Social Media Strategy Review : ICICI Bank

This review is a part of our ‘Social Media Strategy Review’ series where we do a 360 degree analysis of a brand’s entire social media activity. You can read the reviews of more brands here.

Introduction:

ICICI Bank is India's second-largest bank by assets and third largest by market capitalization. It offers a wide range of banking products and financial services to corporate and retail customers through a variety of delivery channels and through its specialized subsidiaries.

Overall Strategy:

ICICI Bank has been doing an Excellent job with is overall Social Media Strategy! It is one of the few banks from the Indian financial industry to embrace social media in such a nice way to connect with its consumers.

ICICI's Social friendly strategy is doing a bang up job of building a community of loyal fans around itself job on three platforms - Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. It is innovative in tapping onto new customers in the market.

Platform-wise Strategy

Facebook:

ICICI Bank goes beyond marketing on its Facebook page. It is not only listening to customers its but also engaging with them with appealing updates like interesting world currency facts, helpful updates, puzzles and quiz, ICICI's offline activities, etc.

It is evident that it has very good engagement on its Facebook page.

It is also leveraging Facebook page for Customer Service with a special tab that assists the customer with all the helpful information and customer care numbers. There have been efforts to drive traffic to its website through engaging Facebook apps.

Twitter:

ICICI's every tweet has a human touch unlike most other banks who sound like automated answering machines. @ICICIBank_Care is effective in creating and sustaining communication on Twitter.

The way ICICI bank responds to concerns on the spot and encourages interaction in a friendly manner gives it a great networking opportunity and an edge over other financial institutes.

YouTube:

I was greeted with very good content on ICICI Bank's YouYube channel. There a number of insightful interviews about the economy, financial trends, inside stories, ICICI's offline activities, testimonials, etc.

With 118 videos, the channel is rich with noteworthy content on YouTube!

Comparison with Competitor:

Citi Bank has a small community on Facebook  as compared to ICICI bank. Even Citibank is trying to engage its fans with interactive updates, quiz and puzzles but a comparatively smaller size of its community is limiting its engagement.

Source: SImplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

It was very surprising to find out that all of a sudden Citibank disappeared from Twitter after a very successful #DilVsBill campaign.

Citibank had launched a campaign titled 'Tweet a cloud, Dil Se'which targeted Diwali shoppers over a weekend, intending to judge the customers' sentiments about how they would spend for Diwali. The campaign initiated live Twitter feed under #DilVsBill hashtag, where tweeple were engaged in conversation about their Diwali shopping.

It is shocking how brands suddenly vanish after a huge successful campaign.

The Fan of the Month Campaign:

The fan of the month campaign is a loyalty programme and an engagement tactic by ICICI bank on Facebook which they have been continuing since 3-4 months.

The application encourages fans to to tell them what they like about ICICI bank. It is a notable way to get valuable insights from customers and acting upon it.

The more a fan interacts on the page, more are the chances of him winning the contest. It thus successfully drives engagement and loyalty.

Iwish App

The iwish application is another laudable application on the ICICI bank's Facebook page which completes the whole digital loop.

Users can make a wish, create a goal, choose their avatar and share their goal with family & friends who can contribute and help them achieve their goal faster.

For example if you have been planning to own the latest gadgets for months, but find it difficult to save for it regularly then make a wish.

iWish is a flexible recurring deposit that helps you deposit money in a fun way for your wishes as and when you have it.

The application strategically taps on the potential customers by offering them a develop a personalized saving plan with a social angle in it. It gains valuable insights about their wishes and drives the traffic to its website. Users are motivated with habit of saving. What is more delightful than a brand rationally helping you to make your dream come true!

Comments on Strategy:

ICICI bank's overall social media strategy is subtly leveraged for customer service, product research, gaining customer insights, marketing and the most important of all building a loyal community.

It is very important of a financial institution  to create transparency by winning the faith of its stake holders. By participating in conversations, ICICI bank has closely managed to reach its goal!

Feedback on Strategy:

I would certainly credit ICICI bank's efforts to continually earn customers’ confidence by delivering useful, highly valuable content and creating a solid platform of communication.

Humans want to interact with humans and not spammy bots!

ICICI bank sets an example of how banks should invest in digital platforms and develop new financial products such that they sow the seeds of Social Banking!

Analytics support courtesy: Simplify360