The do’s and don’t of blogging and tweeting!

Every company and/or advid Blogger, Tweeter can do a couple of things to improve their social media presence. Banks such as Bank of America are slowly but surely integrating social media in their marketing plans, to help the company reach as many consumers as possible. Although a company like Bank of America is probably highly regulated and can only tweet certain things to the public, they still have a great presence. Their twitter page is branded up the wazoo with the most current news being tweeted, #hashtagging #BofA in every tweet and so on. All of their twitter handles touch on their brand and divisions within #BofA constantly. Best way to get a brand out there over and over!

Blogging and Tweeting Best Practices

Do:

Share your thoughts and opinions about a particular subject. The knowledge you hold may be valuable to another reader.

Make your blog or twitter feed personal. Include those personal touches, whether it’s a personal background or a color scheme you really like. Make it your own!

Do brand your page if you’re an organization/company as much as possible.

Do use #hashtags and links to other company, organization or individuals pages. This is a great way to connect your readers or followers with links or similar stories or pages.

Do post frequently.

Do respond to comments on your blog or tweets as soon as possible.

Follow others on Twitter and bloggers that share similarities in their posts. Make an effort to follow one blog or a couple of Tweeters every week.

 Don’t:

Attack other bloggers or tweeters because you may not agree with their comments. Keep it classy and understand that not everyone thinks the same way you do.

Don’t make your blog posts too long! Keep it simple, but with enough text to make your point. You don’t want one blog post turning into a novel.

Don’t forget to reference your quotes, images and/or videos used in your blog or tweets. You need to make sure you give credit for other peoples work.

Don’t forget to set a goal if you are using social media for your business. You don’t want to dive right in unless you have an idea of what your goals and objectives are.

Here are some helpful websites for more ways to improve your blog or twitter feed:

12 Easy Ways to Improve Your Blog

Twitter Tips

Perfect Your Twitter Profile

10 Simple Steps Will Improve Your Business Blog

Related articles

• Twitter 101: Defining Twitter Terms and Functions (webtalentmarketing.com)
• What Your Social Media Road Map Should Look Like, Part 2 of 2 (benchmarkemail.com)

Mobile Banking Apps

Within the banking industry, there has been a huge change in the way online banking works. Almost all of the large national banks have integrated online banking applications for consumers to use every day and everywhere.

The Bank of America mobile banking application includes so many features for so many different devices:

The best Mobile Banking experience for your smartphone or tablet.

Customized for your

iPhone® and iPod touch®

iPad®

Android™ phone

Android™ tablet

Windows® Phone

BlackBerry®

Kindle Fire™

The same fraud protection, encryption and secure sign-in as our Online Banking

In use by more than 10 million Bank of America customers

Great for the multitasker

Use our mobile app when you want the most robust banking experience on the go. Depending on your device, you can look up account details and transaction history, make transfers, pay bills, get alerts and BankAmeriDeals™, deposit a check (using the camera on your phone or tablet) and find the nearest Bank of America ATM and banking center (Bank of America, 2013).

The most recent to mobile banking applications is depositing a check remotely from your device. Simply take a picture of the front and back of your check, upload and your deposit is complete! This new featuring has really enhanced mobile banking and the ease of banking. Bank of America (2013) notes four simple steps on their website:

1. Open Mobile Banking App and select “Deposits”.
2. Take a picture of the front and back of the endorsed check.
3. Select the account to receive the deposit and enter the amount of the check
4. Submit and receive confirmation that your deposit was successfully received

The mobile banking application has really helped to ease the everyday hassles that so many of us face. Not everyone has time to go home, open up his or her laptop or computer, go to the banking website, log in, and make a transfer or whatever the task may be. You can simply take your phone out of your pocket and perform so many every day banking tasks that would take 10x as long by logging in at home or going to a branch.

References

Bank of America. (2013). Mobile Banking. From Bank of America: https://www.bankofamerica.com/online-banking/mobile-banking-applications.go

Social Media Regulations within the Bank

Having worked in marketing within the banking industry for 2 years, as social media started to really evolve, I have had the ability to see how it works first hand. Within the banking industry, social media has been a slow moving trend to reach consumers in the marketplace. The highly regulated industry has caused delays in implementing social media for the large, nationally recognized banks, putting this industry at the bottom of the list when it comes to leveraging social media.

The power of social media will have significant impact on the way financial services conduct business; this can have a transformational impact in their corporate thinking and marketing capabilities. From connecting directly with end customers, or engaging with employees, to collaborating with partners, social media provides a significant value proposition that companies ignore at their peril. As stakeholders increasingly adopt social technologies, the potential of social media can help companies grow customer loyalty, accelerate growth, and unleash their potential (Perlasamy, 2011). This opportunity banks can leverage is important for them to understand, and using social media securely given all of the regulations, is one of the most important things for baking industry marketers to understand in its entirety.

Within my current position at a nationally recognized bank that is to remain anonymous, I have seen the regulations that come first hand with trying to incorporate social media into a banks marketing plan. The consumer bank engages in social media through Facebook and Twitter, where as my particular line of business within the larger bank itself, only engages in Twitter right now. Both social media platforms, allow for a lot of communication with consumers so protecting the bank and its reputation is important. All Tweets must be approved by legal and branding compliance before anything can be Tweeted. This allows for the bank to make sure they are covered in terms of meeting branding standards and legal requirements. It can be very tricky, as consumers can take one thing you say and turn it around and have it mean another. We want to make usre that we are covered on all ends and provide Twitter updates that are appropriate for the targeted audience, are communicated properly and are timely.

Given the strict regulations within banks, our social media capabilities are limited, but continuing to evolve as our marketing teams understand all of the aspects that go into Tweeting informative and secure Tweets so consumers don’t come back with a different idea than we intended to share.

References

Perlasamy, S. (2011). Technology Insights for the Financial Industry. From Infosys: http://www.infosys.com/FINsights/Documents/pdf/issue9/social-media-financial-services-risk-reward.pdf

Social Media Tools

Social media is an ever-changing tool that many companies are now leveraging on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. As technology evolves so does social media and vice versa. Specific tools are used in social media to help you and your company to better understand what works with your audience/followers. Tools such as ArgyleSocial, which comes at a cost and a free tool such as BackTweets allows you and/or your company to manage multiple social media accounts and understand what is effective and what can be changed in your current social media strategies.

ArgyleSocial is a marketing company which has created a marketing platform to unite all of your company’s marketing efforts. ArgyleSocial (n.d.) writes Tie social actions to real business results — such as opportunities won — by synchronizing prospect and customer actions across all of your analytic softwares. In addition, the ArgyleSocial marketing platform Monitor your social presence when you’re away with rules and notifications, automatically publish content to ensure you’re always active online, and use social tagging to ensure you’re sending the right message to the right contacts.

This platform allows you and your company to synch all of your social media platforms to create consistency and monitor the impact your social media has on consumers in their purchasing habits or maybe their social interaction with you online.

A tool such as BackTweets is more specific to one social media platform being Twitter. BackTweets is a twitter time machine, which enables you to search through a tweet history for tweets that link back to your site. As a free web app, BackTweets lets you search through a tweet archive for URLs sent via twitter. URLs are found regardless of the form they were tweeted in and include: full URL links, shortened URLs and URLs without the WWW prefix. BackTweets is a great tool for tracking your social media pulse- see how many people are talking about you, who is talking about you, and what they are saying.  (About BackTweets, 2012)

With hundreds of tools available to companies and individuals for use, social media can be leveraged more effective and efficiently. It is up to you and/or your company to determine what tools are right for your goals and objec tives in your social media campaigns. A great listing of social media tools can be found on the following website: http://socialmediatoday.com/pamdyer/1458746/50-top-tools-social-media-monitoring-analytics-and-management-2013 . These tools are the best way for you and your company to analyze and measure your current social media efforts.

References

About BackTweets. (2012). Retrieved from BackTweets: http://backtweets.com/about/

Social Media Management and Marketing Automation Integrations. (2013). Retrieved from ArgyleSocial: http://argylesocial.com/features/social-media-marketing-automation