The Thinking Underlying American Express' Social Commerce Initiatives

Social Media Week came to my hometown of Chicago in late September. Finally! But, as luck would have it, I managed to get free to participate in exactly one (1) of the week’s events. I was determined to hear what American Express had to say and the discussion didn’t disappoint.

In the last year or so, American Express has established the world’s most followed financial services Twitter account, according to the VB Twitter watch. In fact, Visible Banking’s Christophe Langlois has pronounced American Express financial services’ “king of social media” altogether, for both business-to-business and business-to-consumer.

Out-innovating Google, Groupon

But beyond its social communicating, American Express has been turning some heads and changing some minds in the area of digital commerce.

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Social Sharing Icons More Prevalent On Mutual Fund, ETF Sites With One Exception

Ambiguity surrounding FINRA guidance on social media (see this report from a February SEC event) forces some mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) marketers to resort to a familiar argument when appealing to their firms’ compliance officers. “But Fund Company XYZ does it, why can’t we?” The argument meets with limited success.

Investment company Websites provide ample signs of the divergence between compliance departments’ interpretation of the FINRA guidance (influenced probably by executive management’s appetite for stepping out socially). But today let’s look at just one narrow slice of social media the extent to which sites offer social sharing icons.

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And Now For A Splash Of Cold Water About Venturing Onto Other Domains

We consistently urge you to consider sharing your content and even limited functionality on other domains, primarily but not exclusively social networking sites. We’ve seen the effectiveness of content syndication and we stand by the recommendation.

But now seems like a good time to call your attention to the range of possibilities when venturing onto other domains. If you print and mail marketing pieces, if you advertise, if you send emails—heck, if you count on wholesalers to support a marketing campaign, you’re already familiar with the surprises/disappointments that can happen when you rely on others to deliver your message.

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How Much Traffic Is Facebook Driving To Your Site?

“That wouldn’t apply to us because… [wait for it] we’re in a regulated industry.”

There’s an underlying current in asset management marketing that trends that affect other industries don’t apply here. It’s an illusion that is almost never true online—what’s affecting other Web sites is probably affecting your mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) site, too.

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Asset Manager Site Traffic Also On The Decline—What's Your Content Syndication Plan?

It's natural to want and expect the traffic on your mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) Web site to grow. But let's take a look at three data sets that suggest that you may need to reset what constitutes success for your Web strategy.

#1 Traffic is declining on the large well-trafficked brand sites.

A couple of blog posts have been documenting this lately. Go to a Digital Buzz blog post  to see declining traffic patterns since 2007 of ESPN.com, eBay.com and Dell.com among others.

In the asset management vertical, look at traffic to Morningstar.com.

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