As we enter a new year, more and more banks are making social media a priority and looking for new ways to increase their followers as well as engage with their customers.

In January, RBI conducted a survey to analyse the top 10 banks across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube in 2020. In many cases, banks have increased their following across these social platforms, however, with that being said, a number have also undergone significant losses.

FirstBank of Nigeria suffered the biggest loss, losing 41,396 followers on Instagram since 2019. This comes after the Nigerian bank achieved one of the biggest increases between 2018 and 2019, increasing its following by over 500% from 121,456 to 731,908.

Therefore, this highlights the unreliable nature of followers on social meida because it shows that if brands produce content they do not like, they will not hesitate to click the ‘unfollow’ button.

This means banks must be tactical when producing content in order to fully engage and keep their followers satisfied.

Facebook is one of the biggest social platforms for banks as the volume of likes collectively trumps the number of followers for Twitter and Instagram.

Six of the top 10 banks on Facebook are based in India, with a further two in Nigeria, three in the US and one bank from the Philippines.

Retaining its top position is State Bank of India (SBI), who has gained 35,174 likes since Q4 2019 to reach a total of 18,188,836. As it stands SBI is the only bank to hit tens of millions of likes.

SBI uses Facebook to share YouTube videos, launches for new products and services and to engage with customers through quizzes as well as monthly competitions.

Additionally, SBI also launched a social media banking platform in 2016 called Mingle in an attempt to offer better digital experience for its customers.

Despite losing 12,017 likes, Yes Bank continues to hold second place with 7,156,729 likes. Another big loss comes for Nigeria’s GT Bank, who now has 6,288,652 likes after losing 20,812.

Another considerate increase comes from Zenith Bank who has gained 54,489 likes to reach a total of 5,945,155, placing fourth.

The banks holding the top four positions for Twitter are the same as those for Facebook; State Bank of India tops the table once again with 3,970,280 followers in 2020 from 3,929,703 in 2019, an increase of 40,577.

Zenith Bank has also seen a huge increase in followers, gaining an extra 26,606 followers to reach 1,171,875 and retain fourth position.

In addition, the United Bank of Africa (UBA) moves into 8^th place from 10^th in 2019 with 36,348 new followers, the biggest increase for Twitter. UBA now has 557,064 followers.

Instagram saw the biggest increase in followers across all four platforms – SBI secured 268,583 extra followers, increasing its following to over 1.5m and keeping it in top position.

Other notable increases came from Access Bank with 56,564 new followers; Itau with 65,661, and Zenith Bank with 76,754.

In the past, sponsored content has performed well on Instagram as these posts drive traffic to the site, allowing followers to grow.

Instagram stories are also a great way for banks to engage with audiences and gain instant feedback. SBI has a series of stories featured on its page covering different topics in order to help customers access the information they need quickly.

Even though Zenith Bank places within the top four for Twitter and Facebook, the Nigerian bank drops to 8^th position for Instagram.

Furthermore, despite losing a huge number of followers (41,396) FirstBank stayed in second place with 690,512 followers.

The top 10 banks on YouTube are a bit more of a mixed bag with a number of Canadian banks featured.

India’s Axis Bank moves up the table to third position from fourth, gaining near 8.5m new views since 2019 making its total views amount to 210,076,645.

And the biggest drop came from Wells Fargo, who lost over 20m views, causing the American bank to move down the ranking one place into 10^th position.

In order to engage with audiences banks also collaborate with celebrities in order to drive traffic to their sites. For instance, Chase has launched a number of campaigns including famous people such as comedian Kevin Hart.

Chase also did a social media campaign with tennis superstar Serena Williams.