On July 2010, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that “Gen Y lacks confidence about making financial decisions”. Despite stepping up their marketing efforts, investment companies claim that they cannot get the attention of Gen Y.
As an example, Bloomberg Businessweek cites that fewer than 4,000 Facebook users have clicked the “like” button for Fidelity’s Page and about 9,000 have done so for Vanguard’s. Meanwhile 4.2 million people say they like Apple iTunes on Facebook. As another example, Schwab, which began sending Twitter feeds in mid-June 2010, has 277 followers. WholeFoods Twitter account has 1.8 million followers.
Let’s analyze this problem by first realizing that there is a big potential for investment companies to engage Gen Y online, then explaining why social media is not the appropriate media to target Gen Y with banking/investment offers. Last but not least, showing how to market banking/investment to Gen Y.