Only 0.05% of Twitter Accounts in Financial Services are Verified

My Visible Banking Team has started tracking and benchmarking how financial institutions are using social media channels like facebook ortwitter since March 2009.  I am delighted to announce that we are now tracking over 1,000 pages and apps on facebook, and over 1,500 accounts on twitter, in 75 countries.

In the new few days, I will share some of your latest unique insights on facebook and twitter via a few video posts.  I will also confirm that the financial services industry hasn’t started to really use twitter yet (90% of the accounts being ‘inactive’) and the majority of facebook pages are ‘open’ and ‘at risk’.  Stay tuned on Visible Banking.

If it is easy to setup an account and ‘be on twitter’ (it essentially takes only a few minutes), very few banks, insurances firms or asset management boutiques understand how to leverage this increasingly popular communication channel: accounts not branded and don’t necessarily look ‘ligit’, no proper content strategy and a very low level of activity…

One of your first key objectives (and challenges) on twitter is to work on your brand perception.  You must convince the tweeps that your account(s) is (are) official, and eventually make sure they are comfortable with your twitter presence and happy to engage in a conversation with your team.One of the most convincing ways to convince the twitter users of the authenticity of your account is to request the almighty ‘verified account’ badge introduced by the twitter team back in June 2009.  Please note that requests have been closed since September 2010 (at least officially).  As a brand, you can still get hold of the badge, but the overall process takes quite a while for brands outside the US, so start now and make sure to follow up with twitter on regular basis.Out of the 1,560 accounts we are tracking in 72 countries, we flagged only 87 verified accounts from 9 countries.  This figure equals to a mere 0.05% of the total number of financial services accounts.  So, how many accounts are verified on twitter (find out here)?  And how does this percentage compare?Find out in my video below!  Please note that this short video is available onthe Visible Banking youtube channel.

Companies mentioned: Allstate, American Express, Banco Sabadell, Banesco, Bank of America, Bank Of Scotland, Banque de France, Bradesco, Chase, Citi, Discover, GEICO, HR Block, HSBC, Merrill Lynch, State Farm Insurance.

17 New Verified Accounts in September 2011
First of all, congratulations to Pol Navarro and his team at Banco Sabadell which became the latest verified bank on twitter on Friday 7th October!

They became the 1st bank with a verified account in Spain (87th in the world).

Congratulations to the following financial institutions which also got hold of the verified account badge in September 2011: Banesco (Venezuela), BNP Paribas x3 (France), GEICO x4 (US), HiscoxSmallBiz (US), HSBC (UK), ING (US), Merrill Lynch (US), NAB (Australia), Rochester Funds (US), Vanguard (US).

Other Ways to Improve your Trust and Brand Perception on Twitter
In my video, I talk you through the other ways to take your twitter presence to the next level and increase the level of activity and engagement.  I always use Bank of America’s @BofA_Help.

Share Your Experience
So, you’ve approached twitter, but you are still waiting for a response?  Or you’ve already gone through the verification process, and you successfully got your verified account badge for your main account?  How easy was it to verify your other accounts afterwards?

I invite you to talk us through your experience, and tell us how long the process was, and if you’ve noticed any impact on your growth rate and your level of conversations on twitter.

Working Together
We at Visible Banking would be delighted to help you and your team better UNDERSTAND and LEVERAGE social media in a strategic yet pragmatic way. So please don’t hesitate to call me, send me an email or DM me (@Visible_Banking) to book a meeting and talk about twitter, facebook,crowdsourcing, customer reviews, social media & social commerce in banking, financial services and insurance.