Most Americans are resistant to mixing social media and personal finances, although one in ten consumers are comfortable using such websites to review or check account balances. That's one of the findings of a new study from Javelin Strategy & Research.

Throughout the weeks of vocal protest spanning Bank of America’s announcement and retraction of $5 debit card fees, Bank Transfer Day, and Occupy Wall Street protests, Twitter volume jumped threefold at the customer service “handles” at three banks: Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo. Citi appeared to be doing the best job of providing direct answers to consumers’ questions via Twitter and was able to resolve 36 per cent of its conversations within Twitter. Confusion ensued as consumers were unsure which handles to access and too often received no response at all.

“As FIs begin to participate in social media channels they need to be prepared to allocate sufficient resources to address and resolve consumer issues,” says Mark Schwanhausser, senior analyst, multi-channel financial services. “Other FIs can take a cue from trailblazers like Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo and start with the basics of branding and educating consumers through Twitter and other social media platforms.”

“Social media is the next frontier for the FI and consumer relationship,” comments James Van Dyke, president, Javelin. “FIs that seek to capitalise on social media should target the most open-minded customers first: Core Millennials (college-age consumers), Moneyhawks (active users of online banking, FI bill pay and mobile banking), Asians, Latinos, and African Americans. We’ve created a set of step-by-step recommendations that will help FIs interact effectively with consumers through social media, including how to balance responsiveness and regulatory compliance, how to handle private conversations in public places, and many other decisions.”

Javelin’s Banking and Social Media: Easy to Say, Hard to Do report is based on an evaluation of 5,489 Twitter responses from FIs over the seven-week period from 20 September to 10 November 2011, an examination of 300 full Twitter conversations between FIs and consumers on 28 November 2011 (aka Cyber Monday), and survey data collected online from more than 5,102 consumers.

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