Use of Social Media for Financial Services

The use of social media by financial-services providers is part of the price of entry to be relevant in today's "connected" consumer marketplace. However, by definition, most social media facilitate connections between people, even though some companies may profit from Facebook's "like" feature, for example. The 2014–15 MacroMonitor measures a disparate list of social media. For example, Facebook, Myspace, and Google+ are social utilities that connect people and enable social interaction. Twitter is a quick (140-character) communications tool. Digg is a news aggregator and, to a large extent, so is RSS (Rich Site Summary or Real Simple Syndication). LinkedIn is for people to manage their professional identity, and YouTube is a video-sharing website.

Given the activities these sites are to facilitate, it's not surprising that fewer than one in five households report using social media to gather, share, research, or exchange financial information. Although household heads younger than age 30 are somewhat more likely to use social media to do so, almost one-half (46%) of users are age 50 and older.

Because friends and family are among of the most frequently used sources for financial information—regardless of age—providers who can be part of the conversation through social media find value in it.

For organizations that want to understand better which households are using social media for financial services and to explore how to leverage resulting insights into the households' financial needs, the MacroMonitor is uniquely positioned to provide an accurate picture.