On the heels of a report bemoaning retail banks for lacking almost any social media strategy, Bank Innovation sought out an institution that separated itself from the behind-the-times group. That institution is Wells Fargo, which has embraced the social web for a number of years. Part of that online strategy includes running three Twitter channels, which Wells says helps shape its product development, generates organic marketing, solves customer issues and unfolds company news.

“We started listening to customers years ago,” Kimarie Matthews, vice president of social web for Wells Fargo’s internet services group, tells Bank Innovation. “We have a lot of conversations on the social web, especially Twitter, whose primary purpose is to listen to customers.”

What’s interesting about its Twitter journey – and why social media should be important to FIs nationwide – is how the channel is beginning to connect with other innovative business facets.

“There’s a very obvious affinity between Twitter and mobile,” Matthews says, explaining that connection is a direct result of a consumer population on the go, equipped with mobile phones, wishing to engage with Wells through tweets to share their banking experiences. Maybe they are sharing positive branch experiences or perhaps they are alerting the bank to technical issues, she illustrates.

“We didn’t know customers might tweet about ATMs when something was wrong with them,” Matthews says. But that’s exactly what has happened. Matthews recalls a customer tweeting that a hearing jack on an ATM wasn’t working, and upon seeing his online cry for help, Wells tweeted back to find out the damaged ATM’s whereabouts to send over a repairman.

Twitter, Matthews explains, offers Wells a fresher way to interact with the customer, and influences the level of customer service it can provide. That’s why, in part, Wells has also made more of an obvious connection between Twitter and mobile in months past. Indeed, Wells hosted an online event dedicated to mobile banking within the last year. Product managers tweeted mobile banking tips, for example, and customers answered topical poll questions, throughout the event. The conversation brought Wells closer to customers and helped clarify mobile banking misinformation, according to Matthews, and because of its success, she imagines Wells to host similar events in the future. Ultimately, though, how Wells cultivates the channel depends on its users. The social state is interesting, explains Matthews, as “it will do anything the customers want it to do.” And that is something banks across the nation should take note of. With more and more consumers engaging with the web through their mobile devices, Twitter could really serve as a modern day customer service call, especially for large banks. That is until the next best thing rolls out.