Following on from last years trend, Twitter is still not as popular with financial institutions as Facebook, despite many customers using the micro-blogging site to engage directly with their financial service provider. Billy Bambrough looks at the 60 banks with the largest presence on Twitter.
American Express (Amex) again dominates the RBI Twitter ranking with nearly twice as many Twitter followers as second-ranked World Bank.
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Over 650,000 people follow Amex on Twitter. They see the banks regular Twitter updates, promoting its brand and offering customers deals if they ‘retweet’ or ‘tweet’ with a particular ‘hashtag’.
Amex’s Twitter following has been bolstered by the strong promotion of the bank on Twitter, placing it at the top of the majority of Twitter searches for other financial services.
Ed Gilligan, vice chairman, American Express said: "American Express is turning Twitter content into commerce by connecting card members to merchants and delivering real world value to both."
In October market research consultants Digital:MR and Cicero published a report called Social Media Insights in the US Banking Sector. The report sought to explore and measure the benefits to US banks of social media activity.
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By GlobalDataOf Amex the report said: "The reason why American Express has been successful in its use of social media is because not only is it building follower numbers, it is actively interacting with them and listening to their specific questions and needs, American Express exhibits a personal touch in its social media activity which has enabled the firm to develop an engaged and responsive audience."
Although last year Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) was a nonentity on Twitter, the bank has now established a strong presence. Aided by its headline sponsorship of the high-profile Six Nations rugby tournament the lender garnered over 14,000 followers in a year.
Other slow adapters to Twitter from last year have soared up the table, with Turkish lender Akbank jumping 28 places up the table to rank 12th with 88,365, a percentage increase of over 2,000%. This places the bank’s Twitter ranking on a more equal with footing with its successful Facebook effort.
Some other winners in the Twitter charts are Capital One with 73,151 followers, a boost of over 3,000%, and Citi who steam in to the top ten with 114,754, compared with 11,000 followers a year ago.
The Digital:MR and Cicero report said that Citi’s presence on Twitter compares well with its competitors.
The report said: "Citi is effective at interacting between its various Twitter accounts by ‘retweeting’ the comments of its lesser known accounts in order to highlight these to a wider audience."
Capital One has decided to split its Twitter interests into two separate accounts, @CapitalOne and @AskCapitalOne. @CapitalOne promotes and advertises the brand, it has more followers and is far more active in its number of ‘tweets’.
The @AskCapitalOne account is not designed to engage people but merely to offer consumers help with their financial issues. Although it doesn’t have a great deal of followers, many people ‘tweet’ the account and get a reply to their question.
This month RBI reported that Twitter was being used by the majority of big UK banks to engage with their customers, according to a study by Virgin Media Business, responding to enquiries within an hour.
This differs from the Facebook model of social networking where people ‘like’ a bank but often have little interaction beyond that.
Many big banks around the world continue to promote their brand using sports sponsorship. Barclays, RBS and Santander all get their name on Twitter and seen by many thousands of people through sponsorship of UK Premier League football, Formula 1 racing and Six Nations Rugby.
The report in to banking and social media from Digital:MR and Cicero warns that Barclays presence on Twitter is in danger of aliening customers outside of the US.
The report said: "Barclays needs to avoid appearing too UK focused as it looks to grow its US business operations and customer base. This is because consumers are more receptive to social media campaigns that are local and tangible.
"Therefore a key action point for Barclays is to develop a US-facing social media presence so that it can better serve that existing market. With the range of sporting sponsorships it has, Barclays should consider how it can harness these assets in regions where topics like the English Premier League are of significant interest."
Again following on from last year’s trend, it seems that the regularity or volume of tweets a bank puts out has little impact on the amount of followers they have. Citi, who ranks 10th with 114,754 followers, has only tweeted 6,000, compared to Brazilian bank Bradesco who has tweeted over 12,000 times but has only 51,000 followers.
In August RBI reported that Amex is the subject of more Tweets than any other US banking brand, accounting for 23% of over 2m Tweets monitored in the banking sector in the 12 months to end March 2012 according to the report from DigitalMR and Cicero.
Amex topped the US brand survey ahead of Bank of America (19.5%) and Citi (18.5%).
While RBS has finally boarded the Twitter train there are still some big banks around the globe that have little or no presence on the site. Santander’s US-based retail subsidiary Sovereign Bank is nowhere to be found anywhere on Twitter. Similarly US Bank, the 4th largest US bank in terms of branches, has only 7,000 followers.
SunTrust, the ninth-largest US bank by deposits, has few Twitter followers but an active Twitter profile. Gaining large numbers of followers does not appear to be Suntrust Bank’s strategy.
Instead, the bank has focused on customer service with the @AskSunTrust account being responsible for 35,000 ‘tweets’. The lack of followers does not indicate the success of the account as its focus is on dispensing customer service and advice, similar to Capital One’s approach. The other Twitter account, @SunTrust, deals with promotions and news but is not updated regularly.
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