The Financial Brand on Twitter
Here are some answers from Jeffry Pilcher, publisher of The Financial Brand, about the @FinancialBrand Twitter account.
What’s going on here?
If you just came here from Twitter and this is your first visit to The Financial Brand, then here is a simple overview. The Financial Brand is a free, online B2B publication focused on branding and marketing in the retail banking industry.
You can find the latest stories on the Front Page, and hundreds of other articles in the Vault. If you like what you see, please remember to Subscribe.
Why is The Financial Brand on Twitter?
I run across more interesting stories than one person could ever write about. I use Twitter as a method of sharing items I find through the many sources I track and monitor. Between RSS feeds, Google Alerts, Twitter searches and emails, there are too many articles and websites that financial marketers would be interested in to not share them. Twitter is the outlet — the overflow valve, in a sense — for these finds.
Who does The Financial Brand follow?
Generally, @FinancialBrand follows:
- People who work in financial marketing
- People who tweet specifically about financial brands/branding
- Banks and credit unions
I don’t use auto-followers nor do I follow everyone who follows me. Without exception, I check out everyone’s Twitter profile and their last 20 tweets before following them.
I follow financial institutions to keep track of which banks and credit unions are on Twitter, as well as how they use it.
It takes two hours every day to cull through the massive volume of input fueling The Financial Brand’s content, so if @FinancialBrand doesn’t follow you back, please don’t take this personally. If you’re tweeting about items relevant to The Financial Brand, it’s very likely I’ll find (and follow) you via my online/social media searches.
What does The Financial Brand tweet about?
Almost every tweet from The Financial Brand includes a link to one of these things:
- Articles with significant relevance to financial brand builders.
- Projects, promotions or websites from banks and credit unions.
- Observations and examples of financial branding.
- Items about Twitter with specific relevance to financial institutions.
- Updates about The Financial Brand, including the latest articles.
If an item is interesting or newsworthy to financial marketers, I ask myself two questions. (1) Do I have the time to write about it? (2) Do I have much (if anything) to contribute? If the answer to either of those questions is “no,” the item will usually get shared on Twitter.
Just links?
Most people feel Twitter is a social networking tool that requires a lot of interpersonal interaction and dialogue. And for 99% of the people using Twitter, that’s going to be true. However, the Financial Brand uses Twitter as a publishing tool — a means of broadcasting newsworthy items and sharing interesting links (similar to how one might use Digg or Delicious).
The Financial Brand’s use of Twitter is similar to many news outlets like CNN and the New York Times. For The Financial Brand, Twitter is a micro-blogging platform in the purest sense, offering items and insight relevant to financial marketers in 140 characters or less.
I constantly audit my tweet stream and ask myself these questions:
- If I was new to Twitter and @FinancialBrand was the first page I visited, would I understand what’s going on? (First impressions of Twitter)
- If this was the first time I was looking @FinancialBrand’s page, would I choose to follow? Or is this stuff I could live without? (First impressions of The Financial Brand)
- Is every tweet on-topic? If I worked in financial marketing, how relevant would I find this information? (Relevance of content)
- What is the mix of tweets? Too much stuff on banks? Too much stuff on credit unions? (Strategic image of The Financial Brand)
How often does The Financial Brand tweet?
Usually around 6-8 tweets a day. Sometimes none. You should never see more than a dozen tweets in a day unless something extraordinary is happening.
What Twitter tools does The Financial Brand use?
Tweetdeck – The primary interface I use to manage and send tweets. I have six columns organized from left to right: a select list that makes up the Core, Mentions, Direct Messages, Banks, Credit Unions, and lastly All Friends. Tweetdeck also lets me run searches for specific topics in additional columns.
SocialOomph – Automatically sends a welcome message to new followers directing them to this page.
search.twitter.com – The advanced search features available are pretty powerful. I use this site to generate RSS feeds of topics I’m interested in.
Bit.ly – I use this to shorten URLs shared via Twitter. The neat thing about Bit.ly is that registered users can see how popular an item is by looking at how many clicks it gets.
Google Analytics – I always look at how much site traffic is generated by The Financial Brand’s Twitter activities. It averages around 5%.
The Twit Cleaner – This utility searches all the people you follow and lets you know who may be a spammer and who has been inactive. You can use this to weed out your follower list. (Thanks to Deandre Upshaw for the tip.)
Manage Twitter – Tells you who isn’t following you back, and gives some great supporting details about these people to help you decide if you want to unfollow them. It’s a great tool to clean out your “Following” list for those who follow large numbers of accounts.
Hootsuite – I seldom schedule tweets in advance, but sometimes this can be really handy. I’ll frequently schedule my “Follow Friday” tweets and add to them throughout the week.
Twitter Grader – This is mostly a vanity tool, but it may give some Twitter users helpful advice.
Twitter Counter – Maps, charts and comparatively ranks your Twitter profile.
WeFollow – I use this to find people I might want to follow.
Friend Or Follow – I use this to see who I’m following that isn’t following me back.
What’s up with the Favorites?
My Favorite tweets are just for fun.