Florida banks flub social media

Most community banks in Florida might have dodged the economic downturn, but the outlook is considerably meager when it comes to social media engagement.

Not a single bank in the state made a list of the top 50 Community Bank Leaders in Social Media compiled by the Independent Community Bankers of America. And only two bankers in the state made the lobbying group's Top 25 Community Banker Influencers on Twitter list. Those bankers, Cheryl Tanenbaum, CFO of Palm Coast-based Intracoastal Bank, and Broward Bank of Commerce President and CEO Keith Costello, aren't from the Gulf Coast.

It's the second year in a row Florida has come up flat on the survey, which the ICBA says isn't only about accumulating “likes” and “favorites.”

“Consumers are expecting their financial institutions to have strong brand identity online,” ICBA Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Chris Lorence says in a statement. “These top community banks and bankers understand that building a brand goes beyond just a physical presence — they consistently introduce fresh content and interact with their customers.”

The ICBA looked at nearly 6,500 community banks nationwide for its list. It chose the top banks based on engagement with fans and followers, content distributed on social media platforms, the number of fans and/or followers, and the frequency of new posts.

The top social media bank on the ICBA list is Portland, Ore.-based Umpqua Bank, an $11.8 billion asset lender. The bank has 38,166 Facebook likes, 4,708 followers on Twitter, a commercial on its YouTube page with 2,666 views and a LinkedIn page with 6,058 followers.

Those stats trump any bank on the Gulf Coast. That includes St. Petersburg-based C1 Bank, one of the area leaders in quirky marketing and bold partnerships and sponsorships. (The $1.4 billion-asset institution is the team bank for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the official bank of the Outback Bowl and a corporate partner for the Miami Heat, for example.) C1, in comparison to Umpqua, has 6,558 Facebook likes, 219 Twitter followers and 691 LinkedIn followers.