Visible Banking: Visible Banking Twitter Watch #9 - 100,123 followers / 398 financial institutions / 22 countries

I started to identify and track the financial institutions on twitter since 15 March 2009.

It is a work in progress, so please do not hesitate to flag any missing initiatives!

On regular basis, I will post some statistics and insights to understand how banks are leveraging twitter. I will do my best to spot the hits and misses, the best practices, as well as the most innovative initiatives.

With the Visible Banking Twitter Watch Series I aim to provide some of the best insights on twitter in banking & financial services
On the internet, there is no such thing as ' the most comprehensive' or 'the best' list. New social media initiatives are launched every day and it is easy for anyone to copy somebody else's list and add a couple of initiatives to claim the title back. Even though listings are valuable, I believe the value lies in sharing your insights, your comments, your expertise with your readers.
In the 'VB - Comments' section I listed a few other awesome twitter directories from my fellow social media advocates.

VB - Twitter Statistics
Currently, I track 398 twitter accounts: 135 banks (+12), 4 central banks, 231 credit unions (+9), 7 credit card issuers, 20 insurance companies (+2), and 1 tax specialists.

Please find below some stats (between 1-8 June / stats collected on 1st of June around 5pm GMT +1)
* Followers of FIs: 8,103 (new) / 100,123 (total) / 253 (average)
* Updates from FIs: 2,575 (new) / 42,963 (total) / 111 (average)
* Top 5 FIs - Most Followed: @SomersetMtg (7,616), @Wachovia (3,956), @INGDIRECT (3,655), @usaa_news (3,378), @HRBlock (2,976).
-> 106 FIs (-2) have 200+ followers and still 40 FIs have 500+ followers.
* The 1,000+ Follower Club: 20 FIs (+3) have 1,000+ followers, congrats to @kotakcards, @chasebank and @Petplan!
* Top 3 FIs - Most Active: @BofA_Help (79 updates), @Ask_WellsFargo (59 updates), @StateFarmIns (58 updates), @raibalustenau (53 updates), @Ideablob (52 updates).
* Restricted tweets: 10
* Inactive accounts: 145 FIs haven't sent any updates since VBTW #8.
* Offline: @HOULTONFCU, @allianz24at and @ANZozCEO are ofline but they still appear in the twitter search with respectively 18, 496, and 433 followers.
* Unofficial: I am still in the process of flagging in my list all the suspicious twitter accounts with no description at all, no logo or just an url.

VB - Comments
* Followers
-> Only 5 financial institutions added 100 followers or more since my last VBTW: 380 more people (+11.6%) are following @INGDIRECT, 188 more people (+5.9%) for @usaa_news, 121 more people (+8.8%) for @CEO_INGDIRECT, 106 more people (5.9%) for @StateFarmIns and 101 more people (+2.6%) for @Wachovia.
-> Another relatively sluggish week with the top 10 fastest growing FIs adding a modest 1,272 new followers. Two weeks ago, the top 3 (@SomersetMtg, @UBank and @ANZMoneyManager) bagged 2,101 new followers on its own.
-> For the second week in a row @SomersetMtg lost some followers, 26 this time which in all fairness represent only 0.3% of their massive follower base.
-> And well done to @AmeriChoiceFCU and @LMCU which significantly increased their follower base by respectively 523% and 164%.
* Following
-> @INGDIRECT is topping the chart this time with 360 new web friends. Then comes @kotakcards with 245 new web friends and @StateFarmIns with 178 new friends.
-> In the meantime, 32 FIs stopped following at least 1 web friend. It looks like @ANZMoneyManager stopped following 4 people and @SomersetMtg stopped following 21 people.
* Updates: 71 FIs have only sent 5 updates or less (33 less than VBTW #8) since setting up their accounts, 28 haven't started to communicate yet. On the positive side, this could also mean those financial institutions understood the importance of registering your name and are still assessing how to leverage micro-blogging. A bit like Wells Fargo did in the last couple of years.
* Other awesome twitter lists: Jim Bruene's Banks and Credit Unions on Twitter on Netbanker, Roger Conant's comprehensive list of credit unions on @CUTweetTrack, Sonya J Mills' list of community banks on @CommunityBanks, Boris' Social Media: Deutsche Banken im Twitter Kurz Test on Electrouncle, and Jeffry Pilcher's Twitter Financial Directory on FinancialBrand.

@Visible_Banking on Twitter / Followers 151-170
In addition to Visible-Banking.com, the Visible Banking Page on Facebook, thanks for following me on Twitter. I am glad to announce that @Visible_Banking has 433 followers so far.