Western Union Social Media Reset

Who actually follows @WesternUnion on social channels? That was our first question as we sought to shift the perception of the dated money transfer company. The organization wanted real change, with a new leadership team, and new product roadmap. We were tapped to re-shape this legacy brand for a new audience - the modern migrant.

Despite making political headlines, immigrants aren’t every brand’s top audience - but for Western Union, they’re core - sending billions of dollars in remittances around the world for family support or other borderless needs. Immigrants are the backbone of our culture, especially in the US, yet no brands, especially in finance, were speaking “with them,” by their side, instead of “to them” like a patronizing tone-deaf uncle. After reframing Western Union’s mission and purpose from transmitting transactions, to becoming an essential financial partner for this underserved audience - it was time to upend their content strategy on social channels with a mix of owned, paid and creator collabs.

First we uncovered the multi-cultural IYKYK humor, memes and nuances that our immigrant audience was consuming. Next, we found the sweet spot of education and entertainment around financial literacy and basic borderless money-management to anchor our content. Lastly, these channels were our playground - a massive sandbox for experimentation. From utilizing AI tools to concept outlandish and hilarious visuals, to partnering with bilingual creators, to inserting Western Union in real-time cultural moments - we were learning, and growing week over week.

And the results spoke for themselves: Instagram saw a 58% growth in engagement and an incredible 541% growth in video views YoY. TikTok was a stand out growth channel with engagement growing 1819% and video views growing by 1407% over 2023. And we were able to maintain an incredible 10.87% engagement rate for creator content (industry average is 1.5%) and amassed over 7MM views completely organically.

More importantly, Western Union was able to transform its social channels from a wasteland of complaints to a thriving cross-cultural community.