…I don’t mind the polite or mundane – it can enrich the mental picture I have of that person and what is occurring around their other tweets. Provided they usually give good-tweet (?), I am content with a little filler as accessory.

Namaste,
Tina Louise
@tinalouiseUK

I think you nailed it on the head in your comments that there is no “right” way to use twitter.

Financial institutions are in a great position to utilize Twitter as a way of building a community. Use is as customer service like @BofA_help or use it like Wells Fargo does. They are doing it right (I’m sure others are, these are just two bigger banks doing it well). If you’re a smaller local community bank or credit union, tweet about upcoming events in your community. What are some hot topics right now in your community?

Additionally, use it to monitor your name. What are people saying about your brand? Was their an article written incorrectly? Use it to clear things up and prevent crises.

Whatever you decide to use it for, make sure you build a community, but also remember you are representing a business. Your followers are not your next door neighbor or best friend that you can joke around with. Keep it real, but also keep it professional.

That can’t last, though. People did the same thing years ago with email. Signed up to get emails from lots of firms that they did business with — and stopped after getting absolutely no value from those emails.

That’s why I like what Dell does: Separate Twitter IDs for different purposes (IdeaStorm, TechCenter, Outlet, etc.). If you happen to be in the market for a PC you might follow Outlet until you’ve made your purchase, and then unfollow THAT Twitter ID. (So the “unfollow” action isn’t necessarily a bad action. )

While this might open the door to more blatant marketing tweets from FIs, I think it’s important to note that does NOT invalidate your #2 point. A tweet that says “Special rate on 6-month CDs until the end of the week” is very different (and arguably more valuable) than one that just tries to redirect the follower to a web site.

One of the great features of Twitter is the ease at which you can ‘opt-in’ or ‘opt-out’ of the conversation. While the tweet stream feature allows people to get a sense about the topics a company or person discusses on Twitter, it’s not a feature I use all the time. Because I know that I can opt-out of following someone, I may follow without looking at their past posts. If the posts are boring or irrelevant, I’m quick to un-follow.

While some institutions may feel like it’s OK that people un-follow them, we need to keep in mind that they are likely doing so because they don’t like, or don’t care about what’s being said. Those impressions extend beyond Twitter – they contribute to that person’s overall perceptions of your company and your brand.

As the saying goes, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. Once people unfollow you on Twitter, it’s not likely that they’re going to come back. I hope marketers that use Twitter, or are considering using Twitter, really take these 10 points to heart.

Thanks Jeffry, this is a great list.

But precisely what are they expecting to hear? Is it marketing stuff? Perhaps, if that’s what your tweets were about at the time that person chose to follow you.

A tweet stream represents an implicit promise. It says, “Expect more of this kind of stuff in the future.” When someone loads up your profile to determine whether or not they are going to follow you, they are asking themselves, “Do I want to see more of this?” If you are tweeting too much marketing stuff, you’ll probably get fewer followers.

This is fairly subjective advice here, but the general guideline is that you should send no more than one purely self-serving tweet out of every five.

One final point regarding the “opt-in” nature of Twitter, and that is if someone doesn’t like what you are saying, they don’t have to follow you and can instantly “opt-out.” Every aspect of Twitter is completely voluntary. No one is forced to follow, read, do, see or say anything.

A financial institution that wants to know what to tweet should be looking at their brand. If you know what your brand stands for, who you are targeting, with what messages and which products, you’re going to have a lot more clarity about your social media initiatives. If your brand doesn’t provide you any guidance or insight, then either (1) you don’t really have a brand strategy, and/or (2) you shouldn’t be tweeting.

This points out one of the biggest problems plaguing the financial industry, and that is how few financial institutions have a real brand with any kind of focus at all. Most are undifferentiated, look the same, act the same and say the same things to the same people.

If you pick any financial institution with a clear, strong, differentiated brand, I’d bet you can figure out what they should be tweeting. Take VanCity in Canada for instance. They aren’t obligated to be active on Twitter, but if they were, it seems pretty obvious that they would tweet about social activism and their “Change Everything” initiatives. Many people in their target audience would find such a tweet stream compelling. And for VanCity, it would be easy and seamless to work-in product messages and promotions relevant to their followers.

When you have a brand focused on anything — even just an audience segment — it’s going to give you answers. That’s what SEG-focused credit unions (like @firemenscu) have going for them.

Ryan Shell

I was going to make the point, and still will, that if someone elects to follow a brand on Twitter… then that is the ultimate “opt in”. It means they want to be marketed to. A great limited time rate is of benefit to them. Grand opening specials are of benefit to them. The news of branch closings due to storms are of benefit to them. There is nothing wrong with with using Twitter as a communications tool for business and marketing related matters… in fact, it is ideal.

It’s all the personal chatter (from a brand) that diminishes the relevancy. I don’t care about your song favorites, what your dog did this morning or your weather observations. Leave all of that for a personal Twitter account… where I will care, if I choose to follow you.

Thanks for some great guidelines.

@john_mathes