Despite being one of
the biggest investor in Social Media companies like Facebook, Goldman Sachs
presence on Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and
YouTube is quite lackluster. Goldman Sachs joined Facebook in June 2009 and till
now it has only 20,000 fans, mere 16,000 likes which is far below when compared
to its peers in the Financial Services industry and also has many negative
comments about the bank on the Facebook page. It started its twitter account in
May 2012 and since then it has 22,000 followers and the twitter account
highlights the events, work, research and employees. Goldman Sachs official twitter account is
nothing compared to a parody feed called @GSElevator Gossip, which has over
320,000 followers which reports the various conversations overheard in the
bank’s elevators. Goldman Sachs LinkedIn presence has 90,000 followers and is
limited to job openings, recruiting interns and informing about employee update
and new hires. In February 2012, Goldman Sachs launched YouTube channel and it
features videos of employees discussing careers; experts interviewed on topics
such as the global economy; clients talking about relationship & work and
its corporate citizenship programs. Goldman Sachs is looking to hire a fulltime
social community manager who will manage its social media presence and will
also monitor the activity.
The reason for such a
lackluster presence for Goldman Sachs and slowly improving social media
presence for most of the Banks and Financial Institutions is due to the
stringent financial regulations by the regulators. Broker,
dealers, Relationship managers must comply with very stringent regulations
regarding communications with their clients which had become a negating factor.
The SEC and FINRA quickly classified social media interactions as records just
like emails or physical communications which means they must be archived and
managed according to the same rules and which also means tight policing and
steep sanctions these institutions face in terms of violations from the SEC/other
regulators will also be applied to social media records. Most of the financial
institutions were not confident that they could comply with such stringent
regulations while using social media so they avoided using it. But there are
significant benefits in using social media like advisors/traders/relationship
managers can build trust with clients, network more effectively and use social
media as a marketing tool for more business and with new tools available that
help in archiving and managing social media interactions effectively, Goldman Sachs
and other Financial institutions & banks have been actively improving their
social media presence. Social Media policy is in place and employees are being
trained in terms of how to utilize and manage the social media presence,
regulatory aspects and precautions to be taken during client interactions is
also provided to all the client facing teams.
Banks
& Financial Institutions need to understand that the new era financial customers, clients
and public are social media savvy users which also has become an active part of
their day to day lives and Social media is disrupting the financial industry
with the emergence of social media real time money, investment and trading
communities and crowd financing which is funding new players. All the above
factors have forced the financial institutions to enter the open and
transparent world of Social media. Goldman Sachs too is following and improving
presence.
Did you know that you can shorten your long links with AdFly and get $$$$ from every visit to your short links.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this case study!
ReplyDeleteQuite an interesting read
Social Media Services