Social media offers the chance for companies to improve engagement with UK credit cardholders. But credit card issuers have yet to solve how to best use Facebook et al to drive increased engagement and loyalty.

According to research issued by Auriemma Consulting Group (ACG), 71.7 per cent of credit cardholders already use social media and usage is increasing daily amongst younger and higher-income customers. But despite this, only 13.8 per cent are subscribed to their credit cards issuers’ Facebook page. Furthermore, some 68 per cent of the cardholders subscribed had not yet interacted through the channel (e.g., responded, replied, or shared a message).

The research showed that consumers must see clear and tangible value in order to subscribe and engage with credit card social media pages. Consumers were most interested in the ability to contact customer service through social media (34.1 per cent incidence rate), redeem exclusive rewards/special offers (32.5 per cent incidence rate), and sign up for cardholder subscriber events (30.1 per cent incidence rate).

“Social media is a huge opportunity for issuers, given its strong cardholder penetration,” says Matt Simester, managing director at ACG. “Social media provides a way to drive increased engagement and usage amongst cardholders, and is best suited as either a mass servicing or marketing channel, as one-on-one interaction remains difficult to accomplish. To drive stronger interest and engagement with social media, exclusive and frequent offers are key, which will also serve to differentiate issuers from the competition in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Issuers need to start spending as much time on engagement through this channel as phone and branch based services.”

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