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Market like a Fintech is a podcast by Mint Studios and the Fintech Marketing Hub, on a mission to find out what marketing strategies and tactics the top fintech companies in the industry use to acquire real customers, build a brand and grow revenue.
Intro: Is it worth doing social
media for dry topics or a more
traditional industry like B2B FinTech?
My guest today says yes, and he even
says yes to investing in TikTok.
As in if you're in B2B FinTech,
TikTok is worth creating content for.
The thing is everyone uses social
media and in order to be where your
customers are, that means having
it as part of your marketing.
And in B2B FinTech,
that's usually LinkedIn.
As we'll see when done
well, the ROI can be huge.
This is what we talk about with Alvin
Gun Poth, head of content and social
media at Thread, who has a lot of
experience in social media having
run social accounts for all types of
companies, including SaaS, insurance,
cruises, and even surgical robots.
He now works at Thread.
An issuer processor that processes
billions of issuer transactions
annually across 44 countries for the
world's leading fintechs, digital
banks, and embedded finance providers.
In this episode, we talk about the types
of social media post formats that do
well, how threads LinkedIn Company Page
actually gets quite good engagement and
what kind of benefits they get from that.
Whether it makes sense to be present
across all social media channels or
focus on one and do it well, and what
he finds does and doesn't work in
social media in the realm of FinTech.
Without further ado,
let's get to the episode.
I.
Araminta Robertson: All right, so the
first question I'd love to ask you,
Alvin, 'cause I know you've had, you
have so much experience in social media.
You've done social media for magazines,
for SaaS, for insurance, for cruise ships,
for surgical robots, and now FinTech.
What's the weirdest or funniest social
media post you've had to create?
Alvin Gunputh: Yeah, so I
think the weirdest is probably.
An interesting term.
I think personally over the years,
they've probably been quite humorous
in terms of the posts I've had to
deliver and humorous in the fact that
they're humorous to the audience that
we were kind of serving to at that time.
So for one example, the magazine
you alluded to was for the
plumbing and heating industry.
So basically targeting your kind
of plumbers, heating engineers,
that type of target market.
So one of the, and Twitter was very
big at that, well, I say very big.
It was just kind of becoming big.
So we really kind of, jumped on that
trend of the growing user base there.
And we were getting quite big
ourselves on Twitter for that brand.
And one of the things that we
thought would be a good idea that
we've seen previously done is using
combining football and plumbing terms.
So it's like, what footballer names could
you come up with that also included like a
plumbing pipe.
So that was quite funny and that would
get really good traction, engagement.
'cause all of a sudden you'd have like
this long thread of people kind of
chucking in their ideas of, oh, this
footballer, but include this plumbing pun.
So that was quite kind of quite
funny to see some of the suggestions.
I wouldn't quite say it's weird,
but it's definitely quite funny.
it's different.
And then, you know, aside from
that, having done like social
posts with like Gary Barlow certain
campaigns and things like that.
That has been quite interesting
and humorous in a different type of
way, but I can't think of anything.
That was really weird.
There've been some cases
where it's been quite sad.
So like for example, when COVID hit and
when I was working for the cruise line, as
you can imagine, travel stopped globally.
So having to go out on social and
explain to people that, cruises
are canceled, this is gonna be the
deal, and people have saved up their
life savings for these trips and to
have to go onto social to kind of
communicate that and then deal with.
The kind of comeback on it as well
as you can imagine, you're gonna
be angry, you're gonna be annoyed.
You can't fully grasp the situation.
So you have to deal with that on
social and it's very difficult.
So
Araminta Robertson: it's weird 'cause with
social media, you're creating content, but
you're also doing comms at the same time.
Do you usually only do the content side
of things or do you also do the comms?
'cause obviously what you just mentioned
there, that's comms, like, that's talking
to customers, answering their questions.
Which one are you usually, do
you do one more than the other?
Or
Alvin Gunputh: varied.
Yeah, it's varied over the years in
terms of the different roles I've
had, because funny enough, social
media, the role has always been
for me in different departments.
It's been in.
customer acquisition.
It's been in head of corporate
communications, like it's
been in different elements, in
different roles I've been in.
So for that particular example,
that's what we would call as part
of our crisis comms management.
because it was, a crisis.
So there would be these set steps
that were in place and rules that you
had to follow and you would liaise
heavily with, head of PR and external
PR agency to help kind of mitigate
all the risks and then come up with.
A joined up communication plan.
So, and then that would feed down
to social, and it's like right
here is the communication plan.
How, do you see this working?
What's the strategy to help
portray this on social media?
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
No, I know.
it's an interesting mix
of the both actually.
Just following on from that
question, is there a format on the
first question, is there a format
that you've found works well?
So for example, what you mentioned
about using the names of footballers,
that's kind of a format, right?
So is there a format or type of
post that you've noticed seems to
do quite well over and over again.
Alvin Gunputh: I think that is a
good format where you are coming
up with something and you're trying
to get people involved obviously,
it takes a bit of time, but it's
a bit like a snowball, right?
So once you start throwing in some of
your own ideas and people get traction
of it, and then the good thing at that
time as well on Twitter, you could.
App people, right?
So you can mention brands, you can
mention people, get them involved,
get them for their opinion.
Then all of a sudden it
starts to kind of snowball.
And I think anything like that where,
I know nowadays it's a bit harder to
get that kind of two-way engagement,
if you like, on open-ended questions.
But I think if it's fun and there's
some sort of trivia behind it, I
tend to see that kind of work better.
Araminta Robertson: yeah.
Engage people.
It's just a shame that X, whatever it's
called now, it's just not as popular.
I've definitely noticed that, like
before when you had an event, like
an in-person event and people were
like, oh, we're gonna find you.
People would typically share
both LinkedIn and Twitter.
Now it's only LinkedIn.
Have you noticed that?
Alvin Gunputh: yeah, it's
interesting, isn't it?
It's a shame really, because it
was such a good platform for that.
Araminta Robertson: and now
it's just not as interactive.
If you had to interact, if you were
talking to a company, a brand that
wanted to interact with its customers
like that, where would you re on?
Would you recommend they
go do it on LinkedIn?
Where?
Where should they do that?
Alvin Gunputh: It depends, really
I'm not a fan of kind of saying
generically, this is what you need
I think you have to be laser focused
on your audience and as part of that
you will know A, where they hang out
and B, where they're most engaged.
So.
For me, that could be LinkedIn
for somebody else and their brand.
It could be X or it could be Reddit.
It could be Instagram, it could be
whatever channel is relevant to that
audience, to be honest with you.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, makes sense.
So, okay let's talk about thread.
What kind of social media content
are you taking care of there?
'cause I know, for example, thread
is very big on LinkedIn and you have
actually a big following on your company,
LinkedIn, and we'll talk about that.
But aside from the LinkedIn,
which I know also the posts,
you put a lot of work into them.
What are some other channels that
you do or focus on or generally what
kind of content are you working on?
Alvin Gunputh: I mean, as part of my
role, so I look after kind of content
and social, and when I say content, it's
the kind of the blog or the articles
that would appear on the website,
which will then kind of break up into.
Social snippets, if you like, and social
content to help drive traffic, et cetera.
So for us, our primary
channel is LinkedIn.
We do have a presence on X,
on Instagram and on TikTok.
The latter two are very
early in terms of testing.
So as you've mentioned previously,
we are in a B2B market space
within the FinTech space.
So talk about kind of
narrowing down your audience.
You're getting really very granular there.
So we are still trying to figure out how
that audience will, how open they are
to receiving communications via channels
like TikTok and Instagram, which are still
quite new, if you like, to B2B in general,
let alone FinTech and the payment space.
So LinkedIn is our primary channel.
We tend to try to really push the
thought leadership side of things.
Over the three years I've been
there, it's evolved because LinkedIn
and audience appetite has evolved.
which has meant we've had to
pivot what initially our strategy
might have been at the start.
So, before it tend to be a lot
about kind of what we are doing,
what we're up to, elements like
that, who we're working with.
And while the, who we're working
with is still important, I've
seen a big shift in people focus.
listeners are probably aware and you
and I are, it's that they're trying to
be more people focused as a channel.
So they're trying to drive that kind
of human to human interaction, and I've
seen that replicated in our results
as well when it comes to certain
content types that we've been testing.
Araminta Robertson: So does that mean that
you're also doing the personal LinkedIn
posts of some of the people on your team?
Alvin Gunputh: we're quite fortunate
that we've had sign off now on an
advocacy tool, so as part of our kind
of strategy and to fall in line with
what LinkedIn is pushing as well.
'cause I think it's quite important to
listen to what the channels are saying.
Is working or is going to work or what
new products or updates they're pushing.
Because the more you can kind of
stay on top of what the actual
channels are pushing, the better
your results are essentially gonna
be, because, you'll be kind of
ticking all their boxes if you like.
So for us, we have a, a very.
Experienced C-suite and a lot of
knowledge, and they have a lot
of experience that we are able
to share within our market space.
So it's very important for us to be
able to get those people out in front
of everybody to help either tell our
story, tell our partnerships, give
updates in terms of what we are doing.
And we are in the process now of
developing a strategy to help kind of use
this tool to perpetuate that if you like.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah,
that's really interesting.
So can you tell me a bit more
about what that tool does?
Like how does it work?
Does it take one of your recent blog
posts and then tell people in your
team this is how to create a po?
Like how does it work?
Exactly.
Alvin Gunputh: Yeah, so basically
we have our own kind of content
calendar, our social strategy
content calendar if you like.
And as part of that, I almost have to
kind of think, right, this is the thought
leadership piece that's going out,
how do I then take that and break that
into something that could be used for
advocacy, we'll call it in this sense.
So I almost have to do the job
twice, if you like, or create
another derivative of the post to
say, right, this is for LinkedIn.
This is how we might
adapt it for Instagram.
This is also how we're going
to adapt it for advocacy.
So the people internally, like C-Suite
or commercial teams, are able to then use
that adaptive messaging for
their own channel, because
it's coming from them, right?
It's coming
from Alvin at Thread.
It's not coming from thread.
So they would then go into the tool and
publish it as if it's coming from them.
They'll be able to choose.
Pre-approved messaging that's already
been in there and they'll have a couple
of options, a couple of variants,
potentially a couple of assets
as well that they could also use.
But at the end of the day when they hit
publish, it will be copy and an asset
that is coming from themselves to their
network, which is gonna be different to
our own company page network, if you like.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
Wow, that's really interesting.
And I mean, you haven't
started doing this yet, right?
Alvin Gunputh: No, we are in the process.
We are testing it.
We are testing phase at
Araminta Robertson: Because it'd be
so interesting to see compare, right?
Like the advocacy post
versus the LinkedIn post.
Which one's doing better?
I mean, I think we all know it'll
probably be the advocacy posts
that we'll do best, but I'm very
interested to see how that works.
Can you share the name of the tool?
Is it a public tool that
Alvin Gunputh: It's the advocacy
platform by Sprout Social,
Araminta Robertson: Okay.
Sprout
Alvin Gunputh: Yeah, so we use Sprout
social for scheduling now and social
listening, and it just made sense
for us to add on that functionality.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
Yeah, very interesting.
But if we go back to like
your company LinkedIn.
One thing that struck me a little bit
while I was doing research, was how
your company LinkedIn posts actually
have a lot of engagement as well,
and they do actually quite well.
So why do you think that is the case
and why do you think that case is
the case and what are the benefits
really that you've seen from that?
Alvin Gunputh: It's probably twofold.
So I think it has good engagement.
probably from an internal audience,
so it's probably, 50% of the share
of those engagements are from
people who potentially work for us
or, are partners with us, and the
other 50% are prospects or existing
clients or partners, for example.
And I think for me personally, why I think
they've done well in terms of engagement
is because ideally I like to just try
and tell a little bit of a story, try
and provide some sort of value as well.
So when I look at a.
A social post, if you like, for LinkedIn.
I kind of sit back and take
myself outta the situation and
think, right, if I saw this on a
LinkedIn feed, A, how would I feel?
B, how would I react?
C, would I potentially
share it with somebody else?
So, those are the type of things
I have to kind of think about on
the other side to think, right?
Is it gonna land how I want
it to land for our audience?
And if I can't kind of
hit one of those three.
Buckets, if you like, I need
to kind of maybe revisit it.
But some instances I like to do a lot
of AB testing because at least I can
then back up what I'm doing with data
as to why something did or didn't work.
And then if something did work
and it's done well as mentioned,
then we'll keep doing it.
And that's probably why engagement
has continued to be quite consistent
is because we have found a nice
sweet spot in terms of what we
know works and what doesn't work.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
How do you AB test the LinkedIn post?
Are you kind of posting and
then waiting, or how do you
Alvin Gunputh: So it's not,
at the same time, it's kind of
Araminta Robertson: I see.
Oh, I see.
As you're posting.
Alvin Gunputh: yeah, let's take
like a webinar, for example.
You've got a webinar that
you need to promote and you
want to kind of get signups.
you do a video?
Do you do an image of the speaker?
Do you do the details of the
webinar as part of your asset?
Those are definitely three
variants that I would
test, and I'd give myself enough.
Leeway or runway time to be
able to test those formats and
then see how they're faring.
So how is the static image doing?
How's the video doing?
How's just the event details doing and
whatever performs best, I think, right?
I'm gonna do that one again and just
alter it slightly and then push it
and then potentially look to put
paid behind it because organically
I've seen it
Araminta Robertson:
Yeah, that's interesting.
I think what was interesting is that your
LinkedIn posts are also very like focused
on the educational side of things as well.
You've got like videos, you're explaining
payments, you're explaining different
factors or parts of the payment process.
So it's not just like, this is
what we're doing, this is a new
partnership, is also educational.
Do you think that's worked quite well?
Do you think that's had an impact as well?
Alvin Gunputh: Yeah, definitely.
I think it's up to us and other
brands to probably do that
kind of side of things as well.
Obviously you have now, what is classed
as influencers within the market space.
Talking about those type of things.
Trying to educate an audience on something
that probably isn't as mainstream as.
You think it is in terms
of payments specifically.
So I think it's important for us as
a brand to, as part of the thought
leadership piece, to be seen, to be
kind of owning the space by being
able to educate and talk about what
we know and help people understand
better what they don't know.
Things in terms of kind of global
expansion, there's a lot of regulation,
as you can imagine, in payments as well.
So there's a lot that people just don't
know, and it's kind of a, think as part
of our responsibility as a brand is to
ensure that we're kind of getting that
across so people are fully prepared
whether they work with us or not, that
is a byproduct, but they can go away
from LinkedIn or have seen a post and
thought, I know something I didn't know
before, or I
Araminta Robertson: Yeah,
Alvin Gunputh: about something.
Araminta Robertson: yeah, yeah.
I agree.
And what kind of benefits
have you seen from this?
Because you know how imagine it's
kind of hard to attribute a little
bit what's working, what isn't.
But has there been any like, I don't
know, prospects that have come in
saying, oh, I love your LinkedIn post,
or what do you feel have been the biggest
benefits of having a strong company
LinkedIn presence and also engagement.
Alvin Gunputh: Yeah.
for me, again it's twofold and I think.
Success could be split into two
elements for me, because I think
part of it is what people are
saying about your brand offline.
That has been driven by
what you're doing online.
So for me, the biggest success in terms
of, okay, I know we're doing something
right, is when we or commercial teams
go to events and they say, Hey, I saw
that LinkedIn post It looked really good.
It was really useful.
that's the feedback I kind of
yearn for and I totally get that.
Yes, leads and website traffic is
just as important, but if you have
somebody at a C-suite who speaks to
our C-suite from a different company.
And says, Hey, you know, I saw that
post that carousel on stable coins.
Really interesting.
I didn't know it had that much traction.
That type of thing that when I
get fed back that, that's when I
know that we are onto something.
We are making the right waves,
if you like, in the industry, and
we're appearing in front of the
right people as well, which is I.
Because there's no point.
I know we talk about engagement,
but there's no point getting all
this engagement from people who
aren't gonna do anything with
you or your brand in the future.
So I'd rather have, quality
engagement over quantity, for example.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, and this
is especially true in the world
of B2B fintechs, like quality
is often a lot more, you don't
need hundreds of leads a month.
You need just a handful or
a few that are high quality.
And I guess with LinkedIn, that's one
of the big benefits of LinkedIn versus
other platforms is you can be so much
more targeted about who you wanna,
share an ad to or whoever, rather
than Facebook or other platforms.
So that's one of the huge benefits, right.
Alvin Gunputh: You mentioned kind of a
like, you know, I said twofold and the
other side is obviously the lead side is
as much as I, we yearn for that kind of
offline interaction where people are kind
of quoting your brand or your social posts
as an example is, best practice is great.
We also need to see how that can
then convert into financial revenue.
Like is it driving our
business objectives?
Is it affecting our bottom line?
And for me that's very important.
That social somehow impacts it.
So it is up to me to illustrate that
appropriately and say, yes, this
post is driving back to our business
objectives to help kind of generate
revenue and further brand awareness.
Araminta Robertson: And how
are you able to do that?
I mean, I feel like social media
is notoriously very hard to
connect to commercial outcomes.
So how are you able to connect the post?
That post helps drive whatever more
Alvin Gunputh: Yeah.
And
And
Araminta Robertson: prospect.
Alvin Gunputh: even with channels
like LinkedIn, right, where we've
heard they downgrade posts with URLs,
which is kind of what you want, right?
You need the URL to drive people to,
to your landing page or website to
then hopefully convert into a form.
So, we're quite fortunate we have tools.
In the backend that allow us to kind
of track these kind of engagements and
interactions so we can track accordingly
where certain visitors have come from.
So we can attribute that
to social, for example.
So if they've clicked on an
ad on LinkedIn, clicked on our
social post, they've come through
to our article landing page.
If they fill out a form,
we'll be able to track that.
We can't tell you, who they are
specifically, but we're able to
attribute a figure or a value if you
like to that person or that individual.
So that's one way that we can track it.
But for me it's, yeah, as you
said it's quite difficult.
It's getting more difficult,
I think Google coined the
phrase messy, middle, right?
It's not linear anymore.
The funnel used to be nice,
straightforward, and linear.
Now because of social, because
of online offline interactions.
For me it's about influence.
It's how can I use what
I've got in my armory?
If you like to influence
somebody's decision to either
pick up the phone or to.
Go to our website and fill out a form,
and we can always do the due diligence
afterwards to find out where they
came from on the call or via email to
say, Hey, how did you come across us?
Or Where did you see us?
So yeah, influence for
me is very important.
Araminta Robertson: I totally agree.
I think marketing is more and more
those touch points, and that's why
these tools like dream data and
all that are very helpful because
they kind of help paint a picture.
I think ultimately it's about
showing to leadership or whoever
this is how marketing works.
It's that one touch
point, that one influence.
I think it's often like, also the
way LinkedIn works is also about
just being on your feed constantly.
And I've had multiple times,
like prospects or just
clients even who have said.
You just keep turning up on my feed
and then ultimately when we are
ready to buy whatever, well I've
literally had people say that to me.
So how do you attribute that?
How do you track that?
Alvin Gunputh: And is that, are
you saying that they see you or
they're seeing your brand page?
Araminta Robertson: It is usually me
because, I mean, we're a very small
agency and so it's it's, I'm doing the
posting rather than the company LinkedIn.
That's why I was interested about the
company LinkedIn, because there's a lot
of stats out there, how saying that.
People like, I dunno, LinkedIn will
prioritize people's posts rather
than a company LinkedIn's post.
So that's why it makes sense to do both.
But we just do, I just do it myself.
We don't even do the brand
LinkedIn really, because I wanna
focus on what I think works best,
which is the personal LinkedIn.
Alvin Gunputh: just on that
point, and that's why the advocacy
side is very important for us
going forward and why when I talk about
pivot earlier on in, on the call, that's
essentially what I'm talking about.
It's right.
We've had to pivot.
According to LinkedIn's update,
and they wanna push more people.
So we've had to adapt to that and
say, right, you know, we're quite
fortunate, we're gonna now allow people
to post their content and use our page.
It's almost like a hub,
almost like content brand hub, if you'd
like, say this is the master content,
and from here we'll create variations for
our teams to use on their own networks.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, exactly.
How about TikTok?
I know you've done a few talks
and written and spoken a bit about
TikTok, and I know you're a fan.
What do you think about
B2B fintechs doing TikTok?
Do you think that makes sense?
Alvin Gunputh: Yes.
Short and sweet.
It does make sense.
And people who say it doesn't make sense
I'd like to think that they've done it
and they haven't got results from it.
That's why it doesn't make sense for them.
I wouldn't say, Hey,
it doesn't make sense.
Off the back of No data.
The only way you're gonna figure
it out is once, get on there, and
you start trying it, for example.
So yeah, if you are a FinTech
or in whichever industry or
vertical if you like, then I'd
say, yeah, just give it a go.
But have some sort of plan or
approach or strategy as to how
you're gonna use the channel.
What.
Araminta Robertson: how
are you doing it thread?
'cause I looked for threads, TikTok posts
on and there was only about a handful.
So I guess you're still
in the testing phase.
Alvin Gunputh: Yeah obviously, I
use it as a consumer and I use it
as a marketing channel for Thread.
And you're right, we're still trying
to figure out where the sweet spot is.
And actually, when I look at some of the
early results and some of the different
formats we've done, when I say formats,
I mean something where it's just.
Kind of information, value led knowledge.
So it's like this is what you need
to look out for in terms of shopping
online, in terms of frauds and scams.
A video like that would do really well.
Whereas some videos where we've
taken a colleague and say, tell
us about your job, might not have
done as well in comparison to that.
So that's like, okay.
So they're not necessarily, the market
that we're after might not necessarily
be interested in, you know what?
Career looks like, but they're
more interested is right.
How can you help me today in terms
of, I'm on this channel, what is the
value that I can gain from watching
this video of your colleague talk
about frauds versus scams, that type
Araminta Robertson: Mm.
Because you think your target audience
are on TikTok and they would are
you creating TikTok content for your
target audience, or is this maybe
just for general brand awareness?
Like do you think that your target
audience would be TikTok and,
Alvin Gunputh: I think they, it will grow.
I think it's a very small percentage now
and hence why I think the way I'd approach
it to start off with is be very general
and then as the audience grows, our kind
of content will become more focused to
kind of reach the growing numbers of
target of our target market who are gonna
kind of become more active on the channel
because it's a generational thing as well.
Right.
Also, one of the things that I've seen
previously on data on TikTok uses is that
one of the fastest growing demographics
are people over the age of kind of 45.
that could be roughly the average age
of our, current C-suite in certain
corporate companies within our industry.
So yeah, it's kind of just
playing to that really.
And just trying to make sure that
we are a, trying to figure out
what is going to work, but also.
Making sure we're standing out in
a certain way as well, because it
you've got maybe one and a half
to two seconds to grab somebody's
attention on a TikTok feed.
So it really needs to have some sort
of pull factor to get them to kind of
just watch the first three seconds.
And if you work in payments,
that can be quite difficult.
So you have to really
Araminta Robertson: definitely.
that's true.
But I, it is interesting.
Yeah.
It will grow eventually.
So maybe having that foothold there
already will ensure that you're one
of the first to appear when that
generation does start to download TikTok.
Alvin Gunputh: If you follow how LinkedIn
have reacted right over the years, so
even in this role, I've been here for
three years and seen how LinkedIn has,
as I mentioned, evolved and pivoted.
TikTok will inevitably do the same.
haven't got a step ahead.
Because we're on the channel now and we're
active, we're able to stay in tune with
the channel help recognize the patterns
in user behavior because that will change.
So we are gonna be in a
better position in 18 months.
If there is a big shift, we are able
to shift and pivot more seamlessly than
companies who are gonna come to the
channel straight away at that time.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, yeah.
That's a good point.
Is there a B2B brand that you
feel is doing TikTok really well?
I don't know.
'cause you, you mentioned that
you're a consumer as well.
Have you seen any that do really well?
Alvin Gunputh: Yeah I do like
some of the videos and, they're
always at the top of anyone's list.
It's like Monzo, for example.
Monzo , I know they're probably
a B2C brand, but, I try and
look at it with a B2B head.
But then there's other brands like Stripe,
Araminta Robertson: Oh,
really?
They're on TikTok.
Alvin Gunputh: Yeah.
So they'll.
They'll do certain videos as well, which
help highlight their kind of clients
and customers that they've helped.
And they've got really, really
authentic stories behind them.
They're almost like case studies,
but you know, for social, first
case studies built for TikTok and
it's, yeah, it's quite interesting.
So those are a couple of brands that
I've seen and I keep track on 'cause I'm
like, oh, what are you guys up to next?
And that's interesting
and things like that.
But.
I still think there is a big
opportunity for, especially in the
FinTech space, for B2B brands to really
make themselves a staple on TikTok.
I can't say that there's one
brand who's really smashing it
at the moment on TikTok,
in FinTech at the moment,
Araminta Robertson: There's
an opportunity there.
Alvin Gunputh: a hundred percent.
Araminta Robertson: yeah, and this kind
of follows on from one, one question
I've always had about social media.
I is.
are you better off focusing on one
platform and doing it really well
or because, the people who are
listening to this, working at FinTech
and they're maybe thinking, TikTok
would be great, but we have, we're
a small team, limited resources.
Do we have a presence on every single
social media platform and post everywhere,
or do we just focus on one like
LinkedIn and make sure to do that really
well before moving onto another one?
Do you think there's an
approach that makes sense?
Here.
Alvin Gunputh: I dunno if it, if the
approach makes sense, but for me, I
think it comes down to a few things.
It's obviously realizing or
trying to understand whether
your audience are there.
Is there the market for that channel,
but then how do you figure that out
if you haven't got data and you're
going off generic data, how do you
find out that your audience are there?
It's by using the channel, isn't it?
You have to kind of use it and test it
and say, right, we're gonna test Reddit
for six months, or six to 12 months.
We're gonna kind of drip feed content
to try and establish whether it is
an appropriate channel for us to use
as part of our long-term strategy.
That's the only way I can see you
kind of figuring out which channels
are best to use and why, as opposed
to just a finger in the air to
say, our target market aren't on
Instagram, they're not on TikTok.
How do you know?
Where's the data that backs this up?
Always kind of just drill down
granularly as to right, we are making
this decision to do this because of
X, Y, and Z Based on the data, having
tested it for six to 12 months.
For me speaking as a social
media marketer, I would argue
that it is in our best interest.
To know as many channels as possible.
'cause at the end of the
day, I'm the company expert.
People will come to me to
say, I saw this on Reddit.
What?
What are we doing?
What is the benefits?
Blah, blah, blah.
And I need to be in a position
where I have some form of base
knowledge to be able to answer that
question appropriately, internally.
Otherwise, I run the risk of not
knowing what I'm doing in my role.
So
I would say I would advocate.
As marketers, we need to have some sort
of base knowledge of every channel that's
available, especially when it comes to
cultural differences and regionality.
Apps our, a lot of our
target market and apac,
as you're probably aware,
they have different social
media apps, you know that.
And likewise in Europe, even like
the likes of Telegram, WeChat,
super apps, they have different.
Modes of communication.
So I need to be aware of that because
suddenly APAC market could turn around and
say, look, what are we doing on WeChat?
We need to look at this, blah, blah, blah.
And I'll be, I'm gonna, I don't wanna
be there like caught, with my pants
down, for want of a better word, say,
I dunno what you're talking about.
I have no idea about this social channel.
It's in your best interest as a marketer
to establish what are the channels
being used globally, where is our kind
of main driver in terms of traffic?
And how does that tie
back to our company goals?
Okay.
We're gonna give ourselves this long
to test these channels and make a
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I like that approach.
I think that's very data-driven,
methodical approach.
Is there one channel that you feel is
like underestimated or people overlooked?
I mean, I guess TikTok is a little
bit one, but would you, is there
maybe a method or a strategy?
'cause you mentioned Reddit and I feel
like I don't know any marketers who
are making Reddit FinTech marketers
that are prioritizing Reddit.
So are there any like platforms or
approaches like that, that you feel are
kind of underestimated in the little bits?
More people should invest in them.
Alvin Gunputh: personally,
it would be Reddit.
the capability that channel has, the
growing popularity, the growing usage,
the SEO side of things as well for that
channel.
Araminta Robertson: LLMs.
Alvin Gunputh: Exactly.
it is ever increasing.
And , just do it.
Just try, you don't have to post content.
Just get on there and see
what people are doing.
I work very closely with our kind
of digital teams to understand
what our trending keywords are.
Right?
So what are the key words
we wanna be known for?
I'll take that list and then I'll go
kind of put 'em into Reddit and see what
comes up so I can get an idea as to, ooh.
This is interesting.
I didn't know people were talking about
issuer processing on Reddit, which
they are.
They are.
And the only way I know that is because
I set up a channel and I set up.
Notifications to find out when
these keywords or go in and do
the kind of keyword search query.
And I see these words come up and I see
these people having the conversations
and they're mentioning brands.
They're like, oh, does anyone know what
issuer processor would be good for this?
I'm trying to do this.
And other people would come up and they
say, yeah, have you tried these guys?
Thread Real life example.
Real life example they mentioned,
and that's when it clicked for me.
I was like, oh my God, if I hadn't paid
attention, this would've just passed us
There were this.
Sub thread of people commenting
and talking about something in
real time, in real life that's
affecting their real work.
And we would've just been unknown to it.
And of course, yes, that
happens on a digital scale.
And like you said, we can't be listening
to every single conversation out there
happening in all these different forums.
But Reddit allows for that.
So I think that really is, if
you're not on it today, start having
a look and just start searching
through those keywords, searching
the conversations and then think,
okay, there's something here.
'cause it really is a goldmine, I think.
Araminta Robertson: I think the thing
about Reddit is you cannot be fake.
As in like I, I've seen people
try to hack it, create lots
of fake users, create threads.
It's very well moderated and that's why
LLMs and Google rely on it a lot and rank
it a lot like for LLMs chat be, et cetera.
They source Reddit a
lot and Google as well.
And the reason is because they
know Reddit is very well moderated,
so you cannot like hack it.
I think from what I understand, the
best way to make use of Reddit is to be
a genuine user and love it and comment
on people's posts in an authentic way.
So some people might not wanna
do that, and I think that's,
well, that's opportunity really.
People who are willing to
Alvin Gunputh: It's,
it's crazy, isn't it?
Because that's kind of why social
started in the first place.
Social media came about
'cause of community.
It came about of having wanting
a recommendation for something
or to discuss something.
And here we are, x amount of years later,
almost doing full circle to say hey
communities are still important.
Yeah, they're still having these
authentic conversations that are really
key and can impact and drive business
decisions and marketing decisions.
So why are you not paying attention to it
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, definitely.
Are.
Are there any other, like,
experiments that you've done?
I'd be very interested in experiments
in FinTech that you've done in terms of
social media and they kind of, they've
either worked really well or flopped.
Anything that you've done there.
Alvin Gunputh: in FinTech?
It's difficult to say they flopped.
cause as you said, like, our
engagement touch wood has always
been quite consistent and I think
when you've got a good base, you
kind of know what's gonna work.
But I do want to keep trying to push
the boat and think outside of the box
in terms of kind of creative formats.
for me, I guess in some instances things
that have flopped have been things
that are probably not as exciting.
To the user.
They may be exciting internally and
it might be a big deal internally, but
then when you try and vocalize that
to an external audience and you think
this is great news, and it doesn't kind
of get received that way, I wouldn't
necessarily class it as a f flop, but
I'd say it just didn't land how we think,
because sometimes you can get so kind of.
Blinkered especially when you, all
you have around you is just people
who are obviously internally and
you're not getting any sort of
external sounding board, right?
So you think whatever you're
doing is the best and this
people need, want to know this.
I'm sure they want to know it.
They must want to know it.
It's great news.
But actually in the real world, if you
like, it's not necessarily the case.
So I can't give you a specific example
as to what's flopped in terms of format.
it's just.
I think of
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
Or,
Or what about one where
it's worked really well?
Alvin Gunputh: Yeah.
I mean, for us, , one thing that worked
really well this year off the back
of a industry event, so Money 2020
Europe, what worked really well was
the use of carousels and being able to
provide a daily digest of what happened
on day one in a carousel format.
That worked really well, and that
worked For a range of reasons, because
essentially we had a team on the
ground who were able to kind of capture
content and send it back and record
kind of videos and soundbites, and we
were able to kind of collate all that
information together to then start.
Creating content for the website,
which would then kind of be
broken up and served on social.
And it worked really well.
It was received really well.
Great engagement.
One of our highest engagement
engaged posts this year.
And I think a lot of that was to
do with the kind of the value and
the analysis within those posts.
The fact that he had images and a little
bit of kind of creative elements to it
as well to help people stop in their
tracks, if you like, in the newsfeed.
Araminta Robertson: Yes.
Like kind of multimedia using lots of
different, yeah, no, very interesting.
That's cool.
I think that makes a lot of sense
because it's also people on who were
there actually money 2020 as well.
This is relevant for them and
it's a good way to connect.
Maybe with the people that
the salespeople have met in
person, it's like also on social
Alvin Gunputh: Yeah, and like as I
said before, like using, if you use,
if you work in sales or commercially
focused and you can use your company
page as that kind of brand hub, so.
Yes, it's great content for us, but
actually it's even better for us, for
our teams to then take and then send
in a private message and say, Hey look,
here's this roundup we did of day one.
Were you there?
Did you attend?
I heard you couldn't make it.
You might find this useful.
No strings attached.
There's, here's some, useful content that
our teams can use for their prospect.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
Yeah.
No, very cool.
Amazing.
Well thanks so much Alvin, for your time.
I have one last question that
I want to ask you, which is.
You love social media?
I can tell.
In the content that you create and
in the, like, speeches you've done or
wherever you've spoken what excites you
would you say the most or fascinates
you about social media and where do
you think it's going in the future?
Like, fast forward five years,
do you think just everything's
gonna be like TikTok?
What do you think, what do you think is
super interesting about all of this and
what it'll look like in a few years?
Alvin Gunputh: Yeah, I think
what excites me and scares me
and worries me a little bit is ai
and it scares me because of the impact
you'll have in an offline world.
So, as you a fellow marketer
are probably aware the use of AI
on LinkedIn is ever increasing.
And now.
If you use it a lot, you can
spot it from a mile away.
And I'm just worried that we may get
to this point where we will experience,
not us per se, but some people,
creative fatigue of what is being
generated by ai because it's so obvious.
I know the channels are trying
to squash it where they can and
label it appropriately, but it
still is getting onto our feeds
and it's almost like, right, how
far away are we from just it being.
A kind of constant drip of ai, dribble
of just the same type
of language and persona.
So that's one of my worries.
But then also because it's being used so
much to help with content and copy, I'm
worried that people will lose the lack
or the skills to communicate in person.
Yeah, to think and just
communicate in person.
I saw this funny video where
some guy was walking and this
guy just asked him a question and
he didn't know how to response.
So he asked chat, JPT.
He's like, somebody said,
hello, how do I need to respond?
And it's like, it is.
And it's like that.
And it's almost like a
look into the future.
It's like that could be the
possibility because we are using
it so much for everything, for
grammar for copy, for creative,
that actually if you took it away.
how would you react?
Would you be lost?
Would you kind of forget?
So I think that's one thing that
worries me, but also excites me because
I know the benefits it can bring.
I can see how it's being embedded
as part of kind of search results.
So for us, it's very important
for content that we do, that we
are doing everything we can to be
focused on showing up within LLMs.
Like it will have that shift
where people go from Google to
AI and rely on AI for search.
So are we gonna show up
in those conversations?
So I need to kind of bear that in mind
when it comes to social specifically,
what I think is exciting or what I think
might happen is going back to communities.
I think we're gonna see more and
more closed, closed knit communities
driving these conversations.
A bit like the poor.
Yeah, I think exactly like that, like
a WhatsApp type group situation or a
forum like Reddit that becomes very
close knit, could be subscription.
Only you're gonna start paying
for this, the privilege of being
involved in these particular circles.
And like I said, that's
how social started.
And I think it's gonna do full
circle because people are gonna
be fed up with the AI stuff.
They're gonna be in these close-knit
communities to discuss everything or to
share ideas instead of sharing it online.
It's slightly pessimistic, but
slightly optimistic as well that I am
excited by it because then it means,
as marketers, how do you navigate
How do you prepare yourself for that?
How do you prepare C-Suite?
How do you have that conversation and
say, whoa, it's a closed knit community.
How are we supposed to get into it?
So you really need to kind of think
harder about how, where you
spend your money and your time to
Araminta Robertson: Mm-hmm.
Alvin Gunputh: comes
back to influence, right?
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, and I would
even say like in person, communities
are gonna become more important as
well, just because of the social.
And yet I agree with what
you're saying about ai.
That's why I don't use at all now AI to
do my LinkedIn post because I noticed
that it was obvious and I also noticed
that those where I used AI never had
as good engagement because, and it's
true that the posts I create now are
very not optimized all over the place.
The first sentence could be a lot better.
But it's almost like that works because
I notice now when I'm on LinkedIn and I'm
scrolling, I much prefer, I always click
on the ones where it's clear the person
is just having a stream of consciousness.
And they're not trying to
optimize it like crazy.
That's my own habits that I'm not
sure if everyone else is the same.
And so I've stopped actually using AI
for LinkedIn post 'cause I just felt
that it was very manufactured and as
you're saying, people could see that
Alvin Gunputh: exactly.
Yeah.
you're ahead.
The game there, and I think, yeah.
Araminta Robertson: Head of the
game by not using ai but I think
there is a lot of exciting, like
potential for other ways of using it.
So what you said about repurposing,
I think is really smart.
Or rewriting the copy depending
on who's the person posting.
So there's definitely
a lot there for sure.
It's yeah, it's just
the end product maybe,
Alvin Gunputh: I think that's
where it strengths are.
It's in the ideation side of things.
It's not, it shouldn't be your output.
You shouldn't take what.
Chat, GBT or LLMs have posted
as an output, copy and paste.
Personally, I don't think
that's the best way to do it.
I think go back and forth and get
to a position where you can take
something and then put your own spin
on it before it goes live if you like.
Araminta Robertson: Yes.
Yes.
I couldn't agree more.
Amazing.
And on that note we'll end it here.
Thanks again Alvin for jumping on.
I really appreciate it.
And everyone who, who's listening, check
out the thread LinkedIn company page.
'cause I think it's a really cool
kind of, guide on, how to create
good LinkedIn company posts for sure.
Alvin Gunputh: Appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
Araminta Robertson:
Thank you for listening.
You can find show notes and information
about guests at fintechmarketinghub.
com forward slash podcast.
And finally, huge thanks to Orama.
tv for producing this podcast.
We look forward to having
you on our next episode.