Twitter. Odd word. Is it a word at all? Is it something you should care about as a community banker? Let me handle these one at a time.
First, Twitter. It definitely is a word. More
specifically it is a website that Wikipedia defines
as "a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to
send and read other users' updates (known as tweets), which are
text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length." Twitter was launched
in July 2006. The word Twitter is a backronym
created by Comedian Josh Marino; Typing What I'm Thinking To Everyone
Reading.
Second, is it something you should care about as a community
banker? It depends. If you target market is 100% Traditionalist or
Baby Boomer (see Gen Y and the Community Bank), no. However if your
target market includes Gen Y (born after 1977), and in some cases Gen X (born
1965 to 1977), you should take a serious look at Twitter and other social media
tools. For most community banks, a decision to ignore Gen Y will
eventually represent a decision to slowly see business wither away. Gen Y
will soon represent the largest segment of the US population; they will soon
outnumber Baby Boomers.
A great place to start learning more about Gen Y
is in the book Millennial Leaders: Success Stories From Today's Most Brilliant Generation Y Leaders . Doing business with Gen Y is very
different than doing business with their predecessors. Click here
to learn more about a free webinar on doing business with Gen Y on March 4,
2009.
Back to Twitter.
What is Twitter? To quote their
homepage, "Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co-workers
to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent
answers to one simple question: What are you doing?" In
my experience, it is much more than this! It is a great way to reach
a very large group of potential prospects in a very low cost (free),
non-intrusive and non-offensive way if you follow the proper etiquette of
Twitter. To put it "old school", it's a form of networking.
In
doing my research for this post I did a search on Twitter to learn who is
already there from the banking community and how they are using
Twitter.
I was most impressed with Wachovia (http://twitter.com/Wachovia), which
became part of Wells Fargo (http://twitter.com/WellsFargo) at the beginning of this year. Wachovia indicates "We're here primarily to listen, to learn, to engage with the Twitter
community and, occasionally, to share information about our company and
services." in their Bio. There are currently 1,736 users following the
posts Wachovia makes on Twitter.
Okay community bankers, here is
the most valuable piece of information in this post! When I
looked up Wells Fargo, their Bio says "We're holding our name
for now, but hope to participate soon." There are 438 people following
them already. The moral of the story? Register your
bank name on Twitter immediately after reading two blog posts on
choosing a name! Sarah Evans discusses choosing a Twitter ID and
much more in a post entitled HOW
TO: Build Community on Twitter on Mashable.com. Rick Butts
offers some useful tips on the importance of the correct Twitter ID and how to
change it if you picked the wrong one in a blog post entitled How to Change Your Twitter Username ID on
RickButts.com.
Here are a few other examples of banks currently using
Twitter well, and banks that show good potential.
Using
Twitter well:
North Shore Bank, Wisconsin and Illinois - http://twitter.com/NorthShoreBank
1st
Mariner Bank, Baltimore MD - http://twitter.com/1stMarinerBank
First
Arkansas Bank, Arkansas - http://twitter.com/fabandt
Showing
good Twitter potential:
Northeast Bank, Maine & New
Hampshire - http://twitter.com/Northeast_Bank
Nicolet
Bank, Northeast Wisconsin, Green Bay - http://twitter.com/nicoletbank
Chesapeake
Bank, Virginia - http://twitter.com/chesbank
Fidelity
Bank, Greater Scranton/Wilkes-Barre PA - http://twitter.com/Fidelity_Bank
Are you wondering where to
start? Here's what I suggest:
Community
bankers start your engines! You're ready to begin.
There is an eight
minute video of Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter, on Ted.com that
is absolutely worth watching! Check out Evan Williams: How Twitter's spectacular growth is being
driven by unexpected uses. Follow Evan on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ev. He's a pretty
popular guy with 190,497 followers on Twitter as I write this post.
Oh
yes, and be sure to follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jeffsimpkins
Happy
Tweeting!