Social Media Banking Models: a Case Study of à Practical Implementation in Banking Sector

Social media are a part of the top IT trends of the technology world together with mobility, big data, cloud, and others. Banks and most business organizations are aware of the power of social media and are active on social platforms. They are valuing this media not only as a means to reach out to customers but also to conduct business. In banks’ practice there are four main models for applying of social media banking – use of social platforms as a marketing tool, as a communication channel, as a channel for feedback and reactions and for transactional social banking, where banks allow their customers to realize active operations. Worldwide there are already present successful examples from banks to implement transactional social banking. Our study focus is on the use of the models of social media banking in the five largest banks in Bulgaria. The results indicate that the banks use the first three models, but currently underestimate the use of transactional social banking with the possibility of active operations on social media platforms. With the purpose of checking the actual attitudes of one of the main target groups of banks - young customers in Bulgaria, a research with the help of an online questionnaire about the use of social platforms and consumer attitudes on social banking for active operations is conducted. Among active young users and especially ones aged 18-24 in academics, social platforms, mainly Facebook, are very popular and are visited every day. However their current views on active social banking are overwhelmingly negative caused mainly by doubts about security. Our research shows that in perspective customers alter their attitudes and are viewing positively the possibility for transactional social media banking in case banks guarantee higher security levels. Because of the wide reach of social networking among Bulgarian users but also the change in views about the transactional social banking a forecast can be made for growth and affirmation of transactional social banking as an innovative digital channel if banks on Bulgarian market offer adequate level of security.