Introduction

Fast paced advancements in web technology and the rise of social media have now given vast amounts of power to the consumer, which has huge implications for acquisition and retention. This report dispels some myths commonly held by FS providers surrounding social media’s reach, purpose and value, and also highlights the dangers associated with a lack of adoption.

Scope

*Using extensive secondary and primary research, recent trends in social media and consumer appetites for its use in the FS space are identified

*Identification, and in-depth analysis, of assumptions commonly held by FS providers regarding social media’s reach, purpose and value

*Discussion of the dangers associated with lack of adoption

*Provision of concrete actions for FS providers to take in order to integrate social media into a holistic retention strategy

Highlights

In a world where social media is now hard to get away from, it is vital that FS providers acknowledge that it is no longer an option not to get involved with this medium in some way. Consumers are identifying with this channel above all other online services, so FS providers must increase their visibility here in order to be noticed.  Read more

Actually I took social bookmarks into my internet business promotional arsenal just one month ago, when I launched a new WordPress blog and installed the social bookmarks service in that.

The results came immediately: hundreds of new visitors to my blog and through that to my internet business links. What was amazing was the quickness how all that happened.

1. Social Bookmarks Climb High On The Search Engines.

On the top of quickness, the visitor flow seems to be constant, thanks to those about 20 sites, which I can add with One Click service.These internet home business contacts are very important, because the links are text-ads with search engine optimization.
By the way, the first post went to number 1 at Google in 1 hour, you read right: in one hour, when I bookmarked it to Digg, one of the best social bookmarking sites. The internet business keyword which I used had 10 WordTracker searches per day and it will bring targeted traffic to my homepage residually.
The core idea of the system is simple, we just submit bookmarks, or short textads, into special sites using keyword rich title, keyword rich description, keyword list or tags and put the bookmark into the right category. Now they are easy to find for the search engines and for the surfers, because they are optimized.  Read more

Nowadays all legitimate home based businesses have to consider the huge potential of social media to get their message across to potential customers. How effective you become at using this great resource will determine if your own enterprise will become one of the best home based businesses around, and develop a great ongoing income for you and your family

If you are not familiar with social media let me give you a few ideas of what it includes.

1. Blogging with a platform like WordPress or Blogger

2. Videos such as You Tube

3. Audio including podcasting

4. Micro-blogging like Twitter.com

5. Social directories such as Digg or Stumbleupon

6. Social networking with MySpace, Facebook and others.

7. And much more….

We are all getting used to these various forms of socially active media, and consider them to be a legitimate part of Internet marketing today. Therefore it only makes sense that any legitimate home-based business would include many of these forms of marketing their products online too.  Read more

Traditionally the financial sector leads technology innovation and used to invest huge sums in systems and software. Looking at the engagement rate of social media and the adoption of multichannel approaches it seems this industry is not yet embracing social media marketing (see graphic below)  - was it hit too hard by the credit crunch? Obviously there’s room to improve when it comes to engaging socially with customers or community building since many participants in that market are perceived rather monolithic and imposing as opposed to caring and engaging. Caused by the economic crisis in particular Banks also deal with trust issues which probably accelerate a change towards an opening to social media in the  future.

Social media engagement by industry

Nevertheless there are some success stories of how regulated industries like the financial industry can gain from social media and below are great example of sites in or about the industry from the world wide web.

Tracking social media participation

For some great insights and to get an overview of the adoption have a look at Visible Banking. It’s not very pleasing on the eye but is bursting with articles, interviews and a directory about social media initiatives of the financial services business. An example of its Twitter watch is here:  Read more

Abstract

The study seeks to provide a critique of the theoretical framework of economic governance as it relates to the financial sector in Zimbabwe and identify institutions in the financial sector and explain their roles. It also seeks to unpack the concepts related to the banking or the financial sector, with specific emphasis on the role of central banking from a policy and developmental perspective. Outline of the economic history of the development of the financial sector in Zimbabwe and the regulatory framework governing the financial sector will also be given. To capture the community’s view and experience of the financial sector within the period 2003 to 2009, recording of community voices has been done, with main emphasis on the views around the  inclusion or exclusion, popular notions of monetary policy and banking, and impact (perceived or real) of these on people’s social conditions. Finally the study seeks to equip the poor and grassroots communities and the working classes, to engage meaningfully in discussions on the role of monetary institutions as part of an ongoing engagement on economic and public policy advocacy.

Introduction  Read more