How Many Facebook Fans Can Financial Institutions Expect
How many Facebook fans (now called “likes”) does the average financial institution attract? The Financial Brand examined 20 banks and 20 credit unions on Facebook, comparing the number of Facebook likes to asset size and customer/member base.
Banks get an average of one Facebook like for 710 customers. Credit unions, just as they do on Twitter, fare much better, attracting an average of one Facebook like for every 126 members.
In total, the 20 banks included in the study had a combined customer base of 85 million people. Total Facebook likes: 120,448. That’s 0.14% of all customers.
For the 20 credit unions in the study, the combined membership totaled 2.6 million people. Only 21,002 of them (0.8%) have liked their credit union on Facebook.
Banks, on average receive one Facebook like for every $23 million in assets. Credit unions again do better, yielding one like for every $1.5 million in assets.
The results of this Facebook study are very similar to what The Financial Brand found when analyzing Twitter followers.
Smaller Financial Institutions = More Facebook Success
Smaller banks and credit unions find it easier to yield deeper rates of penetration on Facebook penetration. The most successful financial institutions on Facebook are liked by 1 in 50 customers, little more than 2% of their audience. Only a small handful of financial institutions are lucky to see more than 3% of folks give them a “thumbs up” on Facebook.
The largest banks and credit unions have to work ten times harder at attracting Facebook likes than their smaller peers. The worst performing financial institutions see less than 0.10% of their customers/members liking them on Facebook.
Although penetration rates may be low for large financial institutions, some have sizeable Facebook followings nonetheless. SunTrust, for instance, may only reach 0.24% of its 6.5 million customers, but that equates to a Facebook audience of 15,622 people. On the other end of the spectrum, US Bank reaches 5,409 of its 15 million customers on Facebook, a paltry 0.04% or 1 in 2,773 people.
Banks – Facebook Likes vs. Assets, Customers
| . . Bank |
. Likes |
. . Assets |
. . Customers |
1 Like for Every [$] Assets |
1 Like for Every [x] Customers |
. % of Customers |
| Commonwealth | 3,121 | $780B | 10,000,000 | $249,919,897 | 3,204 | 0.03% |
| TD Canada | 21,051 | $620B | 11,000,000 | $29,452,283 | 523 | 0.19% |
| Standard Chartered | 6,627 | $437B | 14,000,000 | $65,942,357 | 2,113 | 0.05% |
| US Bank | 5,409 | $308B | 15,000,000 | $56,942,133 | 2,773 | 0.04% |
| SunTrust | 15,622 | $180B | 6,500,000 | $11,522,212 | 416 | 0.24% |
| Standard Bank | 12,748 | $173B | 10,500,000 | $13,570,756 | 824 | 0.12% |
| ABSA | 10,976 | $110B | 11,300,000 | $10,021,866 | 1,030 | 0.10% |
| Zions | 1,641 | $53B | 1,000,000 | $32,297,380 | 609 | 0.16% |
| ASB | 14,123 | $35B | 1,000,000 | $2,478,227 | 71 | 1.41% |
| First Tennessee | 4,341 | $31B | 1,100,000 | $7,141,212 | 253 | 0.39% |
| Arvest | 7,092 | $11.6B | 450,000 | $1,635,646 | 63 | 1.58% |
| MB Financial | 4,944 | $10.5B | 500,000 | $2,123,786 | 101 | 0.99% |
| Northwest Savings | 1,299 | $8B | 400,000 | $6,158,584 | 308 | 0.32% |
| Alpine Bank | 63 | $2B | 100,000 | $31,746,032 | 1,587 | 0.06% |
| Landmark | 1,179 | $1.5B | 70,000 | $1,272,265 | 59 | 1.68% |
| 1st Mariner | 1,185 | $1.4B | 56,000 | $1,181,435 | 47 | 2.12% |
| Capitec | 7,556 | $1B | 2,500,000 | $132,345 | 331 | 0.30% |
| First Federal (FL) | 917 | $1B | 50,000 | $1,090,513 | 55 | 1.83% |
| Citizens Security | 206 | $600M | 25,000 | $2,912,621 | 121 | 0.82% |
| Converse County | 348 | $275M | 13,750 | $790,230 | 40 | 2.53% |
| TOTALS/AVG | 120,448 | $2.7T | 85,564,750 | $22,954,927 | 710 | 0.14% |
Credit Unions – Facebook Likes vs. Assets, Customers
| . . . Credit Union |
. . Likes |
. . . .Assets |
. . . Members |
. 1 Like for Every [$] Assets |
1 Like for Every [x] Members |
. . % of Members |
| Pentagon | 3,104 | $14,895 | 1,002,352 | $4,798,647 | 323 | 0.31% |
| VyStar | 624 | $4,069 | 376,523 | $6,520,833 | 603 | 0.17% |
| First Tech | 958 | $2,323 | 170,851 | $2,424,843 | 178 | 0.56% |
| Mission | 386 | $2,039 | 145,595 | $5,282,383 | 377 | 0.27% |
| MSU | 2,635 | $1,963 | 157,945 | $744,972 | 60 | 1.67% |
| Fairwinds | 4,677 | $1,539 | 140,188 | $329,057 | 30 | 3.34% |
| AmeriCU | 422 | $920 | 107,125 | $2,180,095 | 254 | 0.39% |
| Altura | 537 | $722 | 106,433 | $1,344,507 | 198 | 0.50% |
| Scott | 1,882 | $694 | 81,039 | $368,757 | 43 | 2.32% |
| SAFE | 903 | $678 | 98,320 | $750,831 | 109 | 0.92% |
| DATCU | 596 | $540 | 59,236 | $906,040 | 99 | 1.01% |
| Alliance | 1,124 | $350 | 37,965 | $311,388 | 34 | 2.96% |
| Heritage Family | 241 | $254 | 29,472 | $1,053,942 | 122 | 0.82% |
| Christian Financial |
1,311 | $242 | 33,344 | $184,592 | 25 | 3.93% |
| DayAir | 627 | $215 | 25,992 | $342,903 | 41 | 2.41% |
| Southbridge | 142 | $193 | 15,154 | $1,359,155 | 107 | 0.94% |
| Ukrainian | 395 | $138 | 15,489 | $349,367 | 39 | 2.55% |
| Matadors | 79 | $121 | 11,777 | $1,531,646 | 149 | 0.67% |
| Fiberglas | 248 | $117 | 14,574 | $471,774 | 59 | 1.70% |
| Abbey | 111 | $70 | 8,214 | $630,631 | 74 | 1.35% |
| TOTALS/AVG | 21,002 | $32B | 2,637,588 | $1,527,569 | 126 | 0.80% |
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I’d be very interested to see how USAA compares to the 20 banks analyzed here. With a fan/like base of over 139 thousand, and more importantly a base that actually interacts with their wall, they seem to know what they’re doing.
Hi Thomas,
Certainly in any industry there are extraordinary brands who enjoy extraordinary success. As one of the most respected, most differentiated brands in the financial sector, USAA is one of those brands.
USAA has 8 million customers and $79 billion in assets, which means they have 1 like for every 57 members (putting them on par with Arvest and Landmark), or 1 like for every $567,484 in assets (making USAA one of the top performers).
And you’re right, USAA has a deeper level of engagement with its fans/followers. When people are passionate about a brand, they enjoy talking about- and with that brand — online or off. USAA derives more value per social media connection than most financial institutions.
The problem is that most brands aren’t remarkable or differentiated, and therefore won’t enjoy the same kind of results USAA enjoys — financially, on Facebook or otherwise.
I find this series interesting. Something to consider is that you need to pay attention the the level of ENGAGEMENT versus the number of LIKES. Only the page owner would be able to see this via FB insights or using the formula similar to that of Blue Fuego (Likes/#Fans + Comments/#Fans = Level of Engagement).
Social tools allow for your members/customers (even if it’s only 2.4% of them based on asset size) to become story tellers for your brand. You can’t buy that via traditional media – but you can create that venue via social tools.
Hi Bobbie,
I don’t disagree at all. There is value in social media tools — word-of-mouth, PR, SEO, etc. — that value is determined by level of engagement. But the other half of the equation is about cost, specifically related to opportunity cost. I explore this subject in this comment here.
Thanks for this analysis! I would be interested to know the age of these Facebook Pages; how long they have been in existence. Were they all early adopters or have some launched in the last 6-12 months? What was your methodology in selecting the 20 banks and credit unions? They don’t appear to be the top 20 in terms of fan count for each category. Thanks.
Hi Tara,
You’re welcome!
For this study, The Financial Brand chose 20 banks and 20 credit unions at random. Financial institutions included in the study were found using a 50/50 balance of Google searches and Facebook searches. Some banks had to be eliminated from the study because asset and/or customer data wasn’t publicly available.
Asset and member data is freely available for all credit unions, so there was no need to find replacements.
Banks in the study hail from around the world. All credit unions are from the US.
All the Facebook pages for banks and credit unions included in the study appeared to be “established,” meaning they had wall posts, populated tabs, etc. Any financial institution who appeared to have a new or placeholder page was dismissed.
You’ll notice Capitec, which is based in South Africa, has 2.5 million customers but only $1 billion in assets. A bank in the US with that many customers would have 25 times Capitec’s assets. That’s why Capitec’s average assets-per-like are $132,345. Capitec understandably has a lower volume of assets per customer, so obviously their assets-per-like will be lower.
A private equity bank might have billions in assets with only a few customers and a few likes, making it appear as if Facebook likes were “expensive.”
That’s realy interesting to see fans versus asset value. But I think it’s fair to say that most financial institutions have trouble on Facebook. Trying to find relevance in a customers ‘lifestyle’ social space. I have found that some businesses still have ‘budget’ resistance to investing in Facebook, which means they won’t have the strategy in place to grow the ‘like’ base. I posted an infographic about this recently.
http://www.smilespread.co.uk/smash-the-facebook-myths-an-infopitch-graphic/
I think this simply shows that most financial institutions don’t know how to utilize Facebook. Take US Bank for example. There is no engagement from the brand. Why would I “like” their Page if there’s no interaction? Most financial institutions aren’t listening…once they do, engagement and followers will increase.
What makes up the “Customer” numbers within the Bank comparison table? Is it all clients (personal, business, CDs,loans, etc) or does this number reflect one specific clientele within the bank?
The customer data for banks is all self-reported. I assume they are counting all relationships.
Member data for credit unions comes from CreditUnions.com.
There’s a couple things to think about when taking in this data.
Credit unions, by nature, are smaller than most banks. Scale plays in favor of the credit union because messages can be a bit more personalized and less “corporate.” When big banks send something such as an email, it’s typically very targeted and is focused on the bottom line. Not to say credit unions don’t have that same focus, but it’s much easier for Jane Doe at X credit union to prompt an email to be sent to the membership urging them to “like” a Facebook page.
Lastly, all “like” data can be heavily skewed. This type of study should also report the amount each organization spent on advertising their page on Facebook. Most of the big brands with tons of Likes made that happen because of advertising. Smoke and mirrors if you will.
Ryan
http://www.ryanshell.com
Ryan, you’re right. Geographically-constricted credit unions have an easier time building local connections, both online and off. Across the board, people like credit unions more than banks, which is why they “Like” and “Follow” credit unions at higher rates.
I don’t see any financial institutions in this study with “tons of ‘Likes.’” No one is blowing the doors off. TD does better because they’ve had their Money Lounge initiative running since 2007, so there’s four years worth of fans/likes there. Christian Financial Credit Union is probably seeing more Facebook fans because of their religious affinity. I can’t explain why Fairwinds has nearly 5,000 fans, but I’m guessing it has something to do with a contest, sweepstakes or giveaway.
I’m not a big supporter of campaigns that bribe and bait people into becoming fans/followers. These people don’t want to engage with the brand, they just want to win the thingy, and thus should not be counted as fans/likes.
Financial institutions that throw marketing muscle at building Facebook fans had better be good at maximizing Facebook relationships. Fans/likes aren’t the goal. If a bank or credit union runs ads trying to build fans/followers, they had better have a good understanding why those ads trump other, more direct, product+offer ads.
RE: not being a big supporter.
Well, it’s a good thing you are the “editor” and not the “marketer.”
If a campaign is targeted to the correct group of people it could easily open the door for lines of communication that were previously closed. Sometimes a small reason is all people need to click “Like,” and the prompt is typically far less expensive than other forms of advertising to the masses.
I think it’s very hard to lump all institutions in one category without having a firm understanding of what their strategy, if any, is. Is the goal to use Facebook for communication? Is the goal to share FI news? Is the goal to push products (if so, what are conversion methods)?
And on a larger point, credit unions (especially) could be doing some very (!) interesting things with Twitter. Massive opportunity on that front.
Ryan
Readers frequently like to point out the risks of generalization — that every initiative requires strategic context. Yes, that’s absolutely true. 100%. It’s true about everything The Financial Brand writes about — Facebook, Twitter, email, branches, PR, advertising, products, promotions, website, culture building/training, etc. Maybe I should tack a standard disclaimer at the end of each post? “The subject(s) covered in this article may or may not apply to your financial institution. You are encouraged to consider the topic through the lens of your specific strategic gameplan.”
Everything should start with a brand strategy.
Kasey Skala is 100% right. Most (or should I say all) FIs have yet to crack the code on how to engage consumers and customers in social media. Engagement is not the same as posting or tweeting about Saturday or Sunday branch hours or various community events.
Financial Institutions (Banks and Credit Unions) will eventually figure out how to truly engage consumers about what is relevant to them as it pertains to their financial health. Until we get there, I believe, social media will continue to be (an expensive) experiment for most FIs; until we get there, FIs will continue to measure the success of social media in terms of followers and likes instead of customer growth and profitability.
Interesting article. Here is one of the biggest hurdles IMO facing financial instituions and social media. I, like many people (not all) dont want everyone in my social media circle to know where my bank accounts are held. It just feels risky. Many people in my social circle, that I have not physically seen in over 20 years, actually know an incredible amount about me personally. Giving them a heads up to where I keep my money seems to trigger a mental “red flag.”