MyPrivateBanking Global Banking Survey: Banks Should Invest More in Facebook

Zurich, Switzerland, June 17, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Overall, global banks have presences on all major social media, however, especially on Facebook, by far the most popular network, they are doing worse than with other social media. According to a survey by Swiss research company MyPrivateBanking, the world’s top 50 banks do best on LinkedIn and YouTube, social media where, respectively, 100% and 92% of the banks analyzed have a presence. Facebook and Twitter are close behind as the next most used social media networks, but bank presences are significantly lacking in quality. For their Facebook presences banks received on average only 67 out of 100 possible points in the MyPrivateBanking evaluation, compared with 84 points for their LinkedIn profiles.

Social Media used by World¹s Top 50 Banks and Quality of Presences:

1. LinkedIn (Presence: 100% of Top50 banks, Evaluation: 84 out of max. 100
points); 2. YouTube (Presence: 92% of Top50 banks, Evaluation: 80 out of
max. 100 points); 3. Facebook (Presence: 90% of Top50 banks, Evaluation:
67 out of max. 100 points); 4. Twitter (Presence: 88% of Top50 banks,
Evaluation: 77 out of max. 100 points); 5. GooglePlus (Presence: 74% of
Top50 banks, Evaluation: 72 out of max. 100 points)

One major weakness of banks on Facebook is the slow response time on comments posted on the message boards as well to private contact messages. Of the banks using Facebook, 25% never responded to a posted message by a test user and 40% needed more than a day. Even worse, 85% of the banks did not respond to an individual contact message via Facebook at all. “Facebook is all about interactivity and this is what banks still do not get”, explains Steffen Binder, Research Director of MyPrivateBanking Research. ”If users rarely get timely responses on their messages, the Facebook presences is practically useless to them and the banks miss out on a great opportunity to engage theusers and start a dialogue.”

As a main reason for the popularity and comparatively high quality of the banks’ LinkedIn presences, MyPrivateBanking sees the stronger focus of the LinkedIn presences on potential new recruits rather than new and existing clients. With the human resource departments as an additional user group lobbying for a good presence, and fewer but more targeted features than Facebook, the LinkedIn presences benefit from a clearer focus and wider operational support within the banks. Twitter benefits, in MyPrivateBanking’s view, from its being comparatively easy to set-up and requiring not so much interactivity as a continuous stream of relevant messages.

MyPrivateBanking strongly urges every bank to strive to excel with its Facebook presence. And not just with respect to interactivity; but also to offer more targeted presences to different customer groups and countries, so long as proper coordination is maintained, to avoid duplicating effort or sending out conflicting messages. “A high-quality Facebook presence is the most difficult to achieve among the all social networks, but, with its enormous reach, also potentially the most rewarding”, is how Steffen Binder summarizes the benefits of improving banks social media presence.”As with their efforts in LinkedIn, banks need dedicated teams to maintain and continuously develop their Facebook presences and to ensure interactivity and freshness."

About the survey: For the survey MyPrivateBanking Research analyzed which social media are used by the 50 largest banks worldwide and the strengths and weaknesses of each of their social media presences.

Banks Analyzed: ABN AMRO, ANZ Bank, Banco Bilbao V.A., Bank of America, Bank of China, Bank of Montreal, Barclays, BB&T, BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, Bradesco, Caisse d`Epargne, CIBC, CITI Bank, Coutts Private Bank, Crédit Agricole, Credit Suisse, Danske Bank Group, DBSBank, Deutsche Bank, Erste Bank/Sparkasse Österreich, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, ICICI, ING Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, Itaú Bank, J.P. Morgan, Julius Bär, Lloyds Banking Group, Merrill Lynch, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (English Service), Morgan Stanley, National Australia Bank, Nordea, Pictet, PNC Financial Services Group, Rabobank Group, Royal Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander, SEB Bank, Société Générale, Standard Chartered, Suntrust, Toronto Dominion, UBS, Unicredit, US Bank, Wells Fargo

About MyPrivateBanking Research: MyPrivateBanking Research is an independent research firm. Established in 2009 in Switzerland, we specialize in research and analysis on how financial services firm should develop their websites, social media presences and mobile apps to best serve existing customer and to win new clients. We offer our insights in comprehensive reports as well as customized research, workshops and presentations.