Business Case Analysis Memo Samples †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Business Case Analysis Memo. Answer: The following memo is an analysis of social media strategy a case study of First National Bank (FNB) of South Africa. FNB is the oldest bank in South Africa and has it origin in Eastern Province Bank that was started in Grahamstown in 1838. The bank is amongst the top four banks in South Africa in terms of customers and assets. The bank is Michael Jordaan as the CEO and Lana Strydon as head of digital marketing and media. The memo will analyze social media strategy benefits and what should be considered when formulating and implementing social media strategy. This will involve discussing how FNB use digital and social media, benefits realized from investing in social media strategy, and lessons learnt from the bank experience in developing and implementing social media strategy. The memo will also identify important factors to be considered by organizations using social media to communicate to customers. First National Bank has used digital and social media in several ways to engage with its customers. First, FNB enabled its customers to make some transactions using Facebook. The bank enabled customers to link their Cellphone banking account with their social media profiles. Customers are then able to access their bank accounts from the FNB banking application on Facebook. This digital development enabled customers to check their account balances, and purchase prepaid products such as SMS bundles, airtime, and view Powerball and Lotto results. Second, the bank launched educational series on YouTube. The FNB created YouTube videos to educate people about fundamental principles in finance. The videos focused on teaching people the importance of saving, how to save, and creating a budget to minimize spending. This social media interaction and information sharing enlightened people to became banks customers. Third, the bank uses a banking app to engage with customers. FNB was the first S outh African Bank to create a banking app. The banking app enable customers to make transactions such as account transfers, updates, check balances, apply for loans, create saving plan, and enable customer care support. FNB also uses dotFNB stores. The dotFNB stores provide customers with self service banking digital platform. Customers are provided with virtual environment that enable video conferencing with experts from the banks. Therefore, FNB has widely used digital and social media to engage with it customers by launching unique products setting trends in digital marketing. FNB has benefited from social media strategy in several ways. First, the social media strategy enabled FNB to do low cost marketing. Social media marketing enabled FNB to create brand awareness to people on social media. Social media marketing also enabled the bank to inform customers and potential customers about their products. The bank was able to reach up to 1.4 million people on Facebook on a single post approximately 700000 people on Twitter per month. Secondly, the social media strategy enabled the bank to increase its sales. Potential customers were reached and there was increase in number of account opening and product buying. There were more than 10999 accounts that were opened from adverting on social media. Thirdly, the FNB was able to support customers. The social media strategy enabled the bank to increase customer loyalty and trust through customer support. This has been done through use of social media to educate, receive feedback, advice, and address complaints. The bank was able to present itself as trustworthy, approachable, and likeable to the society. The FNB social media strategy also enabled the bank to develop sustainable relationships with customers (Tuten, and Solomon, 2014). The bank was easily reachable by customers. The relationship enabled deep understanding between the bank and the customers. Therefore, FNB social media strategy has benefited FNB bank in creating a higher level engagement that has increase customer base, loyalty and returns to the organization. From FNB development and implementation of social media strategy, several lessons are evident to increase the success of a social media strategy. First, an organization has to set a clear goal when investing in social media. Setting of a social media goal before investing in a social media strategy enables to determine what resources and social media to invest in (Rootman, and Cupp, 2016). Secondly, organizations should focus on creating value to people rather than just advertising and promoting products on social media. Organization should focus in providing content that is beneficial to social media people instead of posting promotional messages (Lewis, Tigist, and van Vuuren, 2013). This attracts people creating a relationship that are then turned to customers. Thirdly, the organization should build relationships by understanding customers needs. Building a relationship with customers enabled the organization develop and implement social media strategy that aligned content to supp ort customers needs. It is also important to assess the social media that the organization is about to invest in. This ensures that an organization invests in social media where its potential customers are (Trainor et al., 2014). Organizations should consider several factors when using social media to communicate with customers. First, an organization should consider its goals to investing in social media marketing. The goal determines the social media that the organization will invest in and the content to post. Secondly, organization should consider the number of people in a certain social media before using it to communicate with customers. Considering the number of people enables an organization predetermine resources needed and returns expected. Organizations should also consider the content that they post on a social media. The content posted is important in attracting, informing, or persuading people to buy from an organization (Ashley, and Tuten, 2015). An organization should carefully consider content in order to create a high level engaging content with customers. In summary, FNB was able to successfully formulate and implement an effective social medial strategy. FNB investment to digital and social media marketing has enabled strengthening of FNB brand and building ongoing relationship with customers. The lessons from FNB social media strategy is that the focus should be on the goal to invest, building relationships and deepening customer needs understanding to enhance engagement. Therefore, organizations should consider the social media goal of investing, number of people in a social media and content to be shared in a specific social media when using social media to communicate with customers. References Ashley, C. and Tuten, T., 2015. Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology Marketing, 32(1), pp.15-27. Lewis, D., Tigist, S.H. and van Vuuren, M., 2013. Exploring new media technologies among young South African Women. Rootman, C. and Cupp, M.N., 2016. The impact of social media on customer satisfaction and retention in the banking industry: views of clients and managers. Trainor, K.J., Andzulis, J.M., Rapp, A. and Agnihotri, R., 2014. Social media technology usage and customer relationship performance: A capabilities-based examination of social CRM. Journal of Business Research, 67(6), pp.1201-1208. Tuten, T.L. and Solomon, M.R., 2014. Social media marketing. Sage.