The Top 400 Banks on Twitter

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1. J. Powell says:

   October 3, 2011 at 7:49 am

   Very interesting. I would love to see this same report for CU’s (in your spare time). Not sure you’d get to 400.

   Thanks!
2. Roger Sundermeier says:

   October 3, 2011 at 8:03 am

   Hi! Just wanted to let you know that the FAB&T Twiiter feed for “I Love Cash” was a specific one for a certain campaign (hence the low ranking and dormancy since last tweet). Our main Twitter feed is “FABT” (@fabt), and we have 705 followers (which would put us at #105) currently (always looking for more!) and our last Tweet was 9/29. Thanks!
3. Editor says:

   October 3, 2011 at 8:13 am

   @Jason – The Financial Brand tracks 791 credit unions on Twitter. Unfortunately, this type of analysis won’t be repeated for credit unions because the process is entirely manual. It took over 8 hours to load up each of the 400 banks’ Twitter accounts to access their activity levels — there’s no way to automate this process. Furthermore, the results aren’t likely to reveal any significant difference. Credit unions, on average, have more followers-per-assets than banks, but the typical credit union Twitter account has about the same level of overall activity as their bank peers.
4. Ron Shevlin says:

   October 3, 2011 at 8:15 am

   First off, thanks for pulling this together. Must’ve been an incredible amount of effort.

   As for the content, I have only word to describe it: SOBERING.

   For all the talk of how social media — and Twitter, in particular — is, or is going to, revolutionize bank/customer relationships, this data paints a very different picture.

   How many social media gurus blab on about how you can use Twitter to “listen”? And yet, look at the number of banks on the list who are following less than 100 people. Even worse, many aren’t even following the people who follow them.

   This data implies that for way too many banks, Twitter is just another outbound communication channel to push their irrelevant little marketing messages out to.

   That said, we shouldn’t write off the whole lot. Different banks are using — or are trying to use — Twitter for different purposes (marketing, customer support). Tough to draw definitive conclusions from just the follower/following/tweeting data.
5. Editor says:

   October 3, 2011 at 8:26 am

   @Roger – I think you mean FABANDT, not FABT. Oddly, FAB&T’s primary Twitter account is among those tracked by The Financial Brand, but somehow during the (manually intensive) process, this account failed to make it on the list.
6. Editor says:

   October 3, 2011 at 8:38 am

   @Ron – Sobering is a good word to describe it. While I agree that it’s tough to draw specific conclusions — like whether it’s smart or not for BofA to service customers via Twitter — I think you can safely draw some general, abstract conclusions, like “Banks aren’t reaching a significant audience via Twitter” and “Twitter’s impact is disproportionate to the level of hype and attention it receives.”
7. Ron Shevlin says:

   October 3, 2011 at 1:04 pm

   Agree 100%.
8. Bradley Leimer says:

   October 3, 2011 at 5:04 pm

   Great list – also see Visible Banking for comparison. Sobering, but the reality is that most Banks/CUs are still just getting into the game. But it’s really no excuse. Since Twitter has been around for over four years, banks and CUs should now be formulating their strategies around the channel and doing more than ‘listening’ through the channel. There are alternatives to being on Twitter itself for ‘listening’ purposes (we use Radian6, but there are many other free to low-cost providers, or you can monitor Twitter itself). To Ron’s point, Twitter is a medium for two way communication, to have dialogue with our clients and members, it’s not for pushing out messaging. And for crying out loud, follow people that follow you. Maybe concepts of engagement banking are still new, but Amex and other big banks certainly know the power of social and what the right strategies can do for your institution. Twitter is a great channel for financial institutions to be on – start now!
9. Jim Marous says:

   October 3, 2011 at 6:49 pm

   Given all of the media hype around the use and growth of social media by the banking industry, it is amazing how little traction there has been in the Twitter space. What is even more enlightening is that when I tweeted to the top 20 banking Twitter sites, less than half responded to my tweet. Only Wells Fargo responded quickly (within an hour).

   Investigating further, I was told that tweets at some organizations must go through compliance before being posted. In other words, Twitter is being utilized as a broadcast communications tool as opposed to providing dialogue. Given the number of followers and the number of people/sites followed, there can’t be a healthy return on investment for this channel.

   Looking forward to a similar analysis of Facebook activity.

   Great job!!
10. Bruce says:

    October 3, 2011 at 11:54 pm

    Dear Editor, would you consider re-tabulating the total twitter followers for Standard Chartered Bank?

    @StanChart – 3,337 followers
    @SC_LFC – 7,427 followers
    @StanChartUAE – 391 followers
    @StanChartBreeze – 2,374 followers
11. R says:

    October 4, 2011 at 12:33 am

    Another one for the database: India’s YES Bank twitter.com/yesbank
12. Editor says:

    October 4, 2011 at 8:42 am

    Added to database: @StanChart, @StanChartBreeze and @yesbank. @StanChartUAE is already in the list, and @SC_LFC is a foreign-language Twitter account.
13. Pati Maguy says:

    October 4, 2011 at 10:38 am

    Any stats on credit union’s on Twitter?
14. Scuttlebutt says:

    October 4, 2011 at 1:16 pm

    Hiya, you might want to add @BNZBank to the database too.
15. PressRelease says:

    October 4, 2011 at 4:01 pm

    Also, it looks like your databae missed out on @ANZ_NZ and @ANZ_Media
16. Julian says:

    October 4, 2011 at 10:33 pm

    Another to add:
    @ocbcbank which is run by OCBC Bank

    And #216 should be “OCBC Bank” instead of “OCBS”
17. Sun National Bank says:

    October 5, 2011 at 7:03 am

    Thomas X. Geisel, President and CEO of Sun National Bank is also on twitter – @tomgeisel.
18. Rajeev Kumar says:

    October 5, 2011 at 11:41 am

    There aren’t press ‘photo ops’ on twitter so no wonder the banks haven’t cared much. Overall, it just shows how little these banks are involved in their communities/customers. On the other hand, it could also mean that people don’t really want to connect with their banks. True for me at least. I don’t connect with my bank(s) beyond the transactions (which i am forced to make). Don’t get any value from them. Every time they talk to me, they want to sell me something that I don’t need.

    Can they offer value if they want to? Hell ya..can start with trust/transparency..:-)

    cheers
19. Jason says:

    October 6, 2011 at 8:01 am

    Another bank to add that would crack the top 150 – The American National Bank of Texas account @ANBTXOakLawn
20. Carlos Mejia says:

    October 13, 2011 at 6:13 am

    Hi, another great article regarding Social Media.

    First, I will like to add that Bancolombia in Colombia have 15.596 followers in Twitter from its 7.000.000 clients. Even though it is not a bank from the USA or UK it is important to share that are other banks around the world with Social Media campaigns that tries to close the gap between the customers and the bank.

    I think that one of the key elements when you engage your clients through twitter is that you should avoid to focus only on commercial tweets or “advertising” for your bank new credit rates or new products…you also have to tweet about things of general interest that add value to your clients. ex. an article about how to manage personal finances, innovation in smartphones, important things happening in your country or area of influence. It can be interesting to send one commercial tweet for each ten tweets regarding other topics.

    Best Regards.
21. Leonard Stanley says:

    October 17, 2011 at 8:16 am

    This is a very interesting breakdown. I noticed that for obvious reasons you are focused on US banks, have you considered doing a similar thing for UK or European banks that have large share holdings in the US? UBS, Barclays or Royal Bank of Scotland for example.
22. Vic Williams says:

    October 17, 2011 at 8:23 am

    Great breakdown. Do you know if many banks use any other social media platforms? I was also wondering how successful the twitter campaigns are!
23. Editor says:

    October 18, 2011 at 4:44 am

    @Leonard – For language reasons only, The Financial Brand is limited to English-speaking countries, primarily the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The Twitter list looks like it’s skewed towards US financial institutions, but really this is a consequence of the banking environment in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In each of these countries, there are about five big banks — the dominant players. There are banks like Barclays included in the list. The Financial Brand also concentrates exclusively on retail financial institutions, so banks like UBS, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, etc., don’t usually fall within the scope. I was, however, able to track down a couple accounts for RBS and have added them to the Twitter accounts tracked by The Financial Brand.
24. Editor says:

    October 18, 2011 at 4:48 am

    @Vic – There are quite a few banks using Facebook — probably around 5-10%. Twitter and Facebook are the top two social media venues for financial institutions, and by a wide margin. Quite a few use YouTube, but mostly as a place to dump TV commercials. Only a very small handful of financial institutions use Foursquare, and few are still hanging on the MySpace. Some use LinkedIn for recruiting purposes, or for developing relationships with business customers, but this is rare.

    As far as the success of campaigns… not so much.
25. Vic Williams says:

    October 18, 2011 at 1:51 pm

    Thanks for your answer. It is interesting that you say their twitter campaigns have not been successful! I wonder what is missing from their strategy?
26. Gerel says:

    November 9, 2011 at 4:05 am

    It seems the list predominantly has Western banks therefore it has XacBank in Mongolia missing, which has 953 followers on Twitter.
27. Editor says:

    November 10, 2011 at 7:59 am

    @Gerel – As noted in the article, The Financial Brand only tracks English-speaking banks and credit unions.
28. Martha Keeley says:

    November 10, 2011 at 12:07 pm

    Hi, Great list. Please add @thebankofmaine. Founded in 1834, The Bank of Maine is a federally chartered savings bank in Maine!

    We are fairly new to Twitter but have 116 followers, are following 182 and 552 tweets.

    Thank you!

    Martha Keeley
29. Editor says:

    November 10, 2011 at 12:47 pm

    Thanks Martha. The Bank of Maine has been added to the list of accounts currently tracked by The Financial Brand.
30. John says:

    November 14, 2011 at 10:53 am

    This is out of date
31. Editor says:

    November 14, 2011 at 1:17 pm

    Yes John, you’re right. The list was actually “out of date” the instant it was posted, as data was collected a week prior to publication of the article. Unfortunately, the list isn’t updated dynamically in real time. All data had to be collected manually. Inasmuch, there are no plans to update the list anytime in the future.

    If there is a retail bank or credit union you would like tracked by The Financial Brand, please leave it in the comments below.