Financial

HSBC Student Bursary Competition

HSBC Student Bursary Competition (Facebook)

HSBC Std Bursary FB page

Social media is becoming an increasingly important way for banks to connect with their customers, although the regulated nature of the finance sector means that they need to proceed with caution. HSBC are leading the way in their use of social media, and came to eModeration when they wanted our help to look after various Facebook-based projects.

The HSBC Student Facebook page enables a two-way dialogue between HSBC and their target audience of high potential, internationally minded students. The aim is to increase engagement levels and advocacy with the brand. The main objective is to become front of mind when considering what Student Account to open and their proposition is to help students get through university financially through their bank account, online tools and support.

At the heart of their proposition is the Student Bursary competition, which ran between July – October this year. This gave those starting a qualifying university course in September the opportunity to win 1 of 8 x £15,000 Student Bursaries through a video competition. 2010 was the first year the bank promoted the competition on Facebook and in 2011 received enormous community participation.

Results:
	363 Successful entries to the bursary - compared with 149 last year Over 40,000 votes submitted - compared with 8000 last year Over 39,000 likes - compared with 7000 at the start of the competition Over 3000 comments left on videos

Sam Grimley, Digital Acquisition Manager for HSBC said: “The results of the competition have far exceeded our expectations. The calibre of the videos has been fantastic. eModeration have seamlessly integrated themselves with HSBC and have offered that peace of mind that your page is in safe hands. The team have been responsive to our needs 24/7 and have shown a level of professionalism which has made managing the page and the competition a positive customer experience.

eModeration’s role was to moderate the entries to ensure they complied with the entry requirements (length, language, copyright, UK residence, appropriateness etc). Community Managers responded to all entrants and let them know if and why their video was rejected, asking for amendment if possible. We also monitored posts on the wall, poll page and the competition video page, deleting inappropriate content and responding to queries.

It was very rewarding to be a part of a bank’s ground-breaking forays into true dialogue with the public, and this project especially was a total pleasure to work on: all those we helped – and especially the eight lucky winners – were so happy to have taken part.

HSBC late hour