Last week, I may have jumped the gun when I thought I'd found a bank using Twitter (post here). It's pretty apparent that E*Trade is not officially involved with that Twitter account.
But the ever diligent Ann-Marie Murphy was quick to add to the comments that her company, Quicken Loans, is *really* using Twitter to support its Quizzle personal finance site (see Quizzle coverage here). Beginning Feb. 22, the mortgage lender has posted 52 updates through last week (those would be called "tweets" if you are a real geek). That's about one per day, a good steady flow, without inundating the follower.
Here's Murphy's rationale for using Twitter:
We've found it to be a great way to chat with our site visitors, get honest and helpful feedback to make the site better and give interesting home-related tips to followers. I especially like the instantaneous feedback. Ask a question, get a bunch of answers from folks who enjoy helping others.
Now this is what a real Twitter update stream looks like, complete with custom design. Nice.