With one more day until dreaded April 15, last-minute taxpayers all over the U.S. are clamoring to get all of their ducks in a row so they can file on time and get either that email confirmation or postage stamp and breathe an annual sigh of relief. On the positive side, taxpayers have a plethora of options for getting information online thanks to the social movement. Unfortunately there’s a risk that people are Googling and landing on blogs and resources from dime-store accountants and those without the expertise needed to keep taxpayers out of trouble. TurboTax, whose products range from extension help to business filing, has moved in swiftly on the social movement by creating tools, live chats, and even social network presences that allow taxpayers to ask questions and get trusted information. I spoke with Julie Miller, director of public relations and social media for Intuit, about how TurboTax is using social to not only help customers, but grow its business during tax season.
Q. [Jennifer] How is TurboTax engaging in social media? Please give examples.
A. [Julie] Innovative uses of social media allow us to extend conversations already happening around consumers’ shared experiences with their taxes and ignite new conversations that steer them back to the TurboTax brand. Some new programs for the current tax season include:
- Enabling customers to celebrate completing their taxes with a “Publish to Facebook” option. We’ve found that ‘Friendcasting’ – the posts to a customer’s newsfeed - is four times more engaging than a banner ad and has a 30 percent higher conversion rate.
- Based on our point of view that the most powerful recommendation for any product comes from a friend or someone you know, “Friends Like You” is new way for TurboTax customers to see and sort tens of thousands of unfiltered product reviews and narrow them down to see just those from their friends (through Facebook Connect) and from people like them.
- New this year, taxpayers on Twitter can tweet questions to @TeamTurboTax and get answers from a team of tax, tech and TurboTax product experts. We created @TeamTurboTax in response to the growing use of Twitter by consumers.
- Going beyond a traditional Facebook fan page, this year we introduced TurboChat – a bi-weekly online chat with a TurboTax tax expert to give our fans customized one-on-one help for any product or tax questions they have.
