Well Integrated Somewhat Integrated
Source: Econsultancy, “Social Media and Online PR Report
2010” sponsored by bigmouthmedia, provided to eMarketer,
September 29, 2010.
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3. Creating Customer Value through Social
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Gateway to Social Media Usage via Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Initiatives
Companies have built successful advertising campaigns around CSR initiatives that have generated massive
“buzz” for brands. For example, Pepsi’s “Refresh” campaign has used multiple social-media channels to
crowdsource CSR priorities for spending $20 million in grant money offered by the company (Figure 2). Pepsi
has employed blogs, YouTube videos, Facebook and Twitter to receive feedback and ideas for grants to support
programs ranging from supporting the School of Rock, which gives free music lessons to underprivileged youth,
to helping the Benwood, West Virginia volunteer fire department buy a new truck. The campaign has generated
more than four million Facebook fans, more than four million YouTube views and thousands of Twitter
followers.3
Figure 2: Pepsi Refresh Campaign
“Your ideas are helping communities
everywhere. This year, what will you
refresh?”
*Sources:
http://www.refresheverything.com/, 3/18/11; http://www.slideshare.net/Eyeblaster/eyeblaster-case-study-pepsi-
refresh-everything-dear-mr-president, 3/18/11; http://twitter.com/#!/pepsi, 3/18/2011
In the financial industry, JP Morgan Chase has led the pack in promoting its CSR initiatives via social media. Its
Community Giving program has generated more than 2.9 million Facebook fans. Chase continually solicits
consumer voting to determine the 100 winning charities that each receive a $25,000 grant for supporting causes
ranging from preventing animal abuse to promoting youth leadership programs.4
The gateway into social media conversations via CSR initiatives represents a relatively low-risk usage of social
media by financial institutions. However, financial institutions are now borrowing from the pages of companies
in other industries, as well as leveraging their core competencies, to accomplish objectives beyond gaining
attention and brand-building that CSR initiatives address. Examples of objectives addressed via social media
include:
 Attracting new customers
 Retaining customers
 Increasing share of wallet
 Reducing customer service costs
 Generating and screening new product ideas
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4. Creating Customer Value through Social
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Attracting New Customers Figure 3: Young & Free Website
The Young & Free campaign created by Currency
Marketing bills itself as a “North American credit union
movement that gives young people a voice, a head start
and useful information (Figure 3).” Its goals are twofold: 1)
help Gen Y consumers get a handle on their finances and
provide them with a more affordable alternative to banks,
and 2) help credit unions remain vibrant by attracting Gen
Y customers.
Currency Marketing claims responsibility for the creation
of more than 60,000 relationships between young adults Source: www.youngfreehq.com
and Y&F credit union clients. Each Y&F regional community
selects a personality who is responsible for content generation through YouTube videos, blogs and Twitter
updates. “Stickiness” (retention) is supported through daily freshening of website content, contests— video
challenges, scholarship contests, music and dance competitions — for prize money (e.g., $2,500 checks) and
member-only events and concerts.5
Retaining Customers
Two financial institutions leveraging their websites and social media to build and retain customer bases are
Citibank and ING.
Citibank’s 11- year old Women & Co. website reaches and retains a community of women by providing them
with a “one-stop” financial information site (Figure 4). The website enables financial insight sharing among
women and provides a wealth of financial information from subject matter experts. Audio seminars, planning
tools in the form of 5-minute video guides and pdfs, proprietary research findings, blogs and email newsletters
geared towards women are available to visitors. The site links to videos on YouTube and to social media sites
Facebook, Twitter, Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon. Through Women & Co., Citibank positions itself as an “expert
financial advisor” while steering clear of making specific investment recommendations.6
Figure 4: Citibank’s Women & Co. Website
Source: www1.citibank.com/womenandco
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5. Creating Customer Value through Social
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Recently, Citibank ran a front-page ad in the Wall Street Journal to promote its ThankYou™ Points campaign
featuring exclusive access to a Beyoncé concert for Citibank ThankYou customers (Figure 5). Citibank ThankYou
customers are directed to facebook.com/citibank to express their “like” of Citibank in order to find out how they
can get exclusive access to the concert in New York City. Unfortunately, the concert quickly sold out and most
ThankYou customers will have to settle for the Beyoncé video content available only to Citibank Facebook fans.7
Figure 5: Citibank’s Facebook Page
Source: facebook.com/citibank
ING Direct developed the “We the Savers” microsite three years ago to empower consumers to take control of
their finances and solicit visitor feedback (Figure 6). “We the Savers” serves as a support community plus a
knowledge database for consumers who want to save money. The home landing page is a blog where featured
writers post tips and general experiences about saving money. Posts are rated and the most popular ones are
called out in a separate section where the original post and responses to it can be read. Links from each post
allow readers to send the post to Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. The site’s official “Declaration
of Financial Independence,” which lists 10 points that support gaining financial independence, has attracted
more than 30,000 signatures, which can be viewed by name or state. From ING’s perspective, collecting this
input allows further engagement, targeting, and adjustment of product offerings.8
Figure 6: ING’s We the Savers Website
Source: www.wethesavers.com
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6. Creating Customer Value through Social
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Increasing Share of Wallet
Originally launched in 2007, American Express’ Open Forum website (http://www.openforum.com/) serves as
a place for small business owners to help grow their businesses (Figure 7). From American Express’ perspective,
small business represents its biggest growth opportunity. As small business customers grow, their needs for lines
of credit, loans and other financial products also grow, thereby benefitting American Express.
Providing insights from experts, business apps to streamline operations, account management tools and a
vehicle for making business connections, Open Forum has grown its traffic to more than one million unique
visitors per month. More than 11,000 small businesses have joined Connectodex — a social network “Rolodex”
for entrepreneurs. Open Forum has 10,000 Twitter followers. Last year, Open Forum opened its membership
beyond cardholders to LinkedIn members, which provides opportunity to attract new AmEx customers.
Recently updated, Open Forum now enables small business owners to join discussions through Facebook and
provides a “subscription” service tailored to specific needs and preferences. Its mobile platform is being updated
and the educational component beefed up even more.9
Figure 7: American Express Open Forum for
Small Businesses
Source: www.openforum.com
Reducing Customer Service Costs
As customers embrace new technologies and forms of communication companies have been able to reduce
customer service costs while improving customer satisfaction. Proprietary forums and blogs, as well as
established tools like Twitter, are becoming key points of contact between companies and customers.
InfusionSoft and Pitney Bowes offer two examples of improving both efficiency of and satisfaction with
customer service (Figure 8):
 Through its community site to address customer service issues, InfusionSoft increased the number of
Be A
customer issues handled by agents threefold and improved its customer satisfaction rating by 10
percentage points. The support site offers “live” training events, pre-recorded fundamentals webinars, a
video and article library plus the help center, which lists the most popular queries along with a search
function to input other queries.9
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7. Creating Customer Value through Social
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 Pitney Bowes’ user forum has led to a significant decrease in customer service calls. Pitney Bowes met
all of its first year expenses — including start-up costs — within six weeks of launching its forum through
diverting a total of 30,000 calls from customer service centers at the average cost of $10 per call. The
Pitney forum includes helpful areas, such as: blogs with relevant customer topics, an “ask-the-expert”
section with archive files, and a bookmark/tagging feature that helps make content easily searchable.
Recently, it added mobile formatting to enable “on-the-go” connection.10
Figure 8: Reducing Customer Service Costs
Source: http://mackcollier.com/5-ways-companies-are-using-social-media-to-lower-costs/
Financial institutions such as Bank of America are leveraging Twitter to support customer service. Bank of
America has seven Twitter accounts with handles like; BofA_News, BofA_Tips, BofA_Community, and BofA_Help.
The BofA_Help account employs six representatives to help, listen to and learn from 12,000+ followers thereby
enabling Bank of America to garner feedback and connect regularly with customers (Figure 9).11
Figure 9: Twitter Representatives @BofA_Help
“We are official Bank of America Schedule:
Twitter reps, here to help, listen 8am-8pm EST Mon-Fri
& learn from our customers” 9am-1pm EST Sat
Source: social.bankofamerica.com
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8. Creating Customer Value through Social
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Generating and Screening New Product Ideas
Although only 37 percent of survey respondents from the Econsultancy survey noted social media integration
with product development activities, some prominent companies have created value by leveraging consumers’
input via social media. Integration with social media can lower research costs and improve speed-to-market.
Examples include:
 Dell’s IdeaStorm online community has generated more than 15,000 suggestions from which 442 ideas
have been implemented. Dell uses eight different social media channels, from online communities and
support forums to Facebook and Twitter accounts, to communicate with customers and promote
products.12
 The online bank Prosper uses crowdsourcing to allow its members to bid on loans they want to fund.
Loan proposals with the most popular ideas are funded regardless of underwriting risk.12
 Threadless is a t-shirt company, which crowdsources its designs from its community members. Members
vote weekly on which shirts should be produced. As a result, Threadless has never failed to sell out of its
shirts.13
Summary
The integration of social media within companies’ business units is in its infancy. Only one-third of companies
reported that social media is well-integrated within marketing departments where social media initiatives are
most common. Integration with other departments is limited.
Consumers — especially younger ones — increasingly expect to be able to communicate with businesses via
social media. No longer can companies afford to segregate social media departments from the rest of the
organization and remain relevant across their customer bases.
Examples of companies successfully utilizing social media beyond brand-building initiatives such as CSR-oriented
campaigns range the gambit: CPG companies, tech companies, large financial institutions, retailers — especially
ones such as pure-play Threadless and ones with long multichannel histories.
Regardless of industry, the return on social media investment is most easily rationalized when the company
aligns social media programs with overall corporate goals — e.g. acquiring and retaining customers, deepening
relationships, reducing customer service costs.
With the advent of new regulations, financial institutions are looking for alternative sources of revenue and
ways to reduce costs. Social media represents a powerful tool to attract and retain customers and build more
profitable relationships with customers. The challenge is to identify the most relevant social media and
messaging that resonate with target customers and support overall corporate goals.
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9. Creating Customer Value through Social
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Citations:
1
Socialnomics, Copyright 2009, 2011 by Erik Qualman
2
Econsultancy, “Social Media and Online PR Report 2010,” sponsored by bigmouthmedia, provided to
eMarketer, September 29, 2010.
3
http://www.refresheverything.com/
4
Business Wire, March 31, 2011
5
http://www.youngfreehq.com
6
http://www1citibank.com/womenandco
7
http://www.facebook.com/citibank
8
http://www.wethesavers.com
9
http://smedio.com2011/05/18/american-express-launches-open-forum-3-0
10
http://mackcollier.com/5-ways-companies-are-using-social-media-to-lower-costs/
11
http://social.bankofamerica.com
12
David Aaker, “Beyond Communication to Changing the Marketplace,” Marketing News, July 30, 2011.
13
http://www.mengonline.com/newsroom/crowdsourcing-new-product-development
About the Research
Creating Customer Value through Social Media is derived from a research project conducted by MBA candidates
for the class of 2012 at Babson College’s F.W. Olin School of Business and managed by FIS Enterprise Strategy.
The study’s primary objective was to determine how banks can leverage social media to capture value from
consumers, especially adult members of Generation Y (born between 1980 and 1990).
The research findings herein are based on: 1) secondary research on social media, 2) executive interviews with
social media experts and financial institution executives, 3) qualitative research conducted with Babson peers
and 4) a 10-question survey completed by about 70 Babson students.
About FIS
FIS (NYSE: FIS) is the world’s largest global provider dedicated to banking and payments technologies. With a
long history deeply rooted in the financial services sector, FIS serves more than 14,000 institutions in over 100
countries. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla., FIS employs more than 32,000 people worldwide and holds
leadership positions in payment processing and banking solutions, providing software, services and outsourcing
of the technology that drives financial institutions. FIS is ranked 426 on the Fortune 500, is a member of
Standard & Poor’s 500® Index and consistently holds a leading ranking in the annual FinTech 100 list.
Creating Customer Value through Social Media was authored by Paul McAdam, SVP of Research and Thought
Leadership at FIS, Mandy Putnam, Director of Research and Thought Leadership at FIS and Abigail Burnham and
Donald Chapman, MBA candidates for the class of 2012 at Babson College’s F.W. Olin School of Business.
Please contact Paul McAdam or Mandy Putnam if you have questions about the research or how the results
apply to your financial institution.
Paul McAdam Mandy Putnam
Ph: 708.449.7743 Ph: 614.414.4207
paul.mcadam@fisglobal.com mandy.putnam@fisglobal.com
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