Many businesses, including auto lenders, continue to use social media channels like Facebook and Twitter to build up brand recognition and bond with customers and fans. Other channels, such as photo-sharing app Instagram and six-second video app Vine, are trickier to use for that purpose. I mean, an auto loan contract doesn’t make for a very thrilling photo, does it?
But a recent social-media campaign by Honda, to promote its Summer Clearance Event, mastered the art of both branding and bonding. Using the hashtag #wantnewcar, the automaker asked people to tweet their car-related complaints, and then responded to each one with a fun, live Vine video that ended up urging people to get a new Honda during the sales event.
How successful was the campaign? Very. According to Brandchannel, #wantnewcar had 6,895 Twitter mentions from 5,617 users and approximately 14.8 million Twitter impressions. The word “Honda” garnered 247 million impressions in a three-day span.
Imagine if Honda’s captive, or any other auto lender for that matter, got that much response about one of its initiatives. Maybe Vine won’t be the best way to grow from an origination standpoint, but it would be an additional and entertaining way for financial institutions to interact with their clients and potential borrowers, especially Millennials.
Why not have fun with the not-so-fun loan paperwork process in a series of videos, or have customer-service reps talk about problems they’ve resolved, what they like about their job, or even some random personal fact to give a face to that often faceless person at the other end of the phone? Thinking back to some of the lenders I’ve visited this year, many have pretty amazing offices and campuses that are just begging for behind-the-scenes footage.
These are just three simple examples of the endless possibilities Vine and Instagram, which recently added 15-second videos to its functionality, could help lenders become more than just companies to which consumers shell out a large chunks of money each month. It could make them more human, which could ultimately spur customer loyalty or prompt a potential new customer to visit a dealership one day and say, “I’d like to see what Lender X has to offer.”
Check out the campaign kick-off video above and be sure to look at some of the #wantnewcar videos that come up afterward.
