The Financial Brand has been monitoring the social media activity for thousands of banks and credit unions over the last four years. In 2013, we launched the Power 100 index, a formal database of top-performing financial institutions on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. We have now collected a solid year’s worth of intel — four consecutive quarters — yielding the following stats, facts and figures.
Power 100 Overall Rankings for Q3 2014:
Best of Banking on Facebook
The top 100 banks on Facebook have 38.7 million ‘Likes,’ of which 22 million belong to the top 10 (57.7%).
The top 100 banks on Facebook added 2.5 million ‘Likes’ between July and September 2014, an average of 274 new ‘Likes’ per institution per day. The top 10 banks on Facebook added 1.9 million ‘Likes,’ nearly 2,100 per institution per day (that’s 1.5 every minute, 24 hours a day for three months straight).
In total, financial institutions tracked by The Financial Brand increased their number of ‘Likes’ by 23.8% over the past year. The best institutions on Facebook increase their ‘Likes’ by 6% every quarter.
In the English-speaking world, only 10 banks and one credit union (Navy) have more than 1 million ‘Likes’ on Facebook. Only 53 banks have more than 100,000 ‘Likes.’ Only 67 credit unions in the world have more than 10,000 ‘Likes.’
Financial institutions have roughly 10 times more Facebook ‘Likes’ than they do Twitter Followers.
In the English-speaking world, only 6 of the top 20 banks on Facebook are from the United States. India owns four of the top 20, Malaysia has three, and two for Nigeria. Australia, Canada, South Africa, Singapore and the Philippines round out the other spots. Only one third (36%) of the top 100 banks on Facebook are from the U.S.
Successful institutions on Facebook can expect a 1.5% engagement rate (percentage of Facebook users talking about a bank/credit union relative to their number of ‘Likes’). In other words, if you have 10,000 ‘Likes,’ roughly 150 Facebook users will be talking about you.
Power 100 Facebook Rankings for Q3 2014:
- Top 100 Most Liked Banks
- Top 100 Most Liked Credit Unions
- Top 100 Banks Adding The Most New Likes
- Top 100 Credit Unions Adding The Most New Likes
Best of Banking on Twitter
Only 70 banks have more than 10,000 Followers. Only 133 credit unions have more than 1,000 Followers.
The top institutions on Twitter increase their Followers by 15% every quarter.
The fastest growing banks on Twitter will add an average of between 2,000 and 6,000 new Followers every three months. The fastest growing credit unions will generate an average between 100 and 325 new followers in that same time period.
Only 123 banks and credit unions in the English-speaking world have added more than 1,000 Followers in the last year.
Simply due to their size, megabanks add at least 1,000 new Followers every 90 days, while others — including many of the most successful banks and credit unions on Twitter — will only add around 50 new Followers per quarter.
The top 100 banks and credit unions sent 323,455 tweets between July and September 2014 — roughly 36 tweets per day per institution.
On average, successful institutions on Twitter follow one account for roughly every five Followers they have.
60 institutions in the Power 100 database lost a combined total of 28,000 Followers between July and September 2014.
Power 100 Twitter Rankings for Q3 2014:
- Top 100 Banks On Twitter With The Most Followers
- Top 100 Credit Unions On Twitter With The Most Followers
- Top 100 Banks Adding The Most New Twitter Followers
- Top 100 Credit Unions Adding The Most New Twitter Followers
- Top 100 Most Active Banks On Twitter
- Top 100 Most Active Credit Unions On Twitter
Best of Banking on YouTube
The top 100 institutions on YouTube have generated a combined all-time total of 206.3 million video views, with 58% of those views belonging to the top 10. A bank or credit union only needs around 100,000 all-time YouTube views to rank in the Power 100 database. Fewer than 100 credit unions have generated more than 10,000 all-time video views on YouTube.
Only 40 institutions in the English-speaking world were able to generate over 100,000 new video views on YouTube between July and September 2014. Three of those were credit unions.
Building a community or following on YouTube is much more challenging for financial institutions than it is on Facebook or Twitter. The top 100 institutions only claim 27,560 channel subscribers among them — that’s combined. There are 95 banks and 14 credit unions each with at least that many Facebook ‘Likes.’
14.5% of institutions with either a Twitter and/or Facebook account tracked by The Financial Brand don’t maintain a YouTube account.
25 institutions deleted videos on their YouTube channel in Q3 2014, erasing a combined total of 6.3 million video views from their channel totals.
Power 100 YouTube Rankings for Q3 2014: