Social Media Strategy Review: Axis Bank

Introduction:

Positioning itself as a modern day bank that drives life, Axis Bank is one of India's earliest private sector banks. It does have a negative past when it was known as UTI Bank. Let's see how the present perception is post the re-branding.

Note on Overall Strategy:

With presence on all the 4 major social media platforms - Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Linkedin – Axis Bank is trying its best to maximize its reach. However, having a presence everywhere does not ensure that your brand is doing good on social media. In fact, Axis Bank's overall social media outlook looks pretty disappointing to me.

Platform-wise Strategy:

Facebook

Agreed that BFSI segment gets less traction but being overtly self-promotional and repetitive makes it much worse. Axis Bank seems to be doing the same thing.

Instead of using their Facebook Page as a community and conversing with its fans, it has turned on the microphones and has started the same one-way communication pattern that brands have been following since the radio/TV era.

Averaging 2 updates daily, they have no interactive updates. Most of them are about their products and services.

They do have few updates which revolve around trivia and tips which, undoubtedly, get a good response. I wonder that's stopping them from increasing the frequency of such interesting posts and thus increasing their engagement.

And the worst part, they don't allow people to post on their walls. Which is a sin when it comes to social media. If you want to provide the best service to your users, you must give them proper channels to hear them out.

In spite of all this, they do have some really cool custom tabs that can be leveraged for great benefit. They have an excellent app that lets you upload your best picture from your Facebook albums so that you can create a custom credit/debit card for yourself.

They also have a nice planner integrated with Facebook which helps you track your spendings.

Now one only wishes if they could use it effectively.

Twitter

Their Facebook strategy is mimicked on Twitter as well. It surpises me that a medium which has made several topics viral in past is not being used properly by one of India's leading brands.

Daily 2 updates spaced about 6 hours apart, they are hardly interesting for anyone. There's no conversations, @mentions or no sign of any Twitter-centric campaign.

It seems the account was created just for the sake of it. Really a sad scenario. I wonder how they even got the 900+ followers with such disappointing tweets.

YouTube

Another sadness greets you here. What could have been a great opportunity to improve their brand awareness and authority, has been missed and replaced with TVCs.

Axis Bank could have created helpful guides and video tips for benefit of their users. But unfortunately  they seem to be lazy and have no such content marketing ideas.

Even the video views for the last few months are terrible to say the least.

LinkedIn

A much better picture is presented here.

You are greeted with a well-designed aesthetic page which does have all the information that a person is looking for.

Even the 'Careers' section looks impressive. Their product lists all their products in a nice manner is well mainted too.

But again, the communication is where it is lacking. If only they published updates on a regular basis.

Study of Any Campaign

Axis Bank is running several campaigns on Facebook at present. The 'Meri Zindagi ka Safar' is the best of the lot which connects with with 'Badhti ka naam Zindagi' theme. But it's too simple and is somehwat uninteresting.

But 'My Face, My Traits' seems like a sore thumb sticking out. I have no idea why would a bank want people to upload their photos and help them determine their personality. A totally timepass app with no brand connect whatsoever.

Comparison with Competitors

When compared to its nearest competitor, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank has a long way to travel. ICICI Bank is doing a phenomenal job with its content.

Their Facebook page is full on informative and fun updates, they are solving customer complaints on Twitter and their YouTube is filled with interesting relevant videos.

The folks handling the social media presence of Axis Bank can learn a great deal from ICICI Bank's content strategy.

Comments on Strategy

The strategy here is dull. With a tagline like 'Badhti ka naam zindagi' they could do so many things. But all of their activities are focused on self-promotion which is really disappointing.

They even have several influencers in their community! And every social media marketer worth his salt knows how important influencers can be.

Their community has the right demographics, they only need to make the right moves.

Feedback on Strategy

With updates that are uninteresting to say the least, Axis Bank has a terrible engagement rate on Facebook. A weak approach to Twitter has also resulted into a poor response.

The only way out for them is by being more interesting.

Analytics support courtesy: Simplify360