This edition concludes our insight on the main topic ‘Analyzing the Social Media Mix of Banks in Ghana’ with an index of all the five platforms and banks’ performance (depths). The first part was published in the Monday 16 January 2023 edition of this column and proceeded with the subsequent publications. The key social media accounts mainly used by the banks in the digital spectrum for their promotions, advertising products and services, live seminar streaming and corporate social responsibility events or increasing their market reach are Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube – which makes the acronym TILFY. The global highlights of accounts from the five (5) social media platforms as at December 31, 2022 confirm these huge figures.
GLOBAL TILFY UPDATES @ DEC 2022
Source: Google Play Store
The Stat counter Global Stats (table) data show that there are six million, six hundred and one thousand, one hundred (6,601,100) active social media accounts in respect of Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube with Others (839,576) including the Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit and VKontakte population in Ghana.
As the statistics reveal, Facebook is the most active account with its 3,279,099 population representing 49.68%. Twitter is the second most active account with a 1,161,677 active population and takes 17.6% of the social media mix. The video-sharing platform YouTube is the third in the mix, with 770,931 active accounts representing 11.68%. Instagram is fourth and has 7.72% of the 6,601100 active social media population. Business and employment-focused social media platform LinkedIn occupies the fifth position with 40,263 active accounts and represents 0.61% in the mix. Others including Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit and VKontakte add up to 839,576 and represent 12.72%.
Table 3: Social Media (TILFY) Mix/Performance of Banks in Ghana
Banks record over 22 million followers on TILFY
Table (3) provides an insight into the banks’ performance (depth) in the social media mix. The following seventeen banks (17) – ABSA, UMB, Access Bank, Fidelity Bank, FNB, GCB Bank, Stanbic, First Atlantic Bank, UBA, CBG, GT Bank, Republic Bank, CAL Bank, ADB, FBN, Zenith Bank and National Investment Bank (NIB) – have all the five social media accounts considered in our scope of study.
As at December 31, 2022, all 23 banks had in total over 480,000 followers on Twitter and over 660,000 followers on Instagram. The platform where the banks had the least number of followers (432,841) is LinkedIn in comparison to the other social media accounts in the mix. Concerning Standard Chartered Bank, the parent company has a global LinkedIn Account with over 1.8 million followers.
Stanchart (Ghana) does not have its own LinkedIn account as well as no YouTube Account, therefore we excluded their global figures from the computations. Aside from that, all 23 banks recorded over 6.7 million (6,783,080) followers on Facebook within the period under consideration. Furthermore, the analytics of this study revealed a summary of over 13 million (13,760,339) YouTube views of video contents shared by banks on the platform.
All in all, the 23 banks put together recorded a buoyant population of over 22 million (22,125,159) depth/mix of presence on TILFY (Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube). The caveat to the total figure (i.e. 22 million) as well as the individual TILFY figures is that there is a likelihood of double-counting, on the grounds that there could be some people who follow more than one or even all the banks on the various social media platforms we have analyzed.
Rankings
In terms of ranking for all 23 banks, ABSA Bank emerges as the bank with most social media presence with over 5.2 million (5,230,677) followers. Universal Merchant Bank (UMB) placed second with over 4.0 million (4,081,020) followers. Other banks followed in the pecking order as revealed in the table (3) below with the supporting graph.
Online Reputation Management
By reputation management in this context, we mean impressions the public have about the banks’ business. It involves monitoring the media space to know what people are saying about their business, and then using the feedback to position themselves in the most accurate and positive light. The advent of digital media has brought in its wake challenges regarding online reputation management to businesses and individuals. One of such challenges is impersonation or identity-theft involving the use of fake accounts by some people to commit fraud.
To curb the incidence of impersonation or fraud, the five (5) social media accounts (TILFY) we have identified use the verification system to confirm the authenticity of notable account owners. Hence, followers and other social media users of the same platforms will believe media contents (posts/texts) originating from those platforms. As we have highlighted, only ten (10) out of the twenty-three (23) banks in Ghana currently have verified Twitter accounts. Those banks are Absa Bank (Ghana), Access Bank (Ghana), CAL Bank, FBN (Ghana), FNB (Ghana), GT Bank (Ghana), Standard Chartered Bank (Ghana) Stanbic Bank (Ghana), UBA (Ghana) and UMB (Ghana).
Concerning Instagram, the banks which have verified accounts as at 31 December 2022 are Absa Bank, ADB, the Consolidated Bank Ghana (CBG), First National Bank (FNB), Guaranty Trust Bank (GT Bank), GCB Bank and UBA(Ghana). It will be worthwhile for all the banks to have their social media accounts verified as part of their online reputation management.
Online Monitoring Tools
What then can the banks and other businesses do to manage their online reputation and protect their brands? Indeed, keeping track of what the public is saying about their businesses in the digital space (Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) is very important. Such monitoring activities help to evaluate reviews and feedback and then respond appropriately. Some of the modern and real-time and result-oriented software applications which businesses can use to monitor their online presence and reputation include Brand24, Brandwatch, Birdeye, Hootsuite, Social Mention, ReviewTrackers, Talkwalker, Meltwater, BrandYourself and Google Alert.
Original Source: B&FT