Virgin Money

Virgin Money takes the double gold medal in our league table, achieving both the highest reach and satisfaction scores in this league table.

Virgin Money is well established on social media platforms, with over 5k Facebook fans and nearly 2k Twitter followers. The company has shown that it understands the rules of engagement when it comes to social media, with a good mix of content, competitions, and regular updates creating a truly engaged audience.

The biggest win, however, has to be the company’s incredible satisfaction score, which has been boosted greatly by the public reception of Virgin Money Giving, the company’s answer to JustGiving. One Twitter user said “I use Virgin Money because I understand they take a smaller cut. Have had a few people refuse to donate to JustGiving pages”

On forums, users this month discussed Virgin Money’s pre-pay Mastercard – several users posted positive comments about it, and others reflected that it could be useful given the current news regarding Sony PSN being hacked. The small amount of negative sentiment related to telephone waiting times for Virgin Money’s customer service – although many customers grudgingly admitted that staff were very helpful when they finally got through.

Recommendations: Virgin Money covers a wide range of topics through social media, ranging from Poetry to Marathons. While this is creating excellent engagement, there is a small risk of losing focus on the brand and its services.

Tesco Bank

Tesco Bank last month reported that profits rose 5.6% in the last year, and this area of the business features strongly across all social media channels. They achieve a strong reach score, but their satisfaction score is decidedly average.

Despite setting up a Twitter account in January last year, the bank has posted just one tweet, and there is no official Facebook presence for Tesco Bank, meaning that most references currently come from customers and potential customers.

Tesco Bank’s reach is strongest on forums, especially sites like Moneysavingexpert, where most discussion revolves around applications for credit cards and loans. Users are comparing quotes and interest rates, and Tesco receive mostly favourable reviews, especially around the generous interest rate on their bond scheme. Users also seem to be particularly satisfied with Tesco Bank’s low insurance premiums, and their willingness to pay out for vet bills and car insurance claims. However, Tesco Bank’s satisfaction score has fallen significantly in the last month, as the result of a number of complaints about customer service. Some customers have reported that the company has been slow to respond to their complaints, and a number of Twitter users were disgruntled that they could not use their Tesco credit card to pay for their purchases from Tesco Online.

Recommendations: Tesco bank has reserved their Twitter handle, so now would be a great time to begin forming a content strategy and using the account as a first step in engaging with users through social media.

M&S Money

M&S Money achieves a poor reach score, but achieves an above-average satisfaction rating, mainly due to positive responses to the exchange rates on their travel money. Many references to M&S money on social media come from Twitter users sharing job adverts for the company, and the second largest source of references this month comes from social media users sharing the results of a recent M&S survey which revealed that almost half of over 45s are not saving for their retirement. This is very much a PR-focussed strategy for M&S money, whereas the global M&S brand has build up a formidable following on Facebook and Twitter.

Recommendations: M&S may not feel it is appropriate to create specific social media presences for M&S money, but they could certainly harness the large audiences of their main accounts to create engagement around the Money sub-brand, particularly as in summertime, foreign exchange is a key part of holiday-planning.

Sainsbury's Finance

Sainsbury’s Finance takes fourth place, achieving just under a third of the reach score of Tesco Bank in social media, with a much lower level of conversations taking place on forum sites and Twitter, and again no official social media presences were found. It seems that the company is instead investing in PPC ads, with their “Nectar Point Calculator” appearing on relevant blogs such as dogsloversdigest.com.

A significant number of users have taken part in discussions about Sainsbury’s finance on forums, and several types of queries resurface frequently, such as potential customers asking how long on average it takes for loan / credit card applications to be processed, and specific queries from customers who are uncertain about the circumstances in which their insurance policy will pay out, potentially indicating a need for the company to look for new ways to convey the answers to these FAQs.

Recommendations: One Twitter user stated that the newsletter from Sainsbury’s finance had been flagged by his Hotmail account as “very suspicious”. This may result in emails being redirected to junk mail folders and decrease the open rates for newsletters, and so should be promptly investigated and addressed if necessary.

ASDA Financial Services

ASDA Financial Services achieves the lowest reach score of all 5 providers we researched this month, with a very low level of daily references and a satisfactions score which has taken a tumble in the last month as a result of a news story about the company refusing to issue a disabled man with a replacement chip and signature card, thus breaching the Equality Act. The story was posted on several influential sites including which.co.uk, and shared by a number of Twitter users.

Recommendations: The main issue for ASDA is their lack of reach in social media, which may indicate lower levels of awareness than their rivals. ASDA positions itself as the UK’s low-price supermarket, so a tie-in with a site like MoneySavingExpert could reinforce this positioning. Launching a Finance blog on their Aisle Spy site with money-saving tips and advice could also be beneficial.