Bennetts showcases Social Media success at Google conference

Bennetts, UK bike insurance specialist, has shared its social media success at Google's annual Finance@Google conference in London. Hannah Squirrell, Director of Marketing and eCommerce, was invited to showcase the brand's story following the launch of Bike Social, Bennetts' own networking site for bikers last year. Bennetts was the first brand in the UK to create a social media site for its target audience and, since launch, over 40 per cent of the entire bike market have interacted with the site.
 
The event was attended by leading digital experts from a range of brands including John Lewis, Barclaycard, Experian and First Direct.  The Bennetts case study was used to showcase ‘Social Best Practice' at the conference, and featured learnings from the launch of Bike Social, as well as an overview on its development of a fully integrated approach across un-owned social media channels including Facebook, Twitter and Google +, which helped the brand to reduce complaints by over 65 per cent and glean over 100,000 fans/followers.
 
Hannah said: "To be heralded by Google as leading the social media space is a huge achievement. One of the main challenges for an insurance brand is creating regular interactions with customers - because most people purchase a policy once a year and then, if they are lucky, don't need to contact their providers again. We have worked hard to deliver engaging and interesting content for bikers so that we are not just seen as another insurance company, but a brand that is very much a part of their community that they chose to regularly interact with."
 
Hannah continued: "We were already driving real success from un-owned social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, and now, with our own social network, we are dominating all social channels for bikers, which is an incredibly strong position. Most financial services brands achieve an average of 0.2 per cent audience penetration on social media, but with Bennetts that figure stands at 9 per cent. "
 
Andrew Moody, Industry Head at Google, added: "The approach taken by Bennetts is unique and highly innovative, so we were keen for the brand to share its strategy. Bennetts does a great job in engaging with the motorcycle community and they have been successful by being useful, authentic and credible."