By Lindsey Willinger

Social Media marketing can help to promote businesses no matter the industry.  The financial industry is beginning to become increasingly more active on social networks. Most financial firms are using Twitter, Facebook, and blogging a lot; however there are not many firms on YouTube, but a few. There are a lot of great free advice online about financial companies, as well as the companies’ testimonies.

Twitter contains a variety of types of financial companies. They include financial magazines such as Financial Times has a Twitter account. The Financial Times Twitter account gives financial update about the latest news, but also has a little financial information for followers.

As for actual financial firms there are many of them, some well known names and some not. Cake Financial out of California Twitter account has all the information about services they offer, and there are also many client shout-outs to them.  Bank of America and Wachovia Bank have similar Twitter accounts answering many followers’ questions, which can also be useful to others who might have the same question.

As for Facebook financial companies can obviously post more information about themselves as well as the services that they offer.  A unique and different approach to using Facebook as a vehicle to social media marketing is Mobank; only located in Missouri. Mobank’s Facebook account is unique because it is interactive for the community. Their content are all based on helping the community with finance and banking; therefore their Facebook fan page lets the community know how they are helping out as well as client testimonies that look extremely good for the company.

In other words, they aren’t just “selling” a product or themselves but using as a way to build up the community. Some banks and credit card companies are offering lower or no interest rates for the first year to Facebook fans that come in and apply for a credit card and mention their Facebook fan page.

Blogs seem to be most popular in the financial industry for social media marketing. Nicolet National Bank offers a blog page on their website that is actually making it easier for their clients to ask them questions. When a question is asked the President of Nicolet actually answers the questions, because security is a main concern only basic questions are answered. As for their blog post they have helped people with every question under the sun about financial situations and services and even offer some of their insight on the financial crisis going on and how to stay safe in.

A unique company U22, is a extremely different type of financial company that has taken full advantage of social media because of their targeted audience. U22 offers checking accounts to customer’s specificity between the ages of 12 and 22. Because this is Generation-Y targeted and all their potential or existing customers are already on social media sites they are seen everywhere. The most different place though they are seen is on YouTube. They make their own commercial on YouTube because they know this is where they’re targeted market is mostly. Their YouTube approach is also very different, they have a cast of people who are the faces for the company and then each of the faces have their own commercial to show who they really are. For example one of the faces of U22 is Alex, a broke college student who lets viewers into his life and what he likes to do while kind of making fun of himself.

These are just a few ways in which financial firms are promoting and marketing themselves on social media websites. There are many Facebook,  and Twitter accounts which have the same boring basic information. It just depends on the clients preference or prospective company and current company on the information that they are trying to find.