Social Media Marketing Strategies of Top Ghana Banks-Authentic Review

We live in a digital world. Digital marketing is a combination of how businesses are using online business directories (e.g. Google MyBusiness, Ghana Yellow Pages), their company websites, their social media business pages, and sometimes their own mobile apps to bring their businesses online.

Every business (small, medium, or large) should have an online presence. Your budget determines the ones you can start with. Nevertheless, banks are large corporations. Hence, they have enough resources to use every digital marketing platform available. But although they have the teams and money to do so, their digital marketing strategies are usually not praiseworthy. 

In this report, I assessed the social media marketing strategy of the top 3 banks in Ghana. I wanted to review the top 10 banks. But I did it for only 3. Why only 3? First, a social media marketing audit is no child’s play. It takes a lot of effort and time. Second, I recognized a pattern. These top 3 are a reflection of the kind of digital marketing happening in the Ghanaian banking industry. Hence, there was no need for me to continue with the remaining 7. The results were going to be similar.

The top 3 banks I assessed were Ecobank Ghana Limited, GCB Bank Ltd, and Stanbic Bank Ghana Limited. How did I arrive at these top 3? The Ghana Banking Survey 2022 says these banks have the highest deposits. As in, they are the banks Ghanaians put lots of money in now. So, let’s review the social media marketing strategy of the banks receiving more deposits than the others. Whether you are interested in the banking industry or not, this review will inform you about social media marketing best practices to do.

Ecobank Ghana Limited

Overview

Facebook: 190k likes (verified account). 

Twitter: 6.2k followers (unverified account).

Instagram: 13.8k followers (unverified account).

LinkedIn: 25.4k followers (unverified account)

Pros:

• The Facebook page is verified.
• Facebook button leads to the installation of their mobile app
• Ecobank runs social media ads 

Cons:

• The same content is posted on all social media platforms. This is not social media best practice. See my recommendations below for further details.
• The contents posted are mostly about the bank, its products, services, and announcements. 
• Influencer marketing is not relevant to the business goals of the bank. How does using King Promise as an influencer help them achieve their business goals? An influencer who falls within the financial market niche is more suitable for Ecobank. I don’t see how King Promise’s brand aligns with that of a financial institution. If it had been a motivational speaker (e.g. Albert Ocran), it would have been better than an entertainer. Nevertheless, the best option is to look for an influencer in the financial market niche and work with him or her.
• Low engagement on posts (about 0.031% on Facebook).

GCB Bank Ltd 

Overview 

Facebook: 500k likes (verified account)

Twitter: 46.8k followers (unverified account)

Instagram: 48.8k followers (verified account)

LinkedIn: 66.5k followers (unverified account)

Pros:

• Attempts to drive engagement with “Happy New Month” posts and asks their audience what the names of the month are called in their local languages. 
• Responds to comments under posts frequently 

Cons:

• GCB reposts the same content on all their social media platforms. And about 90% of their posts are about the bank and its products & services.
• Has lots of bad reviews on Facebook. This is the power of social media. But it helps you to contact the aggrieved customer directly and resolve their issues. Then you can ask them to update the review stating that the problem has been solved.  I didn’t see this happening. Rather, there was a flood of negative reviews hitting their Facebook page. It’s not good for business. The way things are now, anyone can easily use social media to steal your customers.
• Low post engagement (averagely 0.04% on Facebook, although they have some posts with 1000s of likes).
• Their Money Lab program is not broadcasted on their social media platforms, whether full or parts of it. Highlights from the program are not made into image posts for their audience to consume. They can use Facebook and Instagram live and Twitter space to host this program also.
• Looks like GCB Bank hardly runs social media ads.
• Account handlers reply to comments but they don’t like replying to negative comments. Both positive and negative comments should be addressed. Especially when negative comments are related to the bank’s products and services.
• Their Father’s Day event could have been used to generate post engagement (by asking people to comment with pictures of and praises for their fathers) or user-generated content (by asking users to make their own posts about their fathers and use GCB’s branded father’s day hashtag in their posts.  Then GCB would post such contents on their page).

Stanbic Bank

Overview 

Facebook: 286k followers (verified account)

Twitter: 34.7k followers (verified account)

Instagram: 56.5k followers (unverified account)

LinkedIn: 46.4k followers (unverified account)

Pros:

• The Facebook button leads to their corporate website.
• Stanbic Bank runs social media ads

Cons:

• Stanbic also posts the same content across its social media accounts and the majority of the posts are about the bank and its products & services.
• Looked like they lacked content ideas during the month of August 2022. They were constantly reposting videos from their Breakfast Meeting event.
• Posts don’t look planned.
• Low post engagement (averagely 0.014% on Facebook).

Recommendations for the Banks’ Social Media Marketing Strategy 

Please note, that this was not a digital marketing audit (did not include website, SEO,  etc). It was only a social media one. Moreover, it was not a full-scale social media review. If you are interested in having a digital marketing review for your company, kindly email us at bisa@ghanayellowpages.com with the title, “Digital Marketing Services”.

Here are the recommendations for the banks to use for their social media marketing strategy:

• Post different content on each platform. Duplicating content across Facebook, IG, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc is the worst social media practice anyone can ever do. The banks should desist from that. Besides, they should post content native to the specific platform (e.g. text on Twitter, video on Instagram, link on Facebook, etc).

• Respond to every comment, whether positive or negative. Remember to respond and not react.

• Post each day of the week, including weekends. There are people who only get to visit social media on weekends. This can be done by scheduling posts. And they should post a minimum of 1x a day on each platform. 

• Educate their audience on financial literacy. Financial literacy covers areas such as investment, budget, saving, borrowing and loan management, financial scams, taxes, etc. These are subjects both individuals and businesses are interested in. And banks are experts in these areas. But can you imagine none of the banks in Ghana are educating the public on financial literacy? All they care about are their products and services. They can use different social media platforms to handle different areas of financial literacy. 

• Post photos of their customers’ businesses and mention the achievements the customers are making in their businesses. They can do behind-the-scenes posts of their customers’ businesses. 

• Post pictures of their Employee of the Month award winners. They display it in their banking halls. It’s about time to showcase such employees on social media. And tag their personal social media accounts. 

• Motivational quotes on a weekly basis. At Ghana Yellow Pages, we post motivational quotes on Mondays. But they should verify the source before posting. Else, it may be flagged as misinformation. 

• Ask questions related to finances. 

• Do tutorial videos e.g. how to open a bank account, how to save your first GHC1,000 

• Post videos of the charitable activities they are embarking on. In business terms, it is called corporate social responsibility. 

• Follow social media trends and make posts accordingly.

• They get lots of negative comments under their posts. So I will suggest they post testimonials of some of their customers. It could be either video or photo. Then they tag the customer in the post. But they should carefully select the kind of customer in order to carry the kind of message they want. For example, on IG, they can use businesses that are popular in Ghana’s IG space (e.g. wedding related items vendors, fashion designers, bakeries, other food vendors, etc). This will easily resonate with the IG Ghanaian audience and will also seamlessly fit into the IG user experience. 

• Go beyond the use of branded and industry hashtags. See our Instagram video titled “Know the different types of hashtags” video for more.
• Keep sharing their products and services and content about them. But their share should not be more than 30% of total posts.  

Need help implementing these or similar ideas? You can email us at bisa@ghanayellowpages.com with the title “Digital Marketing Services” and we’ll pick it from there.