Session 7 – Communicating Retirement Plan Information in the Age of Social Media
It’s not the medium, it’s the message.
By Claude Leblanc, Senior Vice-president, Group Savings and Retirement, Standard Life Assurance Company of Canada
With apologies to Professor McLuhan, it is the message that’s important. In his seminal work, the noted Canadian thinker in the field of communication postulated that the medium (be it television or a light bulb) is the enabler that illuminates an issue and allows the message to be communicated.
Social media, the latest in a long line of “new” media, will certainly enable the communication and understanding of retirement communications. To quote the learned professor, “…media have characteristics that engage the viewer in different ways….” In other words, let’s not expect social media to be our communications silver bullet but one of the arrows in our quiver.
Wiktionary defines social media as “media that is created to be shared freely.” We can look to the origins of insurance as one of the first examples of social media. Edward Lloyd offered free shipping intelligence as a way to bring customers into his coffee house. Facebook offers a free platform to communicate, and users agree to be subjected to targeted advertising. And just as the insurance world evolved from a London coffee house, no doubt will the Facebooks and Twitters of today be something completely different tomorrow. In the meantime, Canadians are jumping on the bandwagon. Almost 10 million Canadians have Facebook accounts, and the biggest growth is coming from 35- to 49-year-olds. Nelson Online reports that there are twice as many 50- to 64-year-olds signing up as under 18s.
But for all the time that everyone is spending online, it is still mostly for amusement. According to the Center for Media Research, close to 90% of office workers who access online videos are watching for entertainment purposes. Just think of how you access information. Most of us are online everyday—for work, to pay bills or to plan upcoming vacations—but when it comes to assimilating information, we generally still prefer to have a hard copy: a newspaper, a textbook or a printed enrollment guide. Print makes it easy to go back and forth, scan for information and take notes easily.
According to Benefits Canada’s Fourth Annual CAP Member Survey, more Canadians are paying attention to their retirement plans, and fewer of them think their retirement plans will meet their retirement objectives. We can thank the media for the opportunity it presents to engage with members. During the market meltdown of 2008, members called Standard Life in record numbers looking for support. New platforms, such as purpose-built websites in conjunction with existing infrastructure (asset allocation and financial planning tools), helped to manage expectations and assets. The Web helped to align members’ emotional quotient with their intelligence quotient. In other words, they went online, digested the information, reflected and thought before they acted—and most stayed the course.
In today’s environment, based on all of our experiences to date (including an understanding of how members react), social media is a way to underpin current value-added services. Members still want to pick up the phone or come to a seminar and have a professional to talk with—someone who can guide them and ensure that they stay on track. Social media is not yet the magic bullet of communication, but it can lead to communication success and is but one enabler in the group retirement communication context. BC
Continued on the next page…
Session 8 – Reality Programming Comes to Retirement Planning: Market Volatility Survivor
The amazing race turns a new corner toward income adequacy.
