Five social conversations that
Western Union cares about
Western Union’s business is social in nature. It is relationship-driven.
In 2014 alone, Western Union completed 255 million consumer-to-
consumer transactions worldwide and 484 million business payments.
As a company, Western Union engages with 6.2 million followers across
owned social channels.
Listening and conversations are the founda-
tion of social marketing, and each of these
conversations has helped us become more
knowledgeable and engaged with our custom-
ers and employees.
The customer conversation
Consumers, before making buying decisions
today, often look to what other consumers
are saying about a brand and its products/
services on social media.
Additionally, the conversation between exist-
ing consumers and brands has added a new
dimension to how marketers interact with their
target audience.
Social listening, because of its immediacy
and the fact that it taps a global audience, is a
powerful tool capable of generating actionable
insights that has enabled us to manage our
customers proactively as well as anticipate
needs.
The leadership conversation
When a company is small, communication
among employees is as simple as rolling a
desk chair around the room to talk to one
another. But as a company grows, commu-
nication becomes more difficult, especially in
complex multinational corporations. Strategic
direction can suffer as a result.
To achieve leadership in today’s global
marketplace, companies rely on consultants
or in-house professionals to draft messages,
speeches, white papers, etc.
However, innovative thinking often occurs
across an organization, from senior manage-
ment to junior team members, to marketing,
communications and product teams.
Leadership engagement, particularly in the
form of smaller groups or 1:1 conversations
is critically important. In Western Union’s
experience, it’s at this level that true alignment
begins and the next big idea surfaces.
The brand conversation
A brand is bolstered by the accumulation of
experiences in the mind of customers and
now, with social media, brand perception is
greatly influenced by the conversations about
those experiences.
Brands have always tried to speak to custom-
ers in an emotionally rich and engaging way,
thereby humanising themselves with con-
sumers. In the olden days, this was achieved
primarily through one way TV ads.
Today, we have the opportunity to have a
1:1 conversation with our customers through
social platforms. Social brings the humanisa-
tion of our brand to another level altogether;
conversations become two-way, to the point
that consumers co-create content with us
through their interactions.
The social responsibility conversation
Western Union provides vital financial ser-
vices to individuals and businesses that may
lack access to, or whose needs are not being
met by, the mainstream financial system.
Cross-border remittances provide much-need-
ed revenue for education, housing, health
care and more.
At Western Union, shared value means offer-
ing products and services that create shared
value – simultaneously driving revenue and
benefiting society.
Beyond this, Western Union brings together
thought leaders to identify ways to profitably
address social problems.
The employee conversation
Increasingly employees are using social
media to share information about their job and
the companies they work for and Western
Union’s employees are no exception.
As its social media presence has grown,
Western Union has also seen that many em-
ployees are some of its best brand advocates
and as a result the employee conversation
becomes very important because it amplifies
the real life experience of the people who
represent the brand.
Impact
So what has the result of all of these conver-
sations been for the Western Union brand?
Western Union has gathered invaluable in-
sights about its customers, helped thousands
of customers through our 24x7/ 365 social
care and created a lot of brand advocacy
and awareness along the way. Take a look at
the table to see the full impact of this social
engagement for the Western Union brand.
3
Simonetta Rigo, Vice President,
Global Brand & Marketing, Western Union
WU Social – Impact
•
WU Social
grew
its social audience
481%
while
decreasing
its
negative sentiment
score by
44% to 4%
YoY (June 2014 –
June 2015)
•
In comparison to other financial services
brands whose engagement on Facebook
decreased 24% between Q4 2014 and Q1
2015, customer engagement on the
WU
Global page increased 17%
Q/Q (Q4
2014 – Q1 2015),
•
The Western Union Global Facebook
page is leading its competitors in relative
fan growth
and
average post engage-
ment
and is the 5th largest Facebook
page in financial services globally
•
Total Engaged Users on WU Global Page
grew +313% YoY (June 2014 – June
2015)
Simonetta Rigo, Vice President
2 Eurogiro News
