Using the popular microblog Twitter, some banks are sending messages called “tweets”—and forging a new bond with a certain type of online savvy customer.
By Lauren Bielski,
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As social network Twitter gains a corporate presence, some banks get busy—and add a voice of reason
Those exploring social media these days are using Twitter—to “tweet.”
The list of financial institutions sending short, conversational messages to customers on Twitter is small but growing as the platform goes mainstream. Wachovia has staffers who tweet. So does UMB. So does H&R Block. Wachovia’s new parent, Wells Fargo, is holding its name in reserve on the Twitter network (as companies do with a web domain name) so that, in the near future, its corporate communication team or other personnel might tweet about the bank.
Twitter is a microblog—perhaps the most famous among them—that allows users to sign up and post 140-character messages. (Unlike texting, with its hip three-letter lingo, tweeting is mostly in standard, if informal, English.)
Any corporate or individual user begins to collect “followers,” in Twitter parlance, who sign up to be connected to the user—that is—to read the person’s posts. This process of “following” tends to be reciprocal. A kind of exchange among users develops, leaving a trail of tweets behind.
“In August we started with Twitter because we wanted to develop a corporate competency in this type of social media,” says Pete Fields, senior vice-president and e-business director for corporate services and Web 2.0 at Wachovia.
“Our ‘followers’ have been very supportive about our presence on the platform. I believe they see it as a validation,” Fields adds.
What, in 2006, started as an experimental communication tool by Twitter, an IT company based in the SOMA district of San Francisco, has rapidly matured into a far reaching public network by the same name—one which can also be splintered off into private networks.
There are various Twitter-derived applications that can be added to help power users manage inbound traffic. TweetScan, the application used by Wachovia, “pings” those tasked with monitoring the public Twitter, when the bank is mentioned. (How prominently you get featured on public Twitter is a bit complicated; it has to do with the total size of your personal network and how often your tweets get referenced, that is, “re-tweeted,” resulting in your becoming noteworthy.)
Most users have between 75 and 200 followers, but power users or large corporate brands can have many more. Wachovia had 1,000 followers as of mid-January.
UMB tweets, so does JetBlue
Pamela K. Blase, senior vice-president and director of corporate communications, UMB Financial Corp., Kansas City, says her bank started using Twitter to share information about the unfolding financial crisis.
Over several months, UMB found other uses. “We are using NetVibes, a free Twitter tool, to monitor positive UMB mentions that we can use to promote the bank,” Blase e-mailed to ABABJ.
Joining some of these banking pathfinders, are their equivalents in the airline, technology, and several other industries.
The broader world of corporate Twitter users has also adopted the tool to stay in sync with their customers—and ease any daily tensions that are bound to erupt. “We think Twitter is very much in keeping with the JetBlue brand,” says New York-based Morgan Johnston, manager of corporate communications for airline. “But it definitely has a practical aspect.”
Using an Adobe Air application called TweetDeck, Johnston tweets to stay linked to customers and staff where the action is—at the airport of course. With it, he functions like a kind of “message traffic control.”
Customers like the open line to someone with real information they can use. “We had a situation where passengers tweeted that they were annoyed that there weren’t any ground personnel at a terminal during a transfer,” Johnston relates. “A few tweets later, I had located our staff and communicated to customers that staff were off helping some special-needs passengers for a few minutes. They appreciated knowing the status within minutes, looking at their mobile.”
Likewise, the channel can also diffuse banking frustrations. “We had somebody who was upset by an NSF fee,” says Wachovia’s Pete Fields. “We used the platform as an opportunity to explain about overdraft protection.”
Brevity, wit, agility
But why open yourself up to the public’s many moods? Well, says Switzerland-based “media futurist” Gerd Leonhard, you tweet because, increasingly, more netizens have an expectation that your company will be there.
Twitter in 2009 has an estimated five to seven million users worldwide, according Leonhard, and has traffic of 30 million unique users monthly.
Twitter’s growing appeal might also have something to do with the fine art of conversation, something that proponents say Twitter supports.
“It’s not about being in ‘broadcast mode,’ which is the equivalent of shouting over everyone else in the room,” says Leonhard.
He adds: “The tweet can express real emotion, but it’s not about pontificating.” Standard blogs, in contrast, can devolve into rant zones or run-on-sentence-mad inside jokes that can be, well, too inside.
Instead, when tweeting, brevity and wit all count, according to Leonhard, who authors a non-rant blog at www.mediafuturist.com.
Besides, the microblog has agility. It is getting embedded into other social media applications such as FaceBook, and will likely get white-labeled into intranets.
And, for those on the hunt for a business model to believe in, there is a growing cluster of technology firms that support ad placement within microblogs, notes Richard Crone, principal Crone Consulting, San Carlos, Calif. “Blend the customer service traits of Twitter with payments capabilities and you have something,” he says.
“It lets corporations track distinct exchanges—it has the potential to be the new customer relationship management system,” says Leonhard. BJ
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