ING Direct - Essay Example

ING Direct al Affiliation ING Direct Introduction With the advent of social media tools, companies are increasingly looking to improve their online presence through internet based advertising in order to be dominant and acquire a competitive edge since they have realized that their customers are online. Therefore, a company that exhibits ingenuity in the way it combines the different social media tools or focuses on obtaining the maximum benefits using one social media tool acquires a competitive edge.

Social media tools are essential in providing a platform through which a business interacts with its existing customers while seeking out potential customers over the internet. In this case, the company’s social media tool should focus on ensuring that customers’ answers were satisfactorily addressed while issues raised by clients were expeditiously solved in order to promote trust and ensure customer loyalty. This should be the case for ING Direct Canada, which is seeking to enlarge its online presence as a response to the recent economic crisis with the campaign being the second launched by the company following another successful online promotion.

Although there are various alternatives that the company could choose to implement, the option of a corporate blog pose the greatest benefits from which the company could maximize its online presence while ensuring that it encouraged many users to save money with the bank. Corporate blogs Corporate blogs are increasingly becoming an innovative tool through which the company reaches its clients. More importantly, the fact that the company’s CEO could take part in conversation with customers makes them feel appreciated as an important part of the company, which consequently improves their confidence and loyalty towards the company.

For ING Direct, increased customer loyalty will ensure that customers increase their savings with the online bank since they are sure that the company offers a safe banking environment as assured by the company’s CEO. Impacts of online presence for a company The main goal of the company is to increase its online presence. In effect, increased online presence will translate to customer savings that could only be achieved by following the best social media tool that reaches people with incomes that they can save.

There are about 364 million readers of blogs worldwide with this number growing annually by 68%, which implies that the company could reach more clients in the future once it adopts this alternative.  More significantly, 77% of active web users are bound to read the content posted on blogs, which underlines the importance of developing a corporate blog for ING Direct. In this case, there is untapped potential in blogs with ING Direct standing to benefit on the choice of blogs as the approach that the company uses to establish an online presence.

Advantages of using corporate blogs Although there are no identified charges in case ING Direct opts for Facebook or Twitter as compared to the internal cost ranging between $1,500-2,000 when establishing a blog, it should be noted that a corporate blog has more potential than the other two alternatives. For example, in comparison to Facebook whereby 80% of the users are below the age of 35 years with the remaining percentage being over 35 years of age, 58% of blog users are above the age of 35 years while 42% of users are aged 18-34 year.

The value of comparing this demography is to emphasize on the age group that is more likely to have incomes and identify the social media tool that they are likely to visit. In this case, a majority of blog users are in an age bracket that understands the importance of saving and is more likely to be responsive to the company’s savings campaign unlike a majority of Facebook users, which is primarily made up of people who are dependent on their parents or guardians. Hence, ING Direct’s campaign is likely to draw more attention from the target population once it focuses on corporate blogs.

In comparison to the other option, which is Twitter, it is evident that most users of this social media tool have a less disposable income in comparison to blog users. In this regard, about half of Twitter users have household incomes that are less than $75,000 with 51% blog users earning more than $75,000. In effect, blog users are more likely to save than Twitter users. Additionally, though the use of blogging may have taken a back seat with the advent of social media, it is progressively regaining its recognition as a trusted resource in business.

This has been made possible thanks to the changes that have been put in place by Google’s algorithm which is commonly known as Panda and Penguin, which serve to give much weight to original content. In that regard, though people had become more enamored in such social networking cites like Twitter and Facebook, they do not offer the convenience of full-length blogs. It is for this particular reason that many marketing professional who were responding to a survey conducted by Social Media Examiner found out that a majority of them (62%) wanted to master blogging and not Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

Conclusion In conclusion, a corporate blog is the best alternative that ING Direct could use to ensure that it increased its online presence while targeting more users who are likely to save with the bank when compared to other social media tools. Although there is a cost attributed to the establishment of the blog, it is crucial to point out that the company could have more benefits in implementing this option since it will target users who will enable the company meet its objective of ensuring that people saved with the bank.