Introducing the Visible Banking Google+ Watch Series [200+ Financial Institutions in 21 Countries]

Since early 2009, my Visible Banking team have been tracking how financial institutions are using social media services like facebook (now over 1,100 pages and apps in 75 countries) and twitter (over 1,600 accounts in 72 countries).  It gives us some unique insights we share with our clients to help them immediately increase the level of engagement on those popular online communities.
  
This month, I've asked my team to start tracking financial institutions on Google +.

Google + was launched on 28 June 2011, and in the last four months, everything has been said of Google's latest venture in the world of social media.  This is the fastest growing 'social network' ever with 40 million 'users' (vs 'active users') at the end of October 2011.
  
Social media gurus are divided on the Google service, I invite you to read those articles: 'Google+ Is Dead', '
Google+ Proclaimed Dead. Is This a Fair Assessment?', '5 Reasons Google+ Could Win the Social Enterprise Battle'.
 
A couple of weeks ago, on 7th November, Google launched 'Google+ Pages' for brands and other businesses 'a la facebook pages'.  In just a week, it has been claimed that over 60% of world's top brands created a Google+ page.  With this move, the search engine giant is poised to reach 60 million users by year end. 

So how big is the opportunity for brands and how critical it is to build an active presence on this other social media 'channel'?  More importantly, should financial institutions hurriedly jump on the bandwagon and create another social media profile without much conviction or engagement?

How Much Do Facebook Users Talk About Your Financial Institution? [Top 20 Pages]

REDIRECTING TO VISIBLEBANKING.COM

In March 2009, my Visible Banking Team officially started tracking how financial institutions all over the world are using social media channels like twitter and facebook.  I am delighted to announce that we are now tracking over 1,100 pages and applications on facebook, and over 1,600 twitter accounts in 75 countries.
  
The size of your 'community' is still one of the key indicators for brands.  I respect that, but once more I would advocate for a good balance between quality and volume.  After all, It is easy to quicky increase your number of likes on facebook as I explained in my recent posts about Credit Union Australia's Pink 'My Profile' and Commonwealth Bank's imminent Time Vault contest on facebook.
 
Your main goal is to build an engaged 'community' of facebook or twitter composed of as many users interested in your brand, your values or your initiatives as possible.  Quickly increasing your 'fan base' usually impacts the quality of your community and the overall level of brand intimacy, and make it difficult for you to design efficient content and reward strategies including the occasional wall posts about financial services.
 
And the ultimate key to brilliant engagement on facebook and twitter is to make sure you Know Your Followers/Fans (KYF). 

As a page owner, in addition to comparing the size of your audience with your competitors', you want to assess the levels of engagement and visibility of your page (metrics such as: volume of likes, comments, shares, posts, questions and answers...).  In early October, facebook unveiled its new Pages Insights analytics Tool and introduced a new metric to access the individual level of success of its 200 million pages: 'talking about this'.
 
So, let's find out which pages in the worldwide financial services industry are the most talked about.

The Most Liked Financial Institutions on Facebook in Australia is... a Credit Union

As most of you already know, today I've just come back from a very productive business trip in Singapore and Australia.

My schedule in Australia was already packed with many business meetings and social media workshops lined up with many financial institutions. But I was delighted to see so many news and events taking place in Sydney in the last two weeks: Commonwealth Bank's launch of 'Kaching' - their innovative payment application for iPhone -, the launch of 'Pygg.co' - a payment service on twitter (via PayPal) - (I recorded a video interview in Australia), and last but not least, last week's bit of a 'crisis management' for the National Australia Bank (NAB) and its controversial rate cut.

On 25 October, I received an email from Peter Cramb - Manager Digital Initiatives at Credit Union Australia who wanted to connect with me in Sydney and inform me of the credit union's successful facebook application 'Pink My Profile' which had a dramatic impact on the fan base of the credit union on facebook...

Two Third of Facebook Pages in Financial Services are at Risk

REDIRECTING TO VISIBLEBANKING.COM

My Visible Banking Team has started tracking and benchmarking how financial institutions are using social media channels like facebook or twitter 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 last few days, I shared with you some of our latest insights on facebook and twitter via a number of video posts: I've confirmed that only 0.05% twitter accounts in financial services are verified, and 90% of those same twitter accounts are inactive.
  
Now, I will share my thoughts and recommendations on one of the key challenges on facebook for financial institutions: driving engagement via an open wall. Surprisingly, we found that the majority of facebook pages in financial services are 'open' and 'at risk'... find out why, and what to do to lower the level of risk.

Latest Global Stats - Facebook in Financial Services (1,088 Pages and Apps, 75 Countries)

I believe the financial services industry worldwide was lacking of a comprehensive benchmark on social media activity on more and more popular online communities like facebook or twitter.
 
This is precisely why, back in early 2009, me and my team at Visible Banking started tracking the social media presence of banks, insurance, investment firms and more widely any type of financial services firms all over the world.
 
I'm delighted to announce that, as of 1st October 2011, my team was tracking a cumulative 31,548,884 likes from over 1,000 facebook pages and apps in now 75 countries (source: the Visible Banking Facebook Watch series).

Interbank Peru Introduces the Visible Banking Facebook Watch Series to their 200,000 Fans

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Last week, I posted a short update on the Visible Banking facebook page to congratulate Interbank Peru for breaking the 200,000 likes barrier on their main page.  My team noticed the update as part of our Facebook Watch series: we are now tracking over 1,000 pages and apps in 72 countries.
 
I was pleasanty surprised when just a couple of hours later, I received an email from Moisés Gordillo - Digital Marketing at Interbank, to thank me for my coverage and offer me an interview with one of the leading media in Peru: "This post has generated much expectation among the local media. One of the most important in Peru wants to make you a skype interview about social media in banks in the world where you mention the participation of a Peruvian bank." 
 
And just a couple of days ago, an update (with a very decent 150+ interactions) on the Interbank page caught my eyes.
 
The facebook team posted a note and gave some exposure to our Facebook Top 10 in the Latin American region (LATAM).

My Take
 Bloggers could well be your best shot at spreading the news and creating some buzz outside your country.  An insightful, unbiased, blog post usually generates a good amount of tweets, linkedin updates and possibly other blogging and traditional media coverage.  This is a cost effective way (it is totally free) to generate great exposure and contribute to your earned media goals.
 
But based on my experience, very few financial institutions appreciate how much time and effort it takes to publish insightful blog posts.

And they still don't understand what motivates bloggers and how to reward them.  Hence the importance to understand what your influencers expect in return: some exposure on your own social media assets (a wall post on facebook or a tweet), a comment on the blog post from your community manager, an interview with your project owner, a thank you email with a request for a conference call to explore opportunities for a collaboration...
 
I'd like to thank Moises and his Interbank colleagues for the visibility on facebook, and praise them for their well executed influencer management strategy.
 
So, from now on, you will know how to reward me next time your company is mentioned on the VB blog, the VB facebook page or @Visible_Banking on twitter...  I look forward to working with you.
 
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.

Related articles on Visible-Banking.com
* All my posts related to Twitter
* All my posts related to Facebook
* Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Facebook, Blogs)

Facebook: the Worldwide Financial Services Industry is on Par with...Beyonce

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As of 1st August 2011, my team was tracking a cumulative 27,066,117 likes from over 1,000 facebook pages and apps in 72 countries.
 
(source: the Visible Banking Facebook Watch series)


According to the excellent facebakers.com site, this number equals just about the number of likes of...Beyonce (!) which would put the whole industry as #25 most followed page on facebook in the world. Justin Bieber (also pictured) makes the Top 10 with about 35 million likes. Outstanding.
 
The first 'brand' is Coca Cola, #14 on the list with over 33 million likes. The first page in our benchmark, Progressive's 'Flo the Progressive girl' (with 3.1 million likes) would be listed at #700.
 
VB Facebook Watch: Tracking over 1k Pages and Apps Worldwide
I believe the financial services industry worldwide was lacking a comprehensive benchmark of social media activities on more and more popular online communities like facebook or twitter. This is precisely why back in early 2009 me and my team at Visible Banking started tracking the social media presence of banks, insurance, investment firms and more widely financial services firms all over the world.

We are currently tracking over 1k pages and apps on facebook and over 1,550 accounts on twitter.

Please find below some of our latest insights for the month of July (data collected on 1st August).

Overall Stats
 
Global Top 10
 
Video Comments
I invite you to watch my short video where I talk you through the latest news (pages and apps) and additions to our benchmark.

 
Companies mentioned: Akbank, Allstate, American Express, American Family, Bank of Georgia, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Capital One, Chase, CIMB, Farmers Insurance, Garanti, GEICO, Generali, La Banque Postale, Progressive, State Farm, Visa.
 
Top 10s: Countries, Regions, Insurance and Credit Unions
I invite you to check out our Top 10s for the insurance industry, the credit union industry as well as the following countries and regions: France, UK, Spain, Asia Pacific (APAC), Latin America (LATAM).

Some of the companies mentioned: BBVA, Bancolombia, Banco Sabadell, BNI, Citi, HSBC, ING Direct, Interbank, Kasikornbank, MMA, Natwest, Popular, Standard Chartered, Santander...
 
Please note that those Top 10s are available exclusively on our facebook page.
 
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.

Related articles on Visible-Banking.com
* All my posts related to Twitter
* All my posts related to Facebook
* Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Facebook, Blogs)

Top Financial Institutions on Facebook - Global and EMEA (894 Pages and Apps, June 2011)

I believe the financial services industry worldwide was lacking of a comprehensive benchmark on social media activity on more and more popular online communities like facebook or twitter. This is precisely why back in early 2009 me and my team at Visible Banking started tracking the social media presence of banks, insurance, investment firms and more widely financial services firms all over the world.

New Visible Banking Quarterly Reports: Facebook and Twitter
I'm keen to connect with you If you are looking to better understand those new communication channels, benchmark yourself against your peers, and successfully leverage social media and contribute to your business objectives.
 
In the meantime, please check our regular updates on the Visible Banking Twitter Watch series, 1,450+ accounts in 70+ countries and Visible Banking Facebook Watch series, 900+ pages and apps in 70+ countries.

FYI, during the summer we will be launching two quarterly reports focused on facebook and twitter. We are keen to find out how useful those reports would be to you and what you'd like to see included. 
Send us your comments and suggestions!
 
The Visible Banking Facebook Watch - June 2011
I invite you watch my short video update.
 
The stats shared in my video come from our data collection activity from early June 2011:
* 894 pages and apps from 72 countries
* 701 pages / 62% open wall
 

 
Companies Featured
* Brazil: Santander
* Indonesia: BNI
* Kuwait: KFH Group
* Netherlands: Aegon,
* South Africa: Capitec Bank
* Thailand: SCB, Kasikornbank
* Turkey: Akbank, Garanti Bank, Türkiye İş Bankası
* US: American Express, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, The Hartford
* Venezuela: Banesco, BBVA Provincial

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.

Related articles on Visible-Banking.com
* All my posts related to Twitter
* All my posts related to Facebook
* Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Facebook, Blogs)

2010's Top 10 Most Liked Banks, Credit Card & Insurance Firms on Facebook (720 Pages, Groups, Apps in 69 Countries)

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In May 2009, I started tracking the financial institutions (FIs) on facebook (only 128 accounts back then!). It will always be a work in progress, so please don't hesitate to get back to me to flag any missing initiatives.
  
My Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (twitter, facebook, blog, youtube) gives me access to some great, and unique, insights. On regular basis, I share some of those key stats and insights with you on my blog, twitter, and facebook, and I provide some second-to-none recommendations to my clients.
 
Visible Banking Facebook Watch Series now tracking 720 pages, groups, and applications in 69 countries: banks, credit unions, insurance firms, financial services and investment firms, credit card companies.
 
I invite you to check the insights included in the slide below (data collected on 31/12/2010) and compare those figures with the ones from last month.

For the first time, I decided to come up with three Top 10s instead of a single Top 10 for all categories: one for banks, one for credit cards, one for insurance. So, how much do you like this new approach?
 
Banking - Top 10 most liked pages:

1. Chase Community Giving (Chase Bank), 2. Barclays Football (Barclays Bank), 3. mitiempo.pe (Interbank), 4. RBS 6 NATIONS (RBS), 5. usaa (USAA), 6. GTBank (GT Bank), 7. BNP PARIBAS NET (BNP Paribas). 8. Interbank Peru (Interbank), 9. KBank Live (Kasikornbank), 10. Popular (Banco Popular).
  
Due to the new format with three Top 10s, we have a brand new banking Top 10 this month. We are delighted to see so much diversity: no less than 7 countries are represented in this new Top 10. Awesome.
 
Our data collection team identified another facebook account from Interbank in Peru: mitiempo.pe which made it directly to #3 with his 300k+ fans.

Pages dedicated to sport experienced a very strong month with over 60% growth for RBS 6 NATION and 25% for Barclays Football. Popular is the only 'corporate' page to enjoy a similar growth with an increase of fans close to 30%.
   
Once more BNP PARIBAS NET is the only page of the top 10 which didn't enjoy any growth last month, demonstrating the challenge ahead for the French bank which hasn't started yet to manage its community.

Credit Cards - Top 10 most liked pages:

1. Small Business Saturday (American Express), 2. Members Project (American Express), 3. American Express (American Express), 4. ZYNC (American Express), 5. Visa Go World (Visa), 6. OPEN (American Express), 7. Visa Signature (Visa), 8. Barclaycard (Barclays), 9. Discover (Discover), 10. SCB CREDIT CARD (SCB).
  
What can I say? American Express is the clear king of facebook, not only in the credit card category but overall. The financial services firm counts 5 pages over 80k, 2 pages over 500k and 1 page well over 1 million fans!

And not only those pages are massively followed, their growth rates are still commandable: over 210% for OPEN, close to 200% for their corporate page, and still over 30% for Small Business Saturday ('SBS', launched in early November 2010). I invite you to check my comprehensive coverage of SBS.
 
Insurance - Top 10 most liked pages:

1. The GEICO Gecko (GEICO), 2. Thumbs Up (Allstate), 3. GEICO (GEICO), 4. Mayhem (Allstate), 5. State Farm Insurance (State Farm), 6. Zero Tracas MMA (MMA), 7. Allianz Knowledge (Allianz), 8. Aviva Stadium (Aviva), 9. American Family Insurance (AmFam), 10. The World's Greatest Spokerperson in the World (Nationwide).

Related Articles on Visible-Banking.com
* All my posts related to Facebook
* Visible Banking Facebook Watch: Tracking 600+ Pages, Groups, Apps in 60+ Countries
* 10 Reasons for the Success of the American Express 'Small Business Saturday' Facebook Page
* Will Ashton Kutcher Accept to Join the Jury of TIAA-CREF's new Facebook Contest, Raise the Rate?
* ASB Bank Launches a Virtual Branch 1.0 on Facebook
* Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, YouTube)

Top 10 Most Liked Financial Institutions on Facebook in December 2010 (644 Pages, Groups, Apps in 67 Countries)

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In May 2009, I started tracking the financial institutions (FIs) on facebook (only 128 accounts back then!). It will always be a work in progress, so please don't hesitate to get back to me to flag any missing initiatives.
  
My Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (twitter, facebook, blog, youtube) gives me access to some great, and unique, insights. On regular basis, I share some of those key stats and insights with you on my blog, twitter, and facebook, and I provide some second-to-none recommendations to my clients.
 
Visible Banking Facebook Watch Series now tracking 644 pages, groups, and applications in 67 countries: 1. 390 from banks, 2. 100 from credit unions, 3. 91 from insurance firms, 4. 32 from financial services and investment firms, 29 from credit card companies.
 
I invite you to check the insights included in the slide below (data collected on 01/12/2010) and compare those figures with the ones from last month.


Top 10 most liked pages:
1. Chase Community Giving (Chase Bank), 2. Small Business Saturday (American Express), 3. Members Project (American Express), 4. Barclays Football (Barclays Bank), 5. RBS 6 NATIONS (RBS), 6. The GEICO Gecko (GEICO Insurance), 7. ZYNC (American Express), 8. usaa (USAA), 8. usaa (USAA), 9. GTBank (GT Bank), 10. BNP PARIBAS NET (BNP Paribas).
  
This month we have a new Top 3. Just a few weeks after launch, American Express' Small Business Saturday made it straight to number 2 with over 1 million fans, kicking Visa Go World out of the chart. American Express now has three pages in the top 10 with an aggregated 1.7 million fans. 
 
Expect the Top 10 to change next month: three pages have between 105k-106k followers including American Express, KBank Live and Interbank Peru which all made the Top 10 fastest growing pages this month.
  
BNP PARIBAS NET is the only page of the top 10 which didn't enjoy any growth last month, demonstrating the challenge ahead for the French bank which hasn't started yet to manage its community. 
  
Top 10 fastest growing pages:
1. Small Business Saturday (American Express), 2. Members Project (American Express), 3. Barclays Football (Barclays Bank), 4. Mayhem (Allstate), 5. American Express (American Express), 6. Interbank Peru (Interbank), 7. The GEICO Gecko (GEICO Insurance), 8. KBank Live (Kasikorn Bank PLC), 9. Bank Hapoalim Students (Bank Hapoalim), 10. CIMB Malaysia (CIMB).
  
This month, the Top 10 added a staggering 1,371,080 new fans or 228% more than last month's Top 10 at 418,009 new fans. This is essentially due to the incredibly successful Small Business Saturday campaign by American Express.
  
A special mention to American Express' Members Project, Barclays Football, Allstate's Mayhem which added respectively 113k, 46k and 32k new fans last month. 
 
Top 10 apps by monthly usage: 
1. Chase Community Giving (Chase Bank), 2. Tu 24/7 personal (American Express, Mexico), 3. 2Good2ToBeTrue Contest (CIMB), 4. Route-Rageous! (Progressive Insurance), 5. iAMFAM (American Family Insurance), 6. Banque Populaire (Banque Populaire), 7. 56 Sage Street (Barclays Bank), 8. LCL Open Crémaillère (LCL), 9. Raise the Rate (TIAA-CREF), 10. ASB Virtual Branch (ASB Bank).
 
This month's Top 10 most active applications reached just over 144k monthly users versus 245k last month. Most of those applications support a marketing campaign or a short-term contest. 

Once again, American Express made the Top 10 at number 2 with its Tu 24/7 personal application in Mexico. As expected Chase Community Giving should soon be leaving the charts, loosing another 25k monthly users last month.

Please note that TIAA-CREF's Raise the Rate enjoyed a decent rise of usage due to the fast approaching deadline of the contest (December 9th).
 
ASB Bank's Virtual Branch is still in the Top 10, despite losing over 8k monthly users. This is due to the end of the Sony VAIO contest, the end of 'the novelty factor', and less promotion on the bank's homepage.
 
Top 10 most liked insurance pages:
1. The GEICO Gecko (GEICO Insurance), 2. Thumbs Up (Allstate), 3. GEICO (GEICO Insurance), 4. Mayhem (Allstate), 5. State Farm Insurance (State Farm), 6. Allianz Knowledge (Allianz), 7. The World's Greatest Spokesperson (Nationwide), 8. Aviva Stadium (Aviva), 9. Allstate Insurance (Allstate), 10. Trupanion (Trupanion Pet Insurance).
 
The Top 10 is almost exclusively made of US Insurance firms, except for Allianz from Germany and Aviva from Ireland. GEICO and Allstate are the only insurance firms with two pages in the Top 10.
Progressive Insurance is catching up with over 19k fans.

Contact Us
Please call me (0044 7736 446 357), send me an email ([email protected]), or DM me @Visible_Banking. 

I would be delighted to talk to you about facebook, customer reviews, and social media in banking, financial services, and insurance.
 
Related articles on Visible-Banking.com
* All my posts related to Facebook
* Visible Banking Facebook Watch: Tracking 600+ Pages, Groups, Apps in 60+ Countries
* 10 Reasons for the Success of the American Express 'Small Business Saturday' Facebook Page
* Will Ashton Kutcher Accept to Join the Jury of TIAA-CREF's new Facebook Contest, Raise the Rate?
* ASB Bank Launches a Virtual Branch 1.0 on Facebook
* Visible Banking Directory: Social Media in Financial Services
* Visible Banking Social Media Watch Series (Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, YouTube)