EFMA/Aite Group Survey on Social Media in Financial Services

Efma, the European Financial Marketing Association, in collaboration with Aite Group, a leading independent research and advisory firm focused on the financial services industry, is conducting a study in Europe and North America on the use of social media technologies and tools among financial services firms.

The survey should take no more than 10-15 minutes to complete, and in exchange for participating, Efma and Aite Group will send you a copy of the final report to be produced from this study.

Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

1. Which statement best describes your firm's experience regarding social media? Required Question

	Complete novice: We have not launched any social media-related efforts
	Beginner: We have launched social media-related efforts but are not very experienced or sophisticated regarding our SM use
	Intermediate: We have launched social media-related efforts but wouldn't consider ourselves to be experts
	Advanced: We regularly use social media tools and techniques, and have built a competency in it

2. To what extent do the following factors limit your firm from incorporating social media into its marketing efforts?

	Not a barrier	Somewhat of a barrier	Definitely a barrier
Lack of funding/budget
Lack of human resources/time
Lack of knowledge/expertise
Not convinced about value/ROI
Lack of guidelines/policies
Lack of opportunity (i.e, we don't see a need for SM)
Fear of negative reaction from customers/prospects
Lack of senior management support
Regulatory/compliance concerns

3. Which of the following best describes how social media efforts are funded at your company today?

	There is no funding for social media efforts
	New funding/budgets has been established for social media
	Funding for social media is coming out of the budgets of other marketing activities
	Combination of new funding and existing budget shifts

4. If your firm is currently shifting budgets to fund social media efforts, from which areas is funding coming from? (select all that apply)

5. Which of the following best describes how you anticipate social media efforts will be funded at your company two years from now?

	There will be no specific funding for social media efforts
	New funding/budgets will be established for social media
	Funding for social media will come out of the budgets of other marketing activities
	Combination of new funding and existing budget shifts

6. If you expect your firm to shift budgets to fund social media efforts in the future, which areas do you expect funding to come from? (select all that apply)

7. TODAY, what percentage of your firm's overall marketing spending does social media represent?

8. TWO years from now, what percentage of your firm's overall marketing spending do you expect social media to represent?

9. FIVE years from now, what percentage of your firm's overall marketing spending do you expect social media to represent?

10. How would you characterize the management of social media efforts in your organization?

	Highly decentralized
	Some centralization, some decentralization
	Highly centralized

11. Which of the following organizational areas are involved in the management of your firm's social media efforts? (select all that apply)

12. TODAY, how are your firm's current social media efforts allocated between "on-us" (i.e., focused on firm's own site) versus "off-us" (i.e., third party sites and platforms)?

	Efforts are all on-us
	Efforts are mostly on-us, with some off-us
	Efforts are mostly off-us, with some on-us
	Efforts are all off-us

13. TWO YEARS from now, how will your firm's social media efforts be allocated between "on-us" (i.e., focused on firm's own site) and "off-us" (i.e., third party sites and platforms)?

	Efforts will be all on-us
	Efforts will be mostly on-us, with some off-us
	Efforts will be mostly off-us, with some on-us
	Efforts will be all off-us

14. To what extent are the following objectives of your firm's CURRENT social media efforts?

	Not an objective	Somewhat of an objective	Strong objective
Engaging customers
Retaining customers
Building brand awareness
Building brand affinity
Managing corporate reputation
Generating sales/revenue
Reducing marketing costs
Reducing customer services costs
Managing stakeholder opinions
Managing crises

15. To what extent will the following be objectives of your firm's social media efforts TWO YEARS FROM NOW?

	Not an objective	Somewhat of an objective	Strong objective
Engaging customers
Retaining customers
Building brand awareness
Building brand affinity
Managing corporate reputation
Generating sales/revenue
Reducing marketing costs
Reducing customer services costs
Managing stakeholder opinions
Managing crises

16. For the following social media tools/techniques, which statement is most appropriate regarding your firm's use of these tools for its marketing efforts?

	We don't use this, and don't plan to in the next 12 months	We don't use this, but plan to in the next 12 months	We use this today
Facebook
Twitter
Blog
YouTube
LinkedIn
Flickr (or other photo-sharing site)
User-generated content
Customer review sites (e.g., Yelp)
Financial-services specific social networking sites (e.g., Zecco)

17. For each of the following social media tools/techniques, please indicate how effective you believe each can be in achieving the listed marketing objectives.

	Generating consumer awareness	Influencing consumer preference	Increasing customer engagement
Facebook
Twitter
Blog
YouTube
LinkedIn
Flickr (or other photo sharing site)
User-generated content
Customer review site
Financial services-specific social networking site

18. For each of the following social media metrics, please indicate:

1) How important is the metric as a gauge to evaluating social media results
2) If you currently measure the metric,and whether or not you plan to if you don't
3) Your assessment of how well your firm is performing on that measure relative to your peers (by placing your firm in the top, second, third, or bottom quartile of performance).

	Importance?	Measure?	Assessment?
	Importance?	Measure?	Assessment?	SHARE OF VOICE -- Relative percentage of brand mentions in social channels [Brand Mentions/Category Mentions] ____________________
AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT -- Percentage of visitors who contribute comments or links [Contributors/Total Visitors] ____________________
CONVERSATION REACH -- Number of visitors who participate in brand, issue, or topic conversations [Total People Participating/Total Audience] ____________________
ACTIVE ADVOCATES -- Number of individuals generating positive sentiment over a given time frame [Number of Active Advocates w/in past 30 days/Total Advocates] ____________________
ADVOCATE INFLUENCE -- Relative percentage of influence for an individual advocate in social media channels [Unique Advocate's Influence/Total Advocate Influence] ____________________
ADVOCACY IMPACT -- Direct or indirect contributions of advocacy on conversions [Number of Advocacy Driven Conversions/Total Advocacy Traffic Volume] ____________________
RESOLUTION RATE -- Percentage of customer service inquiries resolved satisfactorily using social media channels [Total Number of Issues Resolved Satisfactorily/Total Number of Service Issues] ____________________
RESOLUTION TIME -- Amount of time required to produce a human-generated response to customer service issues posed in social media channels [Total Inquiry Response Time/Total Number of Service Inquiries] ____________________
SATISFACTION SCORE -- Indexed score indicating the relative satisfaction of customers [(Customer Feedback (input A, B, C...n)/All Customer Feedback] ____________________
TOPIC TRENDS -- Brand/ product/ service topics identified by monitoring social media conversations [Number of Specific Topic Mentions/All Topic Mentions] __________________________
SENTIMENT RATIO -- Ratio of positive: neutral: negative brand mentions [(Positive : Neutral : Negative Brand Mentions)/Add Brand Mentions] ____________________
IDEA IMPACT -- Rate of interaction, engagement and positive sentiment generated from a new product or service idea [Number of Positive Conversations, Shares, Mentions/Total Idea CSMs] ____________________

19. Please enter your contact information to receive a copy of the final report from this survey.

Title

Company Name

Country

Email Address

20. May we contact you to learn more about your organization's social media strategies and efforts?

	Yes
	No

	TV advertising
	Print advertising
	Radio advertising
	Direct marketing
	Promotions
	Public relations
	Trade shows/Events
	IT
	Other
	Don't know

	TV advertising
	Print advertising
	Radio advertising
	Direct marketing
	Promotions
	Public relations
	Trade shows/Events
	IT
	Other
	Don't know

	Too small to measure
	One or two percent
	Between two and five percent
	Between six and ten percent
	Between ten and twenty-five percent
	Between twenty-five and fifty percent
	Greater than fifty percent
	Don't know
	We don't have a separate social media budget

	Too small to measure
	One or two percent
	Between two and five percent
	Between six and ten percent
	Between ten and twenty-five percent
	Between twenty-five and fifty percent
	Greater than fifty percent
	Don't know
	We don't have a separate social media budget

	Too small to measure
	One or two percent
	Between two and five percent
	Between six and ten percent
	Between ten and twenty-five percent
	Between twenty-five and fifty percent
	Greater than fifty percent
	Don't know

	Marketing
	IT
	Customer service
	Online channel group
	PR
	Branch channel
	Other