Social Media Report

Citizens current uses of Facebook:

Citizens Bank and Trust currently uses two social media sites: Facebook and Twitter. The

Citizens Facebook page currently has 175 likes and a total of 9 people have checked in or “said they were

here.” Many of Citizens Facebook posts are pertaining to things happening within their branches’

communities. We found several posts promoting events like Comet indoor soccer games, and contests

offering tickets to special games, like the Home Opener. The first example below is fairly old, but it is

included to show that Citizens Bank & Trust has made an effort to promote its name by using unique

tactics to get consumers involved.

Another great social media element that Citizens Bank already does is updates about its branches. Below

are several examples of how Citizens Bank & Trust interacts with each branch’s community, and how it

comes across on social media. The first example is a post shared by the Citizens Bank and Trust branch in

Maryville, Missouri from Northwest Missouri State University. The post talks about how Campus Dining

provides free lunch for local businesses that have entered in “ForeverGreenFridays” and shows how

committed Citizens is to its community and neighbors. The second example below shows a picture of

another Citizens branch that is posing with a local philanthropic effort. The third example is from the

Burlington Junction branch and shows the personality of the people in that branch. The picture is of a

cupcake bake off event that the branch held. These are great posts that bring Citizens Bank’s personality

to light, and helps to build trust in the mind of the consumers.

Another thing that Citizens has recently started doing with their Facebook page is something called a

“Weekly Market Insight.” Below is an example of what these insights look like, and it looks like this is a

new social media strategy for the year 2014. The example below shows the most recent “Weekly Market

Insight” and as you can see, there is a piece of stock market news. Each post helps to update the viewer

and give them an inside scoop on the market and what’s going on. It would be neat to see something like

this directed towards agricultural lending specifically, and to see how many farmers we could reach with

the right strategy.

While all of these examples are good practices for Citizens Bank & Trust, the problem here is the lack of

activity on any given post. The most amount of “likes” we found was 31 for a photo of the ribbon cutting

of a new branch, and 9 likes for the dog photo post that is above; however there are several posts with

minimal or no user interaction.. These numbers leave a lot of room for improvement, and could possibly

improve by gaining more “likes” to the page and driving more traffic to the page. Promoting the

Facebook page could be as simple as promoting the page at community events, or even putting the phrase

“like us on Facebook” on Citizens Bank and Trust merchandise. Although the numbers for Citizens Bank

and Trust have room for improvement, the bank is still posting more than competitor, Nodaway Valley

Bank. When looking specifically at posts that were geared towards agricultural lending, we came across

only one post. The beginning was confusing to me, possibly because it is from 2011 and there was

nothing that looked like material this post was responding to. The main part of this message lists off a few

of Citizens major banking services and specifically mentions agriculture and agribusiness loans. If there

were more posts like this in the future there is a possibility for increased exposure to the farming

community. The second example below is a post we found that relates to agriculture, though not in a

banking sense. The post is about a grill out at all branches, and mentions that the International Ag

students will be grilling to raise money for a trip. We believe this is something that Citizens would be

wise to use again in an effort to reach farm and ag communities and increase the number of loans they

disperse for agriculture.

Citizens Bank & Trust is also utilizing Twitter as a social media outlet. Currently Citizens Bank has 138

followers, 493 tweets, and is following 25 different accounts. The banner for Twitter does a great job of

providing their website URL, and their focus on the Midwest. One weakness on the banner is that it does

not include agricultural lending in the description. For a vast majority of its posts on Twitter, Citizens is

just linking to a post on their Facebook page. Below is a screenshot of just a few posts in a row, (one each

day) that all linked to an identical Facebook story that offered a bit more information. The second

example below is a screenshot of the types of companies and accounts that Citizens Bank is following on

Twitter. All of these accounts, with the exception of the FDIC, are geared specifically at the Kansas City

area, and specific organizations within that metro.

Below is a screenshot of a tweet, by Taylor Lee, an employee of a Go Banking Rates. Taylor is someone

in the finance industry who is paid to tweet information about industry news and bank rates. The tweet by

Ms. Lee is praising Citizens Bank for having exceptional Account Savings Rates, and is great PR.

Competitive Analysis:

Bank Citizens Bank Nodaway Valley Bank Farm Credit ServiceFacebook Likes 177 74 685Facebook Content Have been on

Facebook since 2011. Many posts promote community involvement, financial advice, and special topics such as holiday trivia.

They have a Facebook page, but there are no posts, at all, on their page.

Have been on Facebook since 2009. Many of their posts keep you informed on the staff that works there, and highlights employees who do their job well. There are also posts about philanthropic events, much like that Citizens has, though on a larger scale, due to FCS being a larger institution.

Twitter Followers/Tweets

141 Followers/ 499 Tweets

8 Followers/ 0 Tweets 5,903 Followers/ 978 Tweets

Twitter Content Citizens Bank and Trust has Twitter post connected to Facebook posts. Usually the posts are exactly the same, with a link to the actual Facebook page. The posts include community events, financial advice, and special topics.

Nodaway does have a Twitter account, but there are absolutely no posts.

FCS does a great job or retweeting anything and everything that pertains to agribusiness and the farming industry. Below is a screenshot of what many of their retweets look like. The frequency that FCS tweets seems to be every few days, though when they have an event going on they tend to tweet more than once a day, about that event. The second screenshot is an example of a special interest post about the recently passed farm bill.

National uses of social media by banks:

Banks all over the United States are utilizing social media to connect with its customers. By

visiting the Facebook pages and Twitter accounts of various banks, it is clear that social media is

not used solely for the sales. The banks want input from customers so that they can keep

improving their services. They want to hear what customers like and dislike and what they can

do to keep their customers trust. Banks are constantly trying to find ways to connect with their

customers and share interests. Ways that different banks have done this is by personalizing

credit and debit cards to appeal to different customers. By using social media, one bank has

introduced new images that are available for customers to personalize their credit and debit cards

with. This allowed the bank to view the feedback on what the customers thought about the new

images.

By posting these images on Facebook, the bank had simple and easy way to get the customers

believing that their bank was adhering to various personalities. It is important for banks to show

their customers that they know each person is different and has different needs and wants.

Banking is not a “one size fits all” industry, and by showing customers ways to personalize their

experience with the bank is a good way to gain loyalty and trust.

Other ways that the banks utilize their social media is to inform customers of special topics or

local events going on in the community. It is a common theme for banks to promote the

community they have branches in. Examples of this include breast cancer awareness posts in

October, and athletic sponsorship posts for in-season sports.

Promotional posts are commonly made to get customers into their local banks to sign up for a

new account, or even to get them to take an online survey. Banks may give gifts as incentive to

take a survey, where the information will be used to help the bank learn more about its

customer’s needs and wants. Banks offer incentives to their customers who have been loyal to

them as well. IPads, bag chairs, and Amazon gift cards are just some of the promotional gifts

that banks around the United States are giving to customers.

Along with promotional posts, some banks offer daily facts about accounts, interest rates and

loans. Some banks try to get their customers involved on social media by asking questions on

what the bank can improve on, or what customers would like to see from their banks, and

customers may comment on the posts directly. While researching banks in various regions, it

was clear that the majority of the posts featured are public interest; however banks do

incorporate some direct sales into their posts. Some posts specifically loan based were made in

humorous ways that drew attention, and appealed to a variety of people. Most of the loan posts

that we found were focused primarily on small business or home loans. To convey the message

that Citizens Bank is an agriculture bank—specifically offering agricultural loans—some of its

Facebook and Twitter posts need to appeal to farmers/ranchers. Hiring a freelance writer that

has the knowledge of agriculture and knows how to talk to farmers to develop posts would be

beneficial to Citizens Bank and Trust.

Other loan posts made were informative, or made to help answer any questions or concerns that

the customers may have. With the examples above, Citizens Bank would be able to alter the

posts to fit the target audience. The use of country singers, and agriculture related country songs

could be one way to promote agricultural lending. Another way for Citizens Bank and Trust to

reach specifically farmers would be to create agricultural lending accounts for Facebook and

Twitter. Content would be specifically targeted toward farmers and ranchers with posts relating

to ag lending advice, promotions, seasonal topics.

Although we were unable to find many posts by actual banks directed toward agricultural loans,

we were able to find posts made by Farm Plus Financial and Farm Ag Loans on Twitter.

(Twitter posts found on Twitter through searching the term “Farm Loans”)

Target uses of social media:

According to an article in Hay & Forage Grower entitled “Farmers Connect with Social Media,”

Mike Haley decided in 2010 that he wanted to experiment on social media. He and a few others

decided to start and AgChat Foundation that utilized Twitter to connect with other farmers to

share stories and advice about farming. Today, AgChat has over 40,000 followers that engage in

the weekly conversations. (Holin) AgChat is just one of the many ways that farmers across

America are utilizing social media.

The Facebook page for Farmers’ Almanac allows for visitors to view tips and tricks that would

be found in the actual publication. With over 150,000 likes, the page gets a lot of interaction

with its followers. Farmers’ Almanac also includes a statistical page, which tells us the average

age group for the page visitors. The majority of the people visiting the site range from the age of

45 to 54, which overlaps with the average age of farmers.

We found that on other agricultural Facebook communities, farmers are sharing news, funny

photos, and engaging in conversations with one another. Agriculture Everyday is a Facebook

community dedicated to those who are interested in agriculture. On this page, users often share

the stories and photos to put on their personal walls, which then can be seen by some of their

farming “friends” on Facebook.

Some farmers are using social media for personal reasons. Examples of these include posts

asking for donations to start a farm/continue their farm, the John Deere page asking visitors to

share their stories about John Deere, and some promoting their business or selling farming

products. Farmall International Harvester includes posts seeking advice from followers, and

trivia questions to get users involved. The brand also features posts with photos of tractors, and

videos of people using the tractors.

Missouri Farmers Care is another Facebook page that is made up of over 40 farming groups that

work together to defend farmer’s rights. This group offers information on various agriculture-

related topics, and agriculture-based news such as investigations of propane prices and ag

education being honored in the state of Missouri. This page offers infographics used in “protect

the harvest” campaigns and is also active in supporting the Missouri Farming Rights

Amendment. This page has over 6,000 likes, and offers a navigation tool that allows users to ask

Missouri farmers questions. Although there is not anything related to banking in these Facebook

pages, we will be utilizing the ability to ask farmers questions on this page and can hopefully

gain knowledge of their banking habits as it relates to social media.

Citizen’s Bank and Trust Social Media Plan:

Their needs to be a social media focus mainly targeted on the use of Facebook. As of

right now, Citizens Bank and Trust has its Twitter account linked to the posts that it has on

Facebook.

We have created sample posts that focus on agriculture to position Citizens Bank and

Trust as an ag bank. The posts we have created feature some of the information that can be

found on the agriculture page of the Citizens Bank and Trust website www.ebankcbt.com. These

posts are created to promote the content that the SEO/SEM team has proposed Citizens adopt,

and will mirror the content on the page. The first post is of “Market Price Monday” which shows

the current market prices. This will be posted every Monday morning, but will be featured on

Citizens Bank and Trust’s website every day. This post is meant to show visitors that Citizens is

an ag bank, and what content they can find on the website. This will also drive more traffic to

the website.

The next post we created is about the tractor cruise sponsored by Citizens Bank and

Trust. This shows visitors that Citizens is involved with community events, but more

importantly agriculture related events. We have posted a link to the registration page to

encourage visitors to explore more about the tractor cruise and to show up for a fun filled day

sponsored by Citizens.

We decided to create posts that spotlight our agricultural lending officers. This is a great

chance to get the faces of the loan officers in front of the people and to share some of their

backgrounds in the banking business, but more specifically their history and knowledge of

agriculture. We want our visitors to be able to pick them out at our community events and notice

that it is them flipping the pancakes or handing out water bottles along the tractor cruise.

The last sample post we created features a link to set up a free texting service to receive

the weather report. The information will also be featured on Citizens website in an effort to

drive traffic to the Ag page. As for Staci Baker, and other loan officers that may use Facebook,

we propose adopting a prosumer style of posting. Let your posts reflect your professional

conduct, and include personal details in small amounts. We propose using popular social media

trends such as hashtags to show personality. We created a post, using Staci Baker as a model that

shows both knowledge of the farming community and lifestyle, and a personal connection to the

job at hand. These “personal” posts do not have to be on a daily or weekly schedule, but rather

scattered. The agricultural loan officers can slowly start to incorporate these posts, at a natural

progression.

Based on the preceding analysis, along with our target market research, we believe the

primary social media outlet for Citizens Bank & Trust should be Facebook. This seems to be the

one social media site that is most common among farmers, and CB&T already has a presence

there. Also, the media team is recommending buying ads in Facebook to send messages to the

hard-to-reach, rural farmers. Collectively, we can concentrate several marketing goals toward

Facebook. Since this report is to help establish the agricultural side of CB&T on social media,

we've made some recommendations as to how best to approach that goal, starting with “Market

Price Mondays.” This post will include information on the current market prices as well as a link

to the CB&T agricultural website. This is an effort to drive traffic to the CB&T website as well

as establish Citizens credibility as an agricultural bank by providing the information farmers

need.