Bank of America and the Twitter Robot

Social Media is made up of two simple to understand words:

  • Social – relating to society.
  • Media – a means of mass communication.

Pretty straight forward. Successful social media marketing connects with an audience through real interaction. Well, Bank of America seems to find this concept a bit confusing. On Monday of this past week, @darthmarkh tweeted to B of A’s Twitter account about being chased away from a B of A branch in NYC by police. He was chased away for protesting B of A’s banking practices in an elaborate chalk protest.

B of A responded by asking if @darthmarkh needed help with his account. Classy move.

The automated response showed that B of A was in fact the faceless corporate monster that the protestor was railing against. B of A’s failure is a lesson for every business out there: listen before you respond.

Some of the highlights of the conversation are below. The Bank of America robot continued to autorespond for several days: