Power 100 Social Media Rankings for Banks

Comments

1. Ryan Kroll says:

   October 16, 2014 at 2:58 pm

   Social media bank ratings is intereseting but how do you monetize it? What evidence can you provide that popular and entertaining content on-line translates into more busines? Does a funny You Tube ad actually convince someone to change banks? Please show the data that twitter followers benefit the bottom line.I have yet to see such data.
2. Editor says:

   October 16, 2014 at 9:47 pm

   Ryan, actually The Financial Brand thinks 90% of institutions using social media today are wasting their time. But that’s not stopping them. We stopped fighting the tide a couple years ago. Financial institutions want to use social media, no matter what, so we created this index that lets them compare results and see for themselves which institutions generate what kind of traction. We publish these lists not because we necessarily believe social media is a wonderful tool for new business, but rather because we can generate pageviews from our core audience around an issue they find important.
3. Pedro Arce says:

   October 20, 2014 at 1:07 pm

   Hi, one question & one observation

   – Why are these rankings not considering LATAM and Europe (aside from GB)?

   + In regards of the previous commment from the Editor, I find a bit surprisig that the Financial Brand’s point of view on Social Media has not changed at all in 4 years time, moreover when the nature, reach and opportunities of this environment has evolved dramatically.

   From my humble perspective, providing an answer with a link to a 4 year-old article, at the same time you state you are publishing something you do not believe in (but generates site visits), is quite unproffesional. Again, just my opinion.
4. Editor says:

   October 20, 2014 at 2:32 pm

   Pedro,

   The site is intended for financial institutions who conduct their marketing in English. This isn’t out of any bias; it’s a practical reality of marketing: language is central to communications. So we aren’t discriminating against banks in other parts of the world so much as we are trying to provide our core audience with resources they can use. While institutions conducting their marketing in other languages may be finding success in social channels, there isn’t much The Financial Brand’s audience can learn from those whose marketing they can’t decipher. There are also cultural and regulatory considerations when looking at what non-English financial institutions are up to. For what it’s worth, there are actually 14 different countries besides the US and UK that are represented in the database.

   As for the role of social media in banking, our position has remained fairly consistent over the years. We continue to assert that social media is generally a waste of time for 90% of institutions using it. Does social media work for some large institutions? Yes, a point we’ve stressed many times over the years. Should large institutions provide service in social channels like Facebook and Twitter? Generally yes, another point we’ve made frequently. But people tend to only think about large banks when discussing social media’s role in the financial industry. The reality is that there are only a few hundred financial institutions on the planet — no more than 1,000 — with the scale, size and critical mass to accomplish anything truly worthwhile in social channels (granted, there are a handful of exceptions among smaller institutions).

   When people dole out social media advice to the financial industry, they are almost always thinking of megabanks with tens of thousands of employees and billions in assets — BofA, Citi, Chase, Wells Fargo, Barclays, BBVA, Santander, etc. And that’s who the Power 100 database is really intended for. But industry observers and pundits aren’t thinking about the $350 million credit union that has two people in its marketing department. They aren’t thinking about the $750 million community bank with an annual marketing budget around $500,000. If you spend any amount of time talking to these smaller institutions — of which there are over 12,000 in the U.S. alone — you’ll see that social media doesn’t really pencil out. There are many things they could be doing today instead of social media — things that have been proven to generate new business. If they lack the bandwidth to tackle those items, how can they justify prioritizing social media activities with a vague ROI, especially when they don’t gain any (meaningful) traction?

   The Financial Brand has been tracking thousands of banks and CUs on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube; no one spends more time looking at what more financial institutions are doing in social channels than us. We look at thousands upon thousands of accounts at least four times a year. And what do we see? We see a lot of financial institutions struggling. We see a lot of banks and CUs putting forth a significant amount of effort for (basically) zippo in return. For every one financial institution with 1,000+ followers on Twitter, there are 100 others that have around 100 followers. Same thing on Facebook. And the situation is even worse on YouTube. This represents an opportunity cost of time.

   When it comes to social media strategies in banking, The Financial Brand thinks about two very distinct, different groups: big banks, and everyone else. So it’s not to say social media is a waste of time for banks and credit unions. It’s to say that social media is a waste of time for most smaller banks and credit unions. There are way more institutions engaged in social media than there should be today. Most institutions generate no traction, no success, no results. They don’t have the time, manpower, resources to do it right. And they have more important priorities they need to tackle — low-hanging fruit, with a clear/obvious impact on their bottom line. So why do they bother?

   Look through the library of 200+ articles we’ve published on social media, and you’ll see that our coverage of the subject has been fair and professional… but also realistic, practical and unfiltered. We’ve preached our sermons and offered our advice. That hasn’t stopped smaller institutions from doing what they want to- and are going to do anyway. Are we frustrated? Yeah, we are. We don’t like seeing people waste their time.

   Respectfully,

   Jeffry Pilcher
   Publisher
   The Financial Brand