Let’s Build the Future Together is a social media campaign done by Huntington to start to understand their customers’ needs and wants as well as their aspirations in their finances personally and collectively in the future. It focuses on making Instagram a platform where customers are able to answer polls, communicate with the Huntington team, and further their thoughts on what they want their bank to look like. It emphasizes the importance of understanding your customer and making Huntington about the customer with the customer’s help.
“From posting hashtags to finding like-minded communities, social media has transformed where, when and how people engage with civic and political activities” (Bestvater, et al., 2023). Social media has started to become a place where people are actively trying to shape their societies.
Deinfluencing is a trend that has “a broader critique of the influencer economy and its functioning” (Bainotti, 2023). The “digitine” is an online “boycott of the corporation of celebrity” where people have the power to provide relevance to people, trends, or ideologies (Clements, 2024). Social media is giving people a strong voice and it is helping to “circulate knowledge,” “mobilise the stakeholders involved and, ultimately, drive action to shape more equal societies” (Wealth Inequality Initiative).
Banks are an integral part of our lives and they have the responsibility of making sure they are promoting the wellbeing of their customers and the systems they influence. By understanding this responsibility and the thoughts of their customer, they can work towards sustainable financial well-being now and in the future, but is it realistic to expect customers to constantly engage in social media platforms associated to their banks?
References:
Bainotti, L. (2023). TRENDING RESISTANCE: A STUDY OF THE TIKTOK #DEINFLUENCING PHENOMENON. The 24th Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers. https://spir.aoir.org/ojs/index.php/spir/article/view/13392/11514
Bestvater, S., Gelles-Watnick, R., Odabas, M., Anderson, M., & Smith, A. (2023 June 29). #BlackLivesMatter Turns 10. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2023/06/29/blacklivesmatter-turns-10/
Clements, O. (2024, June 12). Block Party – how Gen Z fans punished stars over perceived ethical inaction. Pulsar. https://www.pulsarplatform.com/blog/2024/genz-activism-block-influencers-analysis
Wealth Inequality Initiative. About the Wealth Inequality Initiative. https://www.wealth-inequality.net/about-wealth-inequality-initiative
