Everybody’s going social – not just traditional ‘social media’ like updating your Facebook page and sending out tweets, but building Facebook gaming apps and turning profile pages into the go-to place – and now even core service offerings are going social too.
2012 saw a couple of Nigerian brands taking a bold step up the social ladder. Chivita and Pepsi Nigeria had Facebook contest apps, Wema Bank had the Sharp Sule gaming app, and we can’t forget Nokia’s cross platform yet social activity with Danfo and the New Asha series. No doubt, many more brands are going to do same in 2013, that’s the reason I tweeted a while back what Alex Dada said about how Facebook App developers would be high earners in the Nigerian development space come 2013.
Africa: Facebook #app developers to be #2 highest earners in the #tech development space #2013 – @ae_dada
— Nubi Kay (@NubiKay) November 9, 2012
We all know that sometimes GTBank services suck, but I have to give it to them when it comes to championing innovation and trends. Here they are with probably the next buzz word in the banking jargon wordbook – ‘Social Banking‘.
What is Social Banking?
According to GTBank, this is a very convenient way to view your account balance, get airtime recharge, perform money transfer, pay bills, and open new or additional accounts via Facebook. In addition to that, customers can tweet suggestions, requests, questions and complaints at any of their 4 twitter handles: @gtbank, @gtbank_help, @gtbank_careers, and @gtbank_cards. Last but not least is video content – tutorial videos, products and news updates to be churned out via the bank’s YouTube channel.
With 769,570 Facebook fans (as at the time of writing this article), of which the most popular age group is between 18-24 years and the most popular city is Lagos, GTBank may just get it right with this ‘social banking’ initiative.
For developers out there, you may want to add Facebook app development to your arsenal because corporate brands, products, artiste, and even individuals are going to be social on a whole new level. 2013, can’t wait!
[image via]
