CME Group Builds its Trading Community Online

Communication is key to building and maintaining a successful business, which is why CME Group uses social media to stay connected to customers.

In the fast growing world of social media, CME Group has jumped in with a focus on customer service.

For the past 18 months, CME Group has used online social media services to connect with customers, shareholders and others through

Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (@CMEGroup) – the ubiquitous service that allows users to send messages totaling 140 characters or less.

Allan Schoenberg, director, corporate communications at CME Group, began using the social networking sites in October 2007 to help answer questions about CME’s combination with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT).

“It really just started with me interacting with a few traders I knew on Facebook,” says Schoenberg, who noticed that a group of traders created a page to discuss the completed CME/CBOT merger in 2007.

“It became clear there was a passionate community of traders around the world using Facebook to connect,” he says. “We saw the value that social media could bring to us as a company and service offering to customers.”

Followers of CME Group’s Facebook page have since grown to more than 400 people. Eirik Syverinsen (@syrre), an independent trader based in Sweden, who created the first CME Group Facebook page, says the site has worked well connecting users with the exchange.

“I think it was the right thing to do and also the right timing,” Syverinsen says. “A couple of years ago, most in the industry would give you a strange look if you openly admitted your Facebook membership. Today, it would be unwise to laugh about a 200-million-person community.”

CME Group’s market education team also built its own Facebook fan page about trading and upcoming events and used a similar service called LinkedIn for the recently launched Forex E-micro futures.

Schoenberg personally began using Twitter in 2007 but says, “It didn’t take long to figure out that there was a huge and growing trading community on Twitter, sharing ideas and talking about everything from equities to grains to foreign exchange.” He sends 10 to 15 messages daily, called “tweets,” on a range of topics, and his “@CMEGroup” address on Twitter has grown to more than 325,000 followers.

“We use it to share information that is relevant to what is going on in the global economy, but also news that involves innovation in finance, technology and business, because that is such an integral part of our brand,” Schoenberg explains.

Schoenberg adds that CME Group will continue to investigate more ways to reach out to new and current customers.

“We are looking for ways like Facebook and Twitter that allow us to have conversations with customers,” he says. “Social media is not just pushing out information about us. We try to reach our customers where they are, talk about topics that matter to them, and connect and interact with them.”

 

 

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