As private banks are increasingly taking to social networks, Private Banker International’s analysis of the thirty biggest private banks shows significant differences in the way wealth management divisions offer content to their clients. Elsa Buchanan takes a closer look.
Rankings show that while most banks are getting to grips with all three social media networks, more than half are missing standalone pages, accounts or apps to ensure their wealth management units are visible on the web.
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Coutts is one of the front-runners. It ranked as the biggest tweeter with over 2,321 messages sent, or three posts on a daily average, compared to Bank of America Merrill Lynch Wealth Management (BofA), which has been tweeting around 80% less (482 tweets since going live in September 2011).
Breathing down its neck is Barclays Wealth, ranked in second with 2,002 tweets and a stable second position with 12,972 Twitter followers. It is also the second largest group on LinkedIn, with 12,049 followers and more than 4,638 employees on its wealth management group.
What differentiates Barclays Wealth from Nordea (11,390 reposted messages) or BNP Paribas Wealth Management (396,698 likes) is its poor results on Facebook, as it sits at the bottom of the top 10 table.
Barclays’ wealth management unit’s page was only liked 440 times on Facebook, and was the least talked about, with just 25 reposted items.
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By GlobalDataAfter joining Facebook in June 2011, BofA shows it understands how to attract the public with its two Facebook pages, boasting 679,969 "likes" and 18,091 people talking about their articles and links, representing 99% more likes than Barclays’ fan page.
The US bank is also showing that despite an average number of tweets (482, or around 30% less tweets than Coutts), it can attract a larger number of followers with 27,596 "tweeters".
To differentiate itself from other private banks present on Zuckerberg’s social platform, BofA launched a Facebook app to accompany its numerous articles posted every week.
BNP Paribas Wealth Management has only 5,784 Facebook users talking about its posts, although it has the most official wealth related pages (nine) which are constantly updated. This is 88% less than Wells Fargo or 68% less than BofA, with 48,169 and 18,097 users respectively.
Another surprise comes with RBC Wealth Management’s social presence. It is virtually non-existent on Facebook (it is ranked 13th, with less than 91 likes and no-one re-posting its articles) and has no presence on Twitter. It is it ranked fourth for its LinkedIn page.
RBC attracts 6,615 followers with 4,006 employees in its group, which is already more than HSBC Private Bank, which attracts only 3,911 employees.
Engagement, not popularity
Coutts’ head of product, services and marketing, Ian Ewart, says that though Twitter is a limited channel which only enables users to share 140 characters snippets, it is a great way to drive traffic to the bank’s own site.
"We believe it has been very effective", he says, "We know it is important for our clients as most of them correspond to the same demographic." Those discrete clients are slightly older, more in control of their own time, spending more time online, very self-directed and are not online to publish about themselves, but are keen to be educated and informed.
Ewart explains Coutts uses Twitter with the formula, "Utility. Not popularity".
And this formula seems to be working. The UK private banking house also ranked number one as the private bank following the most accounts on Twitter (2,287) and third in terms of followers (7,418), since starting its Twitter use two and half years ago.
"What I do not do is use social media as an advertisement channel," adds Ewart. "Our content, would it be news, reports, experts’ discussions or sponsorship events, is integrated through all medium, not only broadcasted on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn."
Coutts’ head of product, services and marketing also says the wealth manager has had to get better "at it", with more integration and a smarter way of using all channels.
"We are probably more responsive to stakeholders today," he says. "We ensure all enquiries are answered to, making social media a fast circuit feedback mechanism."
Barclays Wealth head of marketing, Lisa Worley, says some channels such as Twitter or LinkedIn have been picked up more quickly than others, "probably because our clients are more familiar with those channels," she adds.
Social media suitability
Present on all networks, Coutts came ninth in terms of Facebook "likes", and sixth for its number of followers on LinkedIn, with 1,742 employees logged on its company profile.
"For the moment we are not actually promoting our presence on Facebook, to either our clients or our potential clients. It’s a matter of engagement, not popularity, but we are considering promoting our channels in a different way," adds Ewart.
Barclays’ wealth management unit’s page was only liked 440 times, and the least talked about, with a mere 25 re-posted items. But Worley adds the social media marketing was not prioritising any channel, saying they "are all equally important".
She notes that each service’s popularity changes over time and the firm’s prioritisation will change in line with its digital strategy.
According to Worley, the Facebook page was launched at the end of June in the new look (it was offline for seven months prior to then). She adds, the number of followers has more than doubled but given the medium "these numbers grow at a slower pace than Twitter and LinkedIn".
Launched in 2012, Worley says that although the wealth unit had put together a model plan for all social medial channels — and although Barclays Wealth & Investment Management is focusing on a wider public and not only business-to-business or a client-only base– she says it is "a time issue, as our integrating plan is at its early stages".
"We have just implemented tracking for our plan engagement and it has come with positive endorsement from our clients," she adds.
Can a private bank know what might have to change to remain socially effective online in the future? Coutts says it will launch more Twitter accounts, with its chief investment officers tweeting on a regular basis, along with other foreign exchange and investment experts commenting on market trends.
