Well Fargo has became the latest in a growing list of banks to launch a feed on Twitter, a free social networking utility that publishes information updates on users’ activities in real time.
The bank hopes that the feed, launched last Thursday, will provide an alternative channel through which it can learn how to “better serve” its customers, the bank says on its Twitter page. Customers are encouraged to use the Twitter feed to ask questions and receive answers and advice, provided by ‘Joel’ the feed’s steward, in near real time.
Inquiries, posted by the feed’s 493 Twitter customers or ‘followers’, as Twitter dubs them, relate to basic banking needs surrounding checking, savings and online banking.
Wachovia Bank, which acquired Wells Fargo in December 2008, has been using the social networking site to communicate with 2400 customers since August last year, while Bank of America, which also launched a Twitter feed in January of this year, has some 1500 Twitter followers.
Wells Fargo, which has been an active user of social media and so-called ‘Web 2.0’ technologies in recent years, has amassed 493 followers since launching the feed last week.
The Twitter service, which enjoys more than 1 million users worldwide, is effectively a micro-blogging site that allows communities of users to be hyper-connected through a real-time stream of text-based mini blogs comprising no more than 140 characters. These ‘Tweets’, as they are called, are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users that have subscribed to the feed.
The banking industry has traditionally been slow to take advantage of new social media and ‘Web 2.0’ tools, whose flexibility, customisability and inter-active nature have revolutionised internet services and online communication.
Many experts warn, however, that if banks are to capture the so-called ‘Y’ Generation customer segment, which is characterised by a strong familiarity with the internet and social media, it will have to effectively exploit these new channels, not only to deliver advice but also to offer fully fledged banking services.
In April last year, The Banker reported that a small number of banks and credit unions are beginning to develop enhanced Web 2.0 functionality within their online banking offerings, including the creation of payment and funds transfer functionality within social networking phenomenon Facebook.
