NEW YORK -- Credit unions struggle to attract followers on Twitter even after being active over two years, and 1 in 5 credit unions with Twitter accounts have abandoned the social media site altogether, according to a new study of 350 Tweeting credit unions released this morning by The Financial Brand, a financial reporting company.
For each credit union in this study, The Financial Brand recorded the number of tweets sent, the number of accounts followed, the number of followers, when the account was created, the asset size of the credit union and the size of its membership.
The Financial Brand has been on Twitter since February 2008, and tracks over 700 separate credit union accounts. In four years and four separate Twitter studies conducted by The Financial Brand, bank and credit union Twitter profiles have now been evaluated more than 3,000 times.
The study’s sample size represents over 5% of all U.S. credit unions, and a minimum of 10% of all those on Twitter.
Accounts were considered “activated” if the credit union’s profile had been customized with an avatar/logo, at least one tweet had been sent through the account, and the account had at least one follower. For the study, any account that had not tweeted in the last three months was considered dormant or abandoned.
The study included 66 credit unions over $1 billion in assets; 53 between $500 million and $1 billion; 62 between $200 million and $500 million; 59 between $100 million and $200 million; and 108 credit unions under $100 million.
It found the average number of years the credit union maintained an active Twitter account was 2.2 and 74 credit unions, or 21.1%, had already abandoned their Twitter account.
