by Ron Daly
Twitter is a very interesting platform for delivering messages. Some of them timely and important, some of them fun and engaging, many of them unhelpful or repetitive. There are a large number of twitter users that don’t tweet or engage with the system whatsoever. So, don’t be fooled by the “200 million users” claims…yes, there may be a large number of ACCOUNTS, but that doesn’t mean they’re “using” Twitter.
So, with everyone climbing all over themselves to find a practical business application of Twitter, one small set of banks has tried using Twitter for notifications – specifically, for fraud notices and phishing attempt alerts. Ron Shevlin at the Marketing Tea Party blog had an interesting insight into the number of bank customers and credit union members that actually use Twitter (via The Financial Brand’s research on the subject). The verdict?
For credit unions, “0.65% of members are connected to their credit union on Twitter. That’s one follower for every 155 members.”
Bottom line: Your response rate on direct mail credit card offers is probably higher than the hit rate of reaching customers on Twitter with important messages.
Oh, but what about Facebook? you wonder. Let’s get more broad with this.
Social media is for conversations. Sometimes people get social media updates at work. Sometimes, they don’t. Sometimes people read social media messages from your bank or credit union. Sometimes, they don’t. Social media is a conversational, interactive platform. A fire alarm is not “social media”. It’s not meant to be, either.
A fire alarm has no “like button”.
Why? Because nobody likes a fire alarm. If it’s just a drill, it means you’re interrupting your day and you have to walk outside for a while. If it’s not a drill, it’s a panic starter.
But either way, you have to leave the building. No questions, just get your stuff and go.
When it comes to notifying members (and customers) electronically, you need a system that sends email, text messages, and maybe even voice messages. People pick up their phones and they read their email. That message has to be one-to-many, and it can’t leave room for interpretation. Even better if that system can send the messages all at the same time to everyone in your organization.
That system is Exigent911. You can message all of your employees at once via email. You can message members and customers over and over to get the word out about fraud, phishing, cancellations, weather emergencies, etc. It’s fast, effective and, more importantly, you can get started with it right away. Call us at 866.994.4900, ext 115 or email info@exigent911.com.
