H&R Block aimed to extend its relevance beyond the tax season by developing a robust social content strategy, creating a unique blog to engage clients year-round with valuable tax-related insights. The initiative resulted in significant growth in social media engagement and conversation share, growing from 2% to 44% of tax conversation from 2011 to 2013, while also diversifying content through various media types and interactive formats. This approach fostered long-term loyalty and increased H&R Block's presence and engagement with customers throughout the entire year.

1. 1
H&R BLOCK SOCIAL
CONTENT STRATEGY
Building All-Year Relevance

2. 2
Seasonality
• A seasonal business that
doesn’t want to be
• About 75 days a year where
the majority of business
happens
• In 2011, tax season saw 961
brand mentions/day vs 217 off
season. Conversation was
343% greater in season.
• In 2011, we owned 2% of tax
conversation
• Strategies to provide more
all-year products and
services are in infancy
April to May 2011 Drop-off

3. 3
Setting the Stage
After TS11, the social team set out to take back the off-
season
• Develop a best in class blog with a unique brand
• Determine our calling: how can we be valuable and
credible to our clients with content?
• Identifying our audience demographics and content to
provide them
• Developing a distinct, personal voice for the blog

4. 4
Content as Year-round Value
How can social content
extend tax relevance to
the rest of the year?
• Tax filing happens
during tax season, but
life always happens
• Everyday life is filled
with tax-relevant events
• Act as trusted partner
within the universe of
tax and finance: “one
degree from tax”

5. 5
Content Strategy
Build long-term engagement,
loyalty, sharing – and assist
purchase
Entertain
Educate
Engage
Educate:
 Tips from the experts that the reader can immediately put to use.
 Experts’ unique perspectives on topics dominating the online
conversation.
 Break down complicated tax & personal finance matters into
graspable, digestible pieces (colloquial language, conversational
tone, simple structures)
Entertain:
 Make money and taxes highly interactive
 Infographics, data visualization, interactive graphics, clickable
 Online widgets (bloggers), charts and images
 Quality writing with conversational tone; useful material
Engage:
 Leverage network of third-party bloggers
 Facebook chats/Google+ Hangouts/Twitter parties; status
updates
 Customizable content (fill in your data)
 Q&A Posts…engage with clients based on their questions
Social Content Funnel

6. 6
BlockTalk is born!

7. 7
Casting a Wide Net
Provide a wide variety of media, bite-sized, interactive, and
beyond

8. 8
Empower Our Field With Content
Empower our army of 100,000 associates in the field to be our voice
• Policy and Guardrails
• Easily reused content

9. 9
Winning Earned Media Exposure
Culture Jacking and Syndication
• Achieve broad content exposure by providing
sharable content on popular trending topics
• “Culturejack” and find unique tax and finance
angles
• Feature guest bloggers to reach new audiences
and provide new perspectives
• Strategically elevate content through
syndication partners

10. 10
Extending Reach with Paid Social
• Paid social helps us grow our
database, engagement and
relevance with customers and
prospects
• Social ads reference trusted
sources of information (friends,
family)
• Become trusted referrals and
seen as more credible
• Allows us to be there “in the
moment” with contextual
advertising.

11. 11
Extending Richer Discussion
Provide a home for personal discussion driven by content

12. 12
Blog and SOV Growth
• 1.1M unique visitors to BlockTalk January-July 2013,
topping all of 2012
• Strong performance of posts in traditionally quiet
months. 90,834 in July 2013
• From 2% of tax conversation in 2011 to equal share of
voice
TT
44%
JH
13%
HRB
44%
HRB
31%
JH
28%
TT
41%
2012 2013

13. 13
Conversation Growth
More chatter, less seasonal
• 1635 average social mentions/day during season vs 541 off-season
• 202% difference between season and off-season, vs 343% difference in 2011.
• Sustained strong channel growth: H&R Block is the most social tax brand
BLOCK TALK FACEBOOK TWITTER
1,110,601 VIEWS
• 91% growth YOY
348,957 FANS
• 191% TS13 growth
• 240% fan growth YOY
• Jumped from #3 to #1 in
number of fans
232,924 ENGAGEMENTS
• 667% growth YOY
58MM TS13 REACH
• 4,899% Growth
15,825 FOLLOWERS
• 16% TS13 growth
• Retained #1 spot
78,900 ENGAGEMENTS
• 1,209% growth YOY