Commonwealth Bank’s Facebook page turns one – over 100,000 Likes achieved in just 12 months

Today Commonwealth Bank is celebrating its one year anniversary on Facebook with a new milestone of over 100,000 fans. Since launching its Facebook page, the Bank has been working hard on developing and implementing a solid strategy to not only keep current fans engaged through interactive content, but create an environment for the community to unite, share suggestions, seek advice and receive active real-time responses directly from the Bank’s dedicated customer service team.

The Bank’s content strategy has resulted in multiple ground breaking social campaigns that have not only exceeded internal expectations, but have been shortlisted for a number of local and international awards:

·         Community Seeds (May 2011): Fans were invited to give away over $125,000 of the Bank’s money to six community organisations in need, by voting via the Community Seeds Facebook tab. Community Seeds is currently a finalist in the AMIA awards, as well as the global Facebook Studio awards.

·         Facebook Deals (August 2011): Partnered with Facebook to launch Facebook Deals to the Australian market. The Bank’s ‘Open a saving account and receive free movies passes for a year’ sold out in three days with the campaign being referred to as the ‘most aggressive deal’ in the launch.

·         Thank You (October 2011): Customers were invited to select one free gift out of a choice of three (EMI Music voucher, Gloria Jean’s voucher, Movie voucher) for making Commonwealth Bank – 2011 Money Magazine Bank of the Year. The campaign sold out in three days.

·         Centenary Time Vault (November 2011): Fans were sent on a two week treasure hunt with a question on the Bank’s history posed each day for a chance to win $2,000 per day.

·         Hussy’s Lunch Time Legends (December 2011 – currently active): Each lunch break of the Test matches, the Bank post an episode of “Hussey’s Lunchtime Legends” on the Love Cricket tab. Each episode tests the audience with a video question delivered by Hussey about his favourite all-time great cricket moments. Each answer is multiple choice, and easy to find for fans. The daily prizes range from cricket packs to signed memorabilia.

In addition to providing engaging content for the Bank’s Facebook community, the Bank has also leveraged the expertise of the customer service team to respond to any banking enquires via its Facebook wall in real time, extending its customer service model beyond traditional phone and branch interactions.

Andy Lark, Commonwealth Bank Chief Marketing and Online Officer shares his delight at the Bank’s success:

“100,000 fans in 12 months is further recognition of our status as Australia’s favourite bank. We’re less interested in the industry echo-chamber and more interested in building bridges to customers in new ways. November saw us reach an engagement rate of over 20%, one of the highest globally for any Facebook page. Social platform, Facebook in particular, provide an opportunity to support and serve customers in new ways. We are now one of the top banks in the world when it comes to online, and this can be seen not only through our success on Facebook, but our monthly NetBank figures – approx. 1.7 million Australians log onto NetBank every day.”

In late December, Commonwealth Bank became one of the first in the world to enable customers to pay each other in Facebook using its revolutionary CommBank Kaching iPhone application. On its own, Kaching works to provide instant updates and payments – a first for an Australian bank, along with payments to mobile phone numbers, email and Facebook addresses. With the simple addition of a case to the iPhone, Kaching enables tap-and-go payments – turning the iPhone into a wallet.

“We see our online leadership with the likes of Commbank Kaching and investment in other channels such as Twitter and Google+ – as critical service and support channels, as ultimately being the springboard to social success.”