August 2, 2022

The 4 Answers Financial Marketers Need to Make the Case for Social Selling

Forward-thinking marketers understand the power of social media at all stages of their marketing funnel. From awareness and consideration to loyalty and even advocacy, social and digital channels can and do inform purchase decisions. Financial institutions are catching on — more than 90% of the 50 largest banks are currently on Facebook, and 88% have active Twitter accounts — but being on social media doesn’t equate to a strong social media strategy. Today’s digital market requires an integrated strategy that meets target audiences throughout the buyer’s journey. This means investing in paid social campaigns alongside organic and driving deeper relationships with customers through social selling.

Sounds easy, right? While marketers may understand the strategies and costs associated with modern social success, senior decision makers may still need educating and persuading. That’s why it’s essential to be able to effectively communicate the benefits of integrated social media strategies. In addition to intangible benefits like building trust and humanizing your brand, both organic and paid social selling strategies offer metrics that enable marketers to prove value.

After all, people buy from people. So if you’re ready to advocate for an expanded social media strategy, start by asking yourself these questions. Not only will they help you decide on your strategic priorities, but they will also show you how to articulate the value of social media strategies to the people holding the budget strings. To prove the value of social media in financial services and get buy-in from senior leaders, marketers must ask themselves these questions:

Does Our Social Media Marketing Drive ROI?

Expanding a social media strategy often means increased spending — so you must be able to show decision makers the value of social. While financial marketers are already advocates — they know the power of paid social media efforts and have seen it in action — other leadership may not have that knowledge. It’s up to marketing teams to connect the dots on how their efforts are driving business results, and that means providing a strong argument based on metrics and concrete benefits.

Data tells a powerful story, so let it guide the conversation. And to further strengthen your case for expanded social media strategies, make sure to highlight these benefits:

• Targeting

While organic content is important, leaders must understand that it’s not enough to impact the bottom line without paid support. Paid social media gives more flexibility than organic content — you can target specific customer subsets, or even new audience bases, allowing for greater personalization and a higher ROI. It’s all about delivering relevant content to the right consumers at the right time.

• Feedback

Feedback may not always impact the bottom line, but social media itself does offer a direct line to consumers. With the lines of communication open, it becomes easier to listen and learn about their wants, needs, and interests. An open-ended post, for instance, can encourage comments, which provide qualitative feedback on any given topic. This will improve the trust in your institution; customers (and their followers!) will see the commitment to providing an ever-improving experience.

• Conversion

Social media is about more than likes: If you’re providing links on social media (and you should), you’re creating conversion opportunities. Direct consumers to a landing page — from there, you can collect lead information. All that’s left is a follow-up. If that landing page has a form, track completion rates. The icing on top? These interactions are all measurable. Prove value by comparing these metrics with traditional tactics. When did a leader ever see a recorded, data-backed conversion metric from a billboard?

• Efficiency

Measuring social media marketing ROI, like most analytics, requires technology — and the right technology, at that. Spreadsheets simply won’t cut it, and they’re not as accurate or efficient as the tools that fintech partners offer. That’s why the Denim Social platform was built with financial institutions in mind. Its analytics capabilities allow for a more efficient means of capturing results while also centralizing information. Data is readily available, which can simplify and improve the approval workflow. Improvements to the workflow process have been shown to free up 20% to 30% of employees’ time — so bring that statistic to decision makers to prove its necessity.

How Do You Use Social Media Analytics to Make Your Case?

Expanding marketing strategies means collecting more data, and that necessitates a robust social media management tool. Gathering data on any social media marketing campaign affords you the opportunity to measure its overall performance and gives you clear-cut evidence to support business measures related to those efforts.

Of course, data should be gathered based on specific criteria. Meaningful insights come from specific measurable goals related to your campaign and the goals of company decision makers. While the objectives of any social media strategy for financial services will vary from one institution to the next, any marketing effort can benefit from optimizing strategy through social media ROI metrics.

Use metrics to hone your messaging and audience. Every social media marketing post is a learning opportunity about what resonates with your audience. Analytics show what topics drive engagement, what calls to action inspire clicks, and so on. Then, fine-tune subsequent posts based on your findings. Mastering social is an iterative process. When speaking with upper management, highlight how this process delivers greater value over time by continuously evolving.

As you optimize your messaging, look to target audiences. Social media, and paid social in particular, allows you to target subsets of consumers. Vary your messaging and content, and you begin to understand what connects with whom. This allows you to maximize social media spend going forward — you’re not wasting time and effort putting messaging in front of an uninterested audience. When decision makers want to reach specific audiences, outline how putting money toward paid ad campaigns makes that happen.

When you’re looking at your own metrics, be sure to pay attention to where the customer journey is going. Failure to guide customers to a landing page and other lead-generating tools will lead to dead ends, which isn’t the best use of these channels. Trackable links and analytics help marketers recognize the best avenues for using social media posts to capture leads that translate into sales. If you aren’t effectively working toward leads, it’ll be difficult to defend the necessity of your budget.

Finally, don’t measure your ROI too soon. If you’re going to connect the value of social to your broader business objectives, you need to sync your measurement time with your sales cycle or risk misunderstanding (and likely underestimating) the impact of social. Help leadership understand that ROI isn’t a one-and-done and it’s not instantaneous. That way, you’re guiding their expectations to the bigger picture of what your social media strategy is doing.

Troves of data are available from social media channels, and you’ll need the right technology to organize the information and arrive at a set of objectives that align with your larger business goals. The right measurement tool can build the confidence digital marketers need to foster social media marketing ROI success.

What’s the Cost of Getting Social Media Compliance Wrong?

Social media compliance for financial institutions can feel challenging, especially today. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has brought increased scrutiny to social media since his appointment, and it’s understandable for institutions to want to pull back efforts to mitigate compliance risks. Make sure your executives understand that this method loses more than they gain.

Consider that customers are increasingly using digital methods to meet financial needs. Can anyone afford to lose out on that audience base? You won’t reach new customers, and you’re losing valuable social selling opportunities with the ones you have. Social selling influences half of revenue for 14 major industries — and financial services is one of them.

Rather than scaling back social media efforts (and in the process, your revenue), work to mitigate compliance risks. When senior management airs concerns over compliance, counter with technology to automate compliance monitoring. Denim Social was built for compliance, so you can focus less on worrying if you’re compliant and more on fostering leads.

With Denim Social, you can use numerous tools that can help in ensuring:

• Protection. Problematic posts never see the light of day, as our platform not only establishes an approval workflow but also flags posts containing questionable keywords or phrases even before the review process.

• Education. Our platform can serve as an ongoing compliance education tool. Team members receive almost immediate feedback and can test the equipped filters to understand what might cause regulatory trouble.

• Enablement. Denim Social allows for the creation content libraries and curated, pre-approved posts. Team members can pull from these resources without the need for approvals, adding speed and efficiency to the process.

• Record-keeping. The potential of an audit hangs over every financial institution. Our platform archives all social media posts and interactions. It even does the same with comments. If regulators come knocking, you’ll have a report in no time.

• Notifications. Should a team member try to send a post through the approval process with a prohibited keyword or phrase, those flags send a notification directly to the individual. Employees quickly learn what can and cannot be posted.

• Profile locks. Rules can be built within the platform that can prevent team members from posting problematic content, helping to quell worries about social media compliance. The goal is to provide the controls necessary to avoid issues.

• Editing. Admins can edit or delete team members’ posts, comments, or direct messages right from the platform — across any connected social channel. In fact, the process is automated when prohibited keywords or phrases hit the network.

Social media compliance for financial institutions shouldn’t be more complicated than any other compliance for your operation. It all comes down to your choice of technology, and Denim Social has the experience and tools you need to make it a breeze.

What Do We Need in a Fintech Partner?

The social media marketing needs of financial institutions are unique. You’re not necessarily selling a product or a service but a relationship with a qualified professional, which calls for authenticity and empathy to establish a sense of trust. The tactics used by “traditional” brands simply aren’t as impactful in the financial services space.

Beyond that, social media compliance is complex. Without industry knowledge, it can be difficult for a marketing agency to navigate the nuances set by FINRA. Your fintech partner should fully appreciate the regulatory constraints and respect the concerns of your financial institution while still understanding how to drive real value with your social media strategy.

However, according to Cornerstone’s “What’s Going On In Banking 2021” report, financial institutions aren’t having much success finding these qualified and attentive partners, noting that FI “boards will tire of not seeing results [from fintech partnerships]." Executives are relying on your expertise to identify fintech partners with a proven ability to collaborate and create solutions. And because boards may be wary of partners, you must be able to outline exactly how that partner will help you reach your goals. Help executives understand these benefits.

• Customized onboarding.

Denim Social customizes our onboarding process to meet your specific needs, so executives know they’re getting an experience tailor-made for the company. No questions are left unanswered — we walk alongside you to always offer an explanation. On top of that, our team will help you craft the communication necessary to get employees to use the platform. Emails, messaging, toolkits, and more are available to encourage adoption, so upper-level management knows they’re investing in a tool that will see widespread use.

• Team training.

Depending on your size and needs, we provide kickoff and regular training to help team members make the most of the platform so that decision makers can rest easy knowing our software isn’t being underutilized. We can also provide train-the-trainer sessions to move training internal, and our recently launched Academy can help marketers become certified on our platform.

• Strategy consultation.

Our customer success team can help you identify tactics to move the needle on your social media strategy. Just ask, and we’ll provide best practices and industry-relevant comparisons to inform your tactics and optimize your social selling implementation.

• Content libraries.

We work directly with your institution and UpContent to ensure you can create a customized content library that matches the specific needs of your business and your customers.

In order to optimize a social media strategy, FI leaders and marketers must be able to sustain compliance at scale and understand social media measurement and analytics to see ROI. When you understand your metrics, you can bring that knowledge to decision makers, too. They’ll see the value you bring to the brand and associates (and match that value when it’s time to make budgets). Trusted fintech partners with dedicated customer success teams can help.

Bottom line: Social media is hard, but marketers don’t have to do it alone. With Denim Social, they have dedicated team members they can call to help.

Get in touch with us today to schedule a demo!

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August 2, 2022

The 4 Answers Financial Marketers Need to Make the Case for Social Selling

By
Denim Social

Forward-thinking marketers understand the power of social media at all stages of their marketing funnel. From awareness and consideration to loyalty and even advocacy, social and digital channels can and do inform purchase decisions. Financial institutions are catching on — more than 90% of the 50 largest banks are currently on Facebook, and 88% have active Twitter accounts — but being on social media doesn’t equate to a strong social media strategy. Today’s digital market requires an integrated strategy that meets target audiences throughout the buyer’s journey. This means investing in paid social campaigns alongside organic and driving deeper relationships with customers through social selling.

Sounds easy, right? While marketers may understand the strategies and costs associated with modern social success, senior decision makers may still need educating and persuading. That’s why it’s essential to be able to effectively communicate the benefits of integrated social media strategies. In addition to intangible benefits like building trust and humanizing your brand, both organic and paid social selling strategies offer metrics that enable marketers to prove value.

After all, people buy from people. So if you’re ready to advocate for an expanded social media strategy, start by asking yourself these questions. Not only will they help you decide on your strategic priorities, but they will also show you how to articulate the value of social media strategies to the people holding the budget strings. To prove the value of social media in financial services and get buy-in from senior leaders, marketers must ask themselves these questions:

Does Our Social Media Marketing Drive ROI?

Expanding a social media strategy often means increased spending — so you must be able to show decision makers the value of social. While financial marketers are already advocates — they know the power of paid social media efforts and have seen it in action — other leadership may not have that knowledge. It’s up to marketing teams to connect the dots on how their efforts are driving business results, and that means providing a strong argument based on metrics and concrete benefits.

Data tells a powerful story, so let it guide the conversation. And to further strengthen your case for expanded social media strategies, make sure to highlight these benefits:

• Targeting

While organic content is important, leaders must understand that it’s not enough to impact the bottom line without paid support. Paid social media gives more flexibility than organic content — you can target specific customer subsets, or even new audience bases, allowing for greater personalization and a higher ROI. It’s all about delivering relevant content to the right consumers at the right time.

• Feedback

Feedback may not always impact the bottom line, but social media itself does offer a direct line to consumers. With the lines of communication open, it becomes easier to listen and learn about their wants, needs, and interests. An open-ended post, for instance, can encourage comments, which provide qualitative feedback on any given topic. This will improve the trust in your institution; customers (and their followers!) will see the commitment to providing an ever-improving experience.

• Conversion

Social media is about more than likes: If you’re providing links on social media (and you should), you’re creating conversion opportunities. Direct consumers to a landing page — from there, you can collect lead information. All that’s left is a follow-up. If that landing page has a form, track completion rates. The icing on top? These interactions are all measurable. Prove value by comparing these metrics with traditional tactics. When did a leader ever see a recorded, data-backed conversion metric from a billboard?

• Efficiency

Measuring social media marketing ROI, like most analytics, requires technology — and the right technology, at that. Spreadsheets simply won’t cut it, and they’re not as accurate or efficient as the tools that fintech partners offer. That’s why the Denim Social platform was built with financial institutions in mind. Its analytics capabilities allow for a more efficient means of capturing results while also centralizing information. Data is readily available, which can simplify and improve the approval workflow. Improvements to the workflow process have been shown to free up 20% to 30% of employees’ time — so bring that statistic to decision makers to prove its necessity.

How Do You Use Social Media Analytics to Make Your Case?

Expanding marketing strategies means collecting more data, and that necessitates a robust social media management tool. Gathering data on any social media marketing campaign affords you the opportunity to measure its overall performance and gives you clear-cut evidence to support business measures related to those efforts.

Of course, data should be gathered based on specific criteria. Meaningful insights come from specific measurable goals related to your campaign and the goals of company decision makers. While the objectives of any social media strategy for financial services will vary from one institution to the next, any marketing effort can benefit from optimizing strategy through social media ROI metrics.

Use metrics to hone your messaging and audience. Every social media marketing post is a learning opportunity about what resonates with your audience. Analytics show what topics drive engagement, what calls to action inspire clicks, and so on. Then, fine-tune subsequent posts based on your findings. Mastering social is an iterative process. When speaking with upper management, highlight how this process delivers greater value over time by continuously evolving.

As you optimize your messaging, look to target audiences. Social media, and paid social in particular, allows you to target subsets of consumers. Vary your messaging and content, and you begin to understand what connects with whom. This allows you to maximize social media spend going forward — you’re not wasting time and effort putting messaging in front of an uninterested audience. When decision makers want to reach specific audiences, outline how putting money toward paid ad campaigns makes that happen.

When you’re looking at your own metrics, be sure to pay attention to where the customer journey is going. Failure to guide customers to a landing page and other lead-generating tools will lead to dead ends, which isn’t the best use of these channels. Trackable links and analytics help marketers recognize the best avenues for using social media posts to capture leads that translate into sales. If you aren’t effectively working toward leads, it’ll be difficult to defend the necessity of your budget.

Finally, don’t measure your ROI too soon. If you’re going to connect the value of social to your broader business objectives, you need to sync your measurement time with your sales cycle or risk misunderstanding (and likely underestimating) the impact of social. Help leadership understand that ROI isn’t a one-and-done and it’s not instantaneous. That way, you’re guiding their expectations to the bigger picture of what your social media strategy is doing.

Troves of data are available from social media channels, and you’ll need the right technology to organize the information and arrive at a set of objectives that align with your larger business goals. The right measurement tool can build the confidence digital marketers need to foster social media marketing ROI success.

What’s the Cost of Getting Social Media Compliance Wrong?

Social media compliance for financial institutions can feel challenging, especially today. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has brought increased scrutiny to social media since his appointment, and it’s understandable for institutions to want to pull back efforts to mitigate compliance risks. Make sure your executives understand that this method loses more than they gain.

Consider that customers are increasingly using digital methods to meet financial needs. Can anyone afford to lose out on that audience base? You won’t reach new customers, and you’re losing valuable social selling opportunities with the ones you have. Social selling influences half of revenue for 14 major industries — and financial services is one of them.

Rather than scaling back social media efforts (and in the process, your revenue), work to mitigate compliance risks. When senior management airs concerns over compliance, counter with technology to automate compliance monitoring. Denim Social was built for compliance, so you can focus less on worrying if you’re compliant and more on fostering leads.

With Denim Social, you can use numerous tools that can help in ensuring:

• Protection. Problematic posts never see the light of day, as our platform not only establishes an approval workflow but also flags posts containing questionable keywords or phrases even before the review process.

• Education. Our platform can serve as an ongoing compliance education tool. Team members receive almost immediate feedback and can test the equipped filters to understand what might cause regulatory trouble.

• Enablement. Denim Social allows for the creation content libraries and curated, pre-approved posts. Team members can pull from these resources without the need for approvals, adding speed and efficiency to the process.

• Record-keeping. The potential of an audit hangs over every financial institution. Our platform archives all social media posts and interactions. It even does the same with comments. If regulators come knocking, you’ll have a report in no time.

• Notifications. Should a team member try to send a post through the approval process with a prohibited keyword or phrase, those flags send a notification directly to the individual. Employees quickly learn what can and cannot be posted.

• Profile locks. Rules can be built within the platform that can prevent team members from posting problematic content, helping to quell worries about social media compliance. The goal is to provide the controls necessary to avoid issues.

• Editing. Admins can edit or delete team members’ posts, comments, or direct messages right from the platform — across any connected social channel. In fact, the process is automated when prohibited keywords or phrases hit the network.

Social media compliance for financial institutions shouldn’t be more complicated than any other compliance for your operation. It all comes down to your choice of technology, and Denim Social has the experience and tools you need to make it a breeze.

What Do We Need in a Fintech Partner?

The social media marketing needs of financial institutions are unique. You’re not necessarily selling a product or a service but a relationship with a qualified professional, which calls for authenticity and empathy to establish a sense of trust. The tactics used by “traditional” brands simply aren’t as impactful in the financial services space.

Beyond that, social media compliance is complex. Without industry knowledge, it can be difficult for a marketing agency to navigate the nuances set by FINRA. Your fintech partner should fully appreciate the regulatory constraints and respect the concerns of your financial institution while still understanding how to drive real value with your social media strategy.

However, according to Cornerstone’s “What’s Going On In Banking 2021” report, financial institutions aren’t having much success finding these qualified and attentive partners, noting that FI “boards will tire of not seeing results [from fintech partnerships]." Executives are relying on your expertise to identify fintech partners with a proven ability to collaborate and create solutions. And because boards may be wary of partners, you must be able to outline exactly how that partner will help you reach your goals. Help executives understand these benefits.

• Customized onboarding.

Denim Social customizes our onboarding process to meet your specific needs, so executives know they’re getting an experience tailor-made for the company. No questions are left unanswered — we walk alongside you to always offer an explanation. On top of that, our team will help you craft the communication necessary to get employees to use the platform. Emails, messaging, toolkits, and more are available to encourage adoption, so upper-level management knows they’re investing in a tool that will see widespread use.

• Team training.

Depending on your size and needs, we provide kickoff and regular training to help team members make the most of the platform so that decision makers can rest easy knowing our software isn’t being underutilized. We can also provide train-the-trainer sessions to move training internal, and our recently launched Academy can help marketers become certified on our platform.

• Strategy consultation.

Our customer success team can help you identify tactics to move the needle on your social media strategy. Just ask, and we’ll provide best practices and industry-relevant comparisons to inform your tactics and optimize your social selling implementation.

• Content libraries.

We work directly with your institution and UpContent to ensure you can create a customized content library that matches the specific needs of your business and your customers.

In order to optimize a social media strategy, FI leaders and marketers must be able to sustain compliance at scale and understand social media measurement and analytics to see ROI. When you understand your metrics, you can bring that knowledge to decision makers, too. They’ll see the value you bring to the brand and associates (and match that value when it’s time to make budgets). Trusted fintech partners with dedicated customer success teams can help.

Bottom line: Social media is hard, but marketers don’t have to do it alone. With Denim Social, they have dedicated team members they can call to help.

Get in touch with us today to schedule a demo!

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Where Are the Biggest Opportunities to Use Social Media in Financial Services?

Denim Social's Guide To Social Selling For Financial Services shows that most financial professionals — 83% of those surveyed — have a social media presence. It’s a great place to start, but having a profile is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what benefits financial institutions can enjoy from social media. Smart financial marketers and their teams should be optimizing their social selling efforts on every network to get the most out of what social media has to offer.

Customers are active in many other places online, so why not meet them there? After all, 79% of people look to social media for financial advice. By meeting customers where they are on the main 4 networks, financial institutions can stay top of mind and grow real, authentic connections. Let’s dive into what Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook have to offer and how financial services marketers can best use each platform.

1. Instagram

As far as major social media platforms in financial services go, Instagram tops the list. While many financial professionals might not at first think of the photographic and visual network as prime business territory, its popularity makes it an excellent place to strengthen real relationships. 

Instagram is one of the best ways to get in front of younger audiences, which is a worthwhile goal, considering that many Millennial customers will likely be on the search for new financial services providers as Baby Boomers pass their wealth on to the next generations. What's more, 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business account and 80% use the platform to discover new products.


Even better, getting started on Instagram is a breeze. Instagram ads also allow hyperlinks, so you can lead readers right from their feeds to your website with specific calls to action to learn more. Lead them to a personalized and well-designed landing page on your site, for instance, and you'll be drawing each follower who clicks through one big step closer to conversion.

2. LinkedIn

The majority of financial services providers already use LinkedIn, and there are many ways to make it perhaps the most successful social selling platform out of all the networks. Employees at institutions of all sizes and financial industries can use this professional network to cultivate thought leadership and educate their customers.

For financial services marketers, a brand profile is a necessary starting point. Getting the most out of the platform, however, requires activating your employees in a social selling strategy. They can share relevant content, such as videos and published articles from trusted media outlets, as well as engage with customers and prospects one-on-one via direct messaging to establish themselves as experts and build trusting relationships. People want to engage with other people, not with general brand pages. It’s no wonder that employees on social media can garner 10x the engagement of brand pages alone.

3. Twitter

Like LinkedIn, Twitter is also a great place for agents, loan officers, and advisors to share their expertise. Understandably, financial services marketers might be intimidated by the fast-paced nature of the platform and fear they don’t have enough resources to keep up. However, with the proper social media management tools, maintaining compliant engagement on Twitter is totally possible — and worth it.

One of the greatest benefits of social media marketing for financial services is the ability to provide more value to customers. Twitter makes this incredibly easy to do. Marketers can follow all relevant news media outlets and keep an eye out for any articles that might benefit their clients or prospects. For example, an explainer piece on recent changes in tax legislation may be helpful come tax season. Retweeting such helpful resources educates followers on financial topics and builds trust in the brand and its employees.

There’s no single best social media platform for marketing. Each one has a unique opportunity to reach and engage current and future customers. If you’re already on social media, it’s time to level up your social media marketing strategy by diving into Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook in more depth. No matter the size of your financial institution, extending your social media strategy to encompass these platforms can help grow your audience, build trust, and maintain solid customer relationships.

Whether you love or loathe social media's infiltration into every element of our personal and professional lives, there's no denying that this powerful medium is never going away. Social networks are growing bigger and stronger by the day. Forward-thinking achievers in every industry understand this and have responded by leaning all the way into social selling.

For the unaware, social selling is using social media to sell a product or service by showcasing authenticity, strengthening relationships with clients and prospects, and building thought leadership. In social selling, advisors use their own social pages to promote content about their brand and services, but with a personal spin.

Everyone from dog groomers to financial advisors are utilizing multiple social networks to build a following and bolster their personal brands, and those who fully embrace social media's ubiquity outperform their competitors and win more business. It's as simple as that.

The key, though, is finding a way to stand out from the competition online. There's a big difference between "doing social media" and doing it well.

The difficulty with differentiation

As we all know, the internet is more than likely the first place individuals go to get advice these days — financial, familial, and absolutely everything in between. So when people go online to search for guidance on money matters, they won't find you if you aren't there, actively promoting your expertise and services.

There's no stronger business case for social media (and social selling) than that: It's where your potential customers are. Meet them there and give them what they need. If you don't, someone else will.

To set yourself apart as a financial advisor, you need to be able to sell yourself — not just your firm. Sure, many financial advisors are intermediated and you likely don't have free rein to post everything you might want to on social channels, but that shouldn't be a deal-breaker. There's still plenty to say without risking any backlash or drawing the ire of regulators.

Put your fears aside

Though some in the financial industry might feel wary or daunted by interacting directly with clients or prospects, online exchanges matter in today’s market. Brands that use a more generic social-media strategy can end up sounding too promotional, focused more on boosting the brand to a broad audience instead of forging real connections. Rather than creating original content that speaks to their particular audience, financial institutions treat these social channels as glorified billboards instead of networking opportunities for each individual advisor.

That’s too bad because there’s real power behind social selling today. When comparing the social media potential of brands vs. individuals, one study found that employees have 10 times the reach and double the engagement of the brands they speak for. The best sellers in large companies, meanwhile, were the ones who regularly used technology to foster connections with new prospects or existing clients. Building genuine relationships pays off for both advisors and brands.

So, how does someone improve their social-selling efforts? How can financial advisors use the power of their individuality to differentiate themselves from their peers? Here are five tips to help you better accomplish social selling on your personal pages:

1. Ask an expert

Even if you’re on board with tapping into the potential of authentic relationship-building through social selling, you still need the right tools and training for the job. After all, your area of expertise is in the valuable services you provide to your clients, not online marketing.

An excellent move for advisors is to seek advice from your firms’s marketing or branding team. Not only can they help you develop an effective social-selling strategy, but they can also provide you with the resources and tools you need to more effectively and efficiently create, plan, and schedule your posts. Compliance experts can also educate you on the rules that govern social media in the financial services industry. Ideally, your firm provides continuous training and tools to ensure you stay on the right side of regulations.

2. Be real

The type of posts that most people see on their social-media feeds are at least partially determined by an algorithm. These algorithms are generally designed to serve up content that users are most likely to engage with in one way or another. This can be a huge advantage, but it also means that you can’t expect to stay on people’s minds if you deliver bland, uninteresting content that isn't relevant to your audience.

That doesn’t mean you should go posting clickbait or try to shock people (there’s definitely such a thing as bad engagement). Instead, the best way to get and keep people’s attention is to be your real self. Post about what matters to you and do it in your own voice, not just copying/pasting brand posts. Post about local happenings that people in your area might care about. Speak to the challenges you hear clients ask about most. In social selling, authenticity is the fastest way to start building deeper and more lasting relationships.

3. Consistency is key

How much engagement your posts garner will often depend on when and how often you post. Not only does each channel (like Facebook or LinkedIn) tend to have different times when engagement is at its peak, but your specific audience may also have their own preferences. A little research here can go a long way.

Build a sustainable cadence and stay the course. Consistency is crucial. If you post more than once a day, make sure that each has a few hours to shine on its own. And if a post is getting a particularly high response rate, wait a while before potentially drowning it out with something new. Remember: Algorithms are looking for engagement, not frequency.

4. Mix it up

Another way to ensure better engagement (and a better response from the algorithm!) is to mix up the type of content you share. Your online presence should be a healthy medley of brand, industry, and personal and community content.

You will need to figure out what the right balance for your own audience is. Think about what they care about, the questions they ask when you work together, or specific local concerns. The bottom line in every case is to make sure you’re maintaining a variety of relevant content in your social selling strategy.

5. Give and take

Approach social media as a conversation, not a bullhorn. Social selling is about more than just getting engagement — it’s also about engaging with your audience in return. This give and take is how relationships are made and strengthened, whether they be prospects or clients you know and love.

Don’t just be reactive by responding only to comments or likes on your posts. Take time to respond to others’ posts as well, whether they’re customers or other thought leaders in the industry. This doesn’t always have to be through comments, either; a simple like can let people know you’re paying attention to what they have to say.

Social selling is a powerful tool that can help financial advisors bring in new prospects and keep old clients coming back for more advice through the power of relationship and trust building. However, in order to rise above the noise, you can’t lean on your — or your firm’s — reputation. Instead, you need to establish an authentic presence for yourself that showcases exactly what makes you the right person for the job.

Learn more by downloading our Social Selling Guidebook for Financial Institutions.

Digital transformation means that social media has become an integral part of everyday life.  It has changed the way we communicate and connect with others, and it has also transformed the way financial professionals operate. Loan officers, insurance agents, and financial advisors will find that social media networks like LinkedIn have immense potential in terms of building connections, establishing thought leadership in the industry, and supporting their business. 

LinkedIn has quickly become a need for financial professionals: in fact, 9 out of 10 financial advisors are currently using LinkedIn for their business, and other industries can show similar numbers, too. To leverage the full potential of LinkedIn, intermediaries should create a strong social media content and post strategy. Here’s how to get started:

Define Your Target Audience

Before creating any content or posting anything on LinkedIn, it is essential to define the right target audience. By knowing this audience, it’s easier and more effective to craft content that resonates with them, and to also tailor any message to their needs and preferences. For the financial services industry, understanding clients and prospective clients is crucial to growing connections on social media.

Develop a Content Strategy

Once the target audience is identified, the next step is to develop a content strategy that aligns with business objectives. The content strategy should focus on creating value for the audience and positioning oneself as an expert in the financial industry, be it insurance, mortgage, banking, or wealth. It’s always helpful to create a mix of content, including articles, blog posts, infographics, videos, and podcasts, depending on current events and what the target audience would prefer.

Some themes to consider using in the content strategy are:

  • Industry news and trends
  • Tips and advice for financial planning and investments
  • Case studies and success stories
  • How-to guides and tutorials
  • Thought leadership pieces on industry-specific topics

Optimize The LinkedIn Profile

A LinkedIn profile is the first thing that potential connections will see. Therefore, it is essential to optimize the profile to make a good impression and establish credibility. Some tips for making a LinkedIn profile stand out are:

  • Use a professional headshot
  • Write a compelling headline that reflects expertise
  • Craft a well-written summary that highlights skills and experience
  • Add relevant keywords to the profile to make it easier for people to find in search results
  • Include media such as videos, infographics, and presentations to showcase work

Engage With Connections

LinkedIn is a social media platform, and like any other social network, engagement is key. Engaging with connections demonstrates real interest in building important relationships and sharing valuable insights. Some meaningful ways to engage with connections might include:

  • React to and comment on posts
  • Share posts with existing network
  • Send personalized messages to build rapport and establish connections
  • Participate in LinkedIn groups relevant to industry

Measure and Refine Your Strategy

Finally, it is crucial to measure any LinkedIn strategy's effectiveness and refine it over time. Using social media analytics is a smart way to track an audience's engagement with posted content, such as views, likes, shares, and comments. Based on this data, it’s simple to refine an existing strategy, identify what works and what doesn't, and adjust the tactics accordingly.

In conclusion, creating a social media content and post strategy for LinkedIn can help financial professionals build connections, establish thought leadership, and support their business. By defining the right target audience, developing a content strategy, optimizing the profile, engaging with connections, and measuring and refining the approach, anyone can leverage the full potential of LinkedIn and make social media a priority.

Ready to start building your social selling game plan? Check out this Social Selling Playbook for Financial Institutions.

There are plenty of AI skeptics out there, but there’s no doubt about it: these tools are here to stay! Marketers that don’t embrace the features of AI and how they can make your content work smarter, not harder, will fall behind those that don’t. There are many ways that AI can boost an institution’s social media strategy, and combined with other social selling tools, it can be an invaluable asset for your team. 

Running a social selling program is no easy feat, and one of the main challenges to overcome is giving users guidance and content to create their own engaging social media posts. That’s where AI comes in! It’s not about replacing people or taking away their voices: it’s about giving them assistance to do more with less. AI like Denim Social’s Social Sidekick take off the pressure of crafting the perfect message. That way, loan officers, insurance agents, and financial advisors can build a presence on social media without having to spend too much time on it (and so they can focus on their business!). 

If you’re hesitant to adopt AI in your social media strategy, consider these three ways that it can make your content stronger than ever. 

  1. AI can help you start a post. The proverbial writers’ block: even the most seasoned marketers can experience it, and for those that aren’t trained in social media writing, it can be a serious issue when trying to convey a message. Oftentimes, social sellers know what they want to say, but aren’t sure how to say it or how to begin. AI should never replace authentic, human content, but it can give users something a launch pad for what they need to say. Having that initial push can open the door to future content success for inexperienced users, especially. 
  2. AI can help you build a content library. For many institutions, a major key to social selling success is providing team members with guidance on what to post. If you are the administrator for your institution’s program, that’s a lot of pressure, time, and effort spent building up content to share with users. With AI, it’s much easier to increase the quantity of content without increasing any individual’s overall output. Having a more robust library means more social media posts going out and more access to valuable resources for brands and their users. 
  3. AI can fine tune your messaging. Sometimes a post just isn’t quite right. Especially when complex subjects around financial services are up for discussion, getting the right tone and wording is hard to do. You want to be both educational and entertaining, so it’s always about striking the right balance with the message. It’s easy to be either too vague or too wordy. With AI, you can easily reword and regenerate a message to be more clear and concise if needed. Even better, you can be assured that your post is grammatically correct and formatted as needed. It’s perfect for social sellers that are just starting out or worried about posting the right way. 

Don’t let uncertainty about AI keep you from taking advantage of such a powerful and helpful tool. It can work wonders for institutions that are trying to drive user adoption, make the most of limited resources, or simply trying to boost their social media presence. There are many functions AI can serve, but most importantly, it can increase your social selling efficiency. Thanks to the Denim Social platform’s integrated AI compliance workflows, you can also control what’s being posted across all users and networks, too. 

Sign up for a demo today to learn more about how it works and what it can do for your institution

What Is Social Selling?

Whether you’re in banking, wealth management, insurance or mortgage, relationships are the bedrock of your business. 

Considering clients in these industries are handing over the keys to their personal kingdoms, it’s no surprise that trust and connection matter. That’s why successful sales strategies for these industries are focused on building long-term, trusted relationships. While this has traditionally been done in person for financial services, the digital landscape offers endless possibilities for relationship building. By now marketers and business leaders are familiar with social media and see the opportunity to build their brand, but most have only scratched the surface. To truly unleash the potential of social, financial institutions need to use social media as a sales tool. 

It’s called social selling and it works.

Social selling is just what it sounds like: using social media to sell a product or service. It’s leveraging social to build personal relationships, showcase thought leadership, engage with prospects, interact with existing customers, and ultimately build trust and rapport that will eventually lead to sales.

Social selling is the perfect crossroads of marketing and sales. It enables intermediaries – like loan officers, financial advisors and insurance agents – to add value to the customer journey where there wouldn’t otherwise be an opportunity. Savvy marketing and sales teams unlock the power of relationships with social selling, enabling intermediaries to compliantly communicate, share and sell on the social channels of their choice.

Consider this: employees have 10x the reach and drive double the engagement compared to brand pages on social media. But it’s about more than likes and comments, social selling can transform social media into a revenue driver for your institution. Sales reps who regularly share content are 57% more likely to generate leads. The numbers check out, but social selling is also about building the intangible relationships that are the lifeblood of the industry.

The Intermediary is Here to Stay! Social Selling is a non-negotiable to drive a modern marketing strategy.

Products are increasingly digitized and direct-to-consumer business is on the rise, but that doesn’t mean the role of the intermediary is going away. It’s just changing. The way agents, loan officers and advisors interact with digital products will look different from the past, but the role of the advisor will always be needed. Human connection will remain a meaningful part of financial transactions. As expectations change, marketing and sales teams need to meet consumers on the channel of their choice. Social media isn’t going anywhere. It’s where consumers are interacting with each other, looking for advice, and looking for thought leadership on important life topics. This means intermediaries and producers have to be there.

My brand is on social media, so we’re social selling, right? 

Not quite. If your brand is active on social media, you’re off to a great start, but you’re leaving opportunity on the table if you’re not empowering agents, loan officers, advisors and more to share on social. If you only have brand pages, you’re not social selling yet.

Watch Here: Beyond the Brand | Social Selling Best Practices

Forward-thinking marketers understand the power of social media at all stages of their marketing funnel. From awareness and consideration to loyalty and even advocacy, social and digital channels can and do inform purchase decisions. Financial institutions are catching on — more than 90% of the 50 largest banks are currently on Facebook, and 88% have active Twitter accounts — but being on social media doesn’t equate to a strong social media strategy. Today’s digital market requires an integrated strategy that meets target audiences throughout the buyer’s journey. This means investing in paid social campaigns alongside organic and driving deeper relationships with customers through social selling.

Sounds easy, right? While marketers may understand the strategies and costs associated with modern social success, senior decision makers may still need educating and persuading. That’s why it’s essential to be able to effectively communicate the benefits of integrated social media strategies. In addition to intangible benefits like building trust and humanizing your brand, both organic and paid social selling strategies offer metrics that enable marketers to prove value.

The Intermediary is Here to Stay: Products are increasingly digitized and direct-to-consumer business is on the rise, but that doesn’t mean the role of the intermediary is going away. It’s just changing. The way agents, loan officers and advisors interact with digital products will look different from the past, but the role of the advisor will always be needed. Human connection will remain a meaningful part of financial transactions.

As expectations change, marketing and sales teams need to meet consumers on the channel of their choice. Social media isn’t going anywhere. It’s where consumers are interacting with each other, looking for advice, and looking for thought leadership on important life topics. This means intermediaries and producers have to be there. 

Source: LinkedIn Social Selling Index

Building A Social Selling Program

Being responsible for your team’s social selling strategy can be daunting, especially if you don’t have a plan or support. We see it firsthand at Denim Social – without a meaningful strategy, users may not be eager (or downright resistant) to jump on a new platform. So, how are others getting their teams onboard? We talked to a few Denim Social customers to learn how they’re making it happen and we saw four keys to adoption success.

Activate a hybrid distribution approach.

We find that teams that utilize social selling have the most empowered associates because they are able to create personalized, engaging content. However, we have also found that a hybrid distribution approach can be a great stepping stone to social selling. This usually includes the marketing team posting brand content on behalf of associates, and associates scheduling out pre-approved industry content from a content library, plus sprinkling in their own personal content. And rest assured, that personal content still goes through approval workflows.

Build a robust content library.

‍If you’re going to ask associates to post content, you’ve got to make it easy and compliant. Our platform offers content libraries filled with pre-approved posts. We see that when associates have lots of content to choose from, they post more frequently.

“We have implemented several resources and training opportunities to encourage users to stay engaged. We update libraries on a weekly basis and send a weekly content digest via email to remind our users to get into the system and schedule their posts, said Amy Leonard, officer digital marketing specialist at Johnson Financial Group.

Communicate the value of social media consistently.

‍Your teams need to be able to answer the age-old question, “what’s in it for me?” Your teams are busy and that means you need to help them see why spending their valuable time on social media is worth it.

“Whenever you bring on a new platform, user adoption can be a challenge. Once users embrace Denim Social, they see that it actually saves them time,” said Leonard.

Seth Reeks from Evolve Bank and Trust finds that communicating the benefits of social media AND Denim Social combined are the most impactful. He uses real information from top performers to show their peers why social media can help drive relationships and business.  He provides them with brand and industry focused content on an ongoing basis. Then he shows them how they can schedule out their content efficiently using Denim Social.

“I tell them if they put in just a little work at the beginning of the month, they’ll see big results,” said Reeks.   ‍

Train and Train Again‍

Baking social media and Denim Social training into the onboarding process is a great way to introduce new and motivated associates to a fresh way to drive their business.  It is also important to keep social media top of mind for ALL associates. An ongoing training program outlining compliance/social policy, the value of social media and Denim Social is a must, whether it be monthly or quarterly. Marketing is not often top of mind for salespeople, so it is important to continuously educate them on how to get involved and optimize their strategies.  

Allison Dickinson, social media specialist at AnnieMac Home Mortgage oversees the creation of their hugely successful mortgage loan officer training program, which includes a monthly new hire social media and compliance training course and Denim Social overview, a monthly Denim Social refresher training, a Quarterly Strategy Training, and ongoing 1:1 assistance for users.

“We have monthly Denim Refresh trainings to keep our users updated and knowledgeable about the platform. One thing we like to do is host one-on-one trainings to make sure they understand the workflow and that Denim is easy for them to use,” said Dickinson.

This training program is a well oiled machine, and keeps their social program growing by educating and informing users consistently.

If you’re struggling with adoption, these strategies can help. And of course, persistence pays off.

“Don’t give up! In the beginning, we had no users, no one managing their social media. Now we have over 100 users handling their own social media accounts,” said Reeks. “If we had quit back in the beginning when it was tough to get buy-in, we wouldn’t have the program that we have now.”

Social media is only as valuable as its users and that makes adoption key. If you’re struggling to motivate your team to hop on the social media bandwagon the right tools and support can make all the difference. 

Watch Here: Driving User Engagement on Social Media 

So you’re ready to launch a social selling program, but where do you start?

Developing a social selling strategy and launching a program can be daunting. As you know, marketing and sales teams are already juggling full plates. Adding social to the mix is a culture shift, and supporting hundreds or thousands of producers in weaving social into their everyday processes isn’t a small feat. Remember that social selling is more than marketing: It’s using social media as a digital relationship-building and sales tool. This mindset shift can take some time, and launching your strategy and program won’t happen overnight.  

This is one of our favorites: LinkedIn’s 2022 State of Sales Report found the most successful sellers at large companies — those reaching more than 150% of quota — routinely use technology to build human connections with buyers.

Align with Your Team on the Definition of Social Selling

As a marketing pro, you know what social selling is by now, but what about your team? This step may sound obvious, but you need to work to define social selling in your organization and differentiate from brand social media. Intermediaries may have less experience with social selling. Take the time to talk about what social selling can do and educate your teams on using social media as a sales tool. This time spent learning a new marketing tactic is very much worth your loan officers’, advisors’ and agents’ time, too. Prove it to them by sharing meaningful stats on the benefits of social selling.

Educate Your Sales Team

Remember that social selling isn’t just marketing’s responsibility. It’s an effort that should be supported by both marketing and sales. If you’re in a marketing role looking to launch social selling for your advisors, loan officers and/or agents, take the time to educate your sales partners on social selling. Craft your elevator pitch on how social helps intermediaries meet customers where they are in the digital landscape and how enabling them on social helps amplify your brand messaging. Keep in mind that social media in a heavily regulated industry can feel risky, and adding it to the mix of sales tactics that have “always been done a certain way” can feel like a huge change. Patience is key! Own the narrative around social selling, build your group of internal champions to help with this culture shift, and invest time in change management and your communication plan.

Find Your Social Selling Technology

Once you’ve got your internal teams aligned on launching social selling for your producers, it’s important to find a tech solution to make it all easier! Seek a solution that creates efficiencies for the administrators of your program and your users. For instance, does your platform account for compliance coverage? Does your vendor understand the nuances of your industry? As you’re evaluating potential platforms, make sure to consider both the administrative and end-user experience, as well as both organic and paid capabilities. A holistic social selling platform will include all these things.

Identify Social Maturity

So you’re changing the narrative, gaining buy-in, and you’ve got the right tools to help you — what’s next? It’s time to dig into your user group to identify social maturity. You don’t have to do it all at once — a phased approach with folks of different social maturity levels will make this easier to learn and scale from. Start by simply searching for your intermediaries on social media. How easy is it to find them? Are their pages updated and on brand? Is their “about” info robust and accurate? Have their profile photos been updated in the last decade? If you are answering “yes” to a lot of these, you already have a great start. Those are your people. But if you aren’t, that’s OK — you’ll just need to start with some generalized social education and profile optimization to get your group started. Taking the time to deliver this education is critical in making social selling stick.

Train and Test Your User Group

Once you’ve identified agents, advisors or loan officers who are either already active on social or ready to be active, start communicating. Let your whole organization know that you’re launching a social selling program. The more folks who know, the more they can support your work. Then, communicate with your first user group; let them know what to expect throughout the launch, including your level of support and upcoming training to get them started. And finally... train! Depending on the level of social maturity of your launch group, this might mean starting with the basics of each social platform, as well as the basics of organic and paid social. If your users are super ready, it could mean jumping right into your social selling tech solution.

Measure Success and Optimize Over Time

Once you have momentum, fuel that success with regular content. It takes time: Start simply by creating versions of your brand content for individuals and add this content to your content planning processes (for instance, you might craft language your agents can use to share branded social posts). One of the perks of Denim Social? We curate your library with our content integration. Finally, measure your success and share it with your internal champions, teams, and leadership. Your measurement might just consist of basic content usage and engagement at first, but it will ultimately grow to measuring return on ad spend and leads generated. Take the time to celebrate small wins and educate your internal partners on the growth of your social selling program. Check in with your social sellers to make sure they’re understanding the value and celebrating with you.

Download: Social Selling Made Easy 

Want to keep learning and training with your team?
Publishing Basics for Admins

Publishing Basics for Producers

Social Selling Best Practices

If you are posting the same content on every social media network, you might be missing out on key engagement opportunities for your social selling strategy. What gets the most attention and engagement on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn isn’t universal, and financial marketers would be wise to seek a more nuanced strategy than just casting a wide net and hoping for the best. While there are general best practices to posting on social, making just a few distinctions to how you approach each of your networks can help you beat the dreaded social media algorithms and build credibility and expertise at the brand and individual producer levels. Let’s take a look at each network and how banks, wealth management firms, insurance agencies, and mortgage lenders can customize their strategies to the unique needs of each network to achieve growth and success.

Facebook: This is what you should know about our financial institution. 

Despite the emergence of new networks and the inevitable departure of Gen Z and Millennials, Facebook is still the most popular social media network, and it’s a non-negotiable for any business. For community banks and other smaller financial businesses, it is the perfect medium to connect with local communities. This network will be one of the first places many customers look for a business, so having updated and branded profile information is essential. It’s ideal for sharing important dates or events, announcements, or anything customers need to be in the know about. Utilize brand pages for general information, and allow your agents, advisors, or employees to curate more personalized content on their individual business pages. 

How To Succeed:

  • Share a wide variety of content geared towards informing and connecting with audiences
  • Post content related to the local community and partnerships with other business or organizations
  • Take advantage of user-generated content to build and maintain relationships with customers at the brand and producer levels
Download: Best Practices for Building Your Facebook Page

Twitter: Talking about our #financialinstitution. 

Sometimes Twitter seems like a mystery with its unique format, hashtag content, and 280-character limit. Like any other network, customers and prospects will consult a company’s account to find information they need to know; but more importantly, Twitter is a network people go to in order to hear news and opinions - and share their own. It is primarily a resource for sharing thought leadership and staying informed about industry updates. To be set up for success, brands and producers should follow relevant accounts like competitors, local businesses, and industry leaders. Hashtags are a useful way to learn about the broader conversations happening- plus, they provide insight into the hashtags marketers should be incorporating as well. Like any other network, brands engaging in social selling will enjoy the benefit of more engagement and awareness opportunities. 

How To Succeed:

  • Prioritize engaging in existing conversations, rather than creating original content
  • Retweet relevant information for your customers and your brand, and utilize the mention function to increase visibility
  • Follow and use hashtags related to your industry to stay connected to current events and other thought leaders
Download: Best Practices for Building Your Twitter Profile

LinkedIn: This is what our financial institution wants you to know, and why.

Branded as the professional social network, LinkedIn is perhaps the most important place for financial services brands and employees to be when it comes to social selling. This is a great way for brands to grow their reach by tapping into the power of user connections through sharing thought leadership and need-to-know information regarding their industry. Plus, authenticity is increasingly important on LinkedIn, with customers preferring to interact with brands that seem more relatable. Marketers and individual producers can use LinkedIn to share those values and insights into company culture that make people feel connected: photos, videos, and important awards or achievements can help boost engagement and brand awareness. With the power of a brand page combined with employee advocacy through social selling, LinkedIn should be a main focal point for any financial institution. 

How To Succeed:

  • Share images of community and in-person interactions and events with context on what it means to your business
  • Follow local businesses from your actual business page (such as: local library, schools, industry competitors, local figures) and engage with their posts from your business page
  • Share high-performing posts from industry thought leaders and other local businesses; this boosts their engagement and gets visibility for both of you
Download: Best Practices for Building Your LinkedIn Profile

Instagram: Here’s a photo or video of what our financial institution values. 

As a highly popular and visually-appealing social media network, Instagram is ideal for demonstrating a more human side to any financial brand, which is especially important for connecting with younger customers. This network is meant to be fun and entertaining for followers, while also staying on brand for financial companies and still informative. Of all the networks, Instagram is going to be the easiest way to reach younger audiences and get creative with content. For brands engaging in social selling, it’s a fun way to give producers a chance to show their personality and connect with customers on a more casual level. Instagram is also very dynamic and visual: the Reels and Stories functions provide alternative ways to share and engage quickly with video, which provides more opportunities to get in front of audiences within the platform than image posts alone.

How To Succeed:

  • Post images from community or in-person interactions; share important posts to brand and producer Stories, then save to Highlights
  • Use emojis in copy and keep text light and fun; it’s all about the visuals on this network
  • Follow other businesses/industry thought leaders; engage with their content and share posts to your own stories
Download: Best Practices for Building Your Instagram Profile

While every network has its own charms and best practices, there are a few overall things to keep in mind when launching a social selling program: stay authentic and non-salesy; keep compliance matters in mind; know how to maintain a balanced and informed feed; and finally, don’t forget that paid advertising can boost organic efforts on any network. Knowing what to post on each social media network can be overwhelming, but understanding the best way to approach social selling at the brand and individual levels on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn will translate to more engagement, better brand awareness, and increased trust from industry leaders and customers. With a little fine-tuning and support for your team, you can see the difference a network-based content approach can make for your financial institution.

Check Out These Social Media Network Best Practices for Social Selling:

LinkedIn Best Practices
Twitter Best Practices

Facebook Best Practices
Instagram Best Practices

Let’s talk about social media compliance for financial institutions.

In today’s digital landscape, marketers know that social media is a key element to any successful strategy. Social selling is a smart approach to empower financial advisors, loan officers and associates in social media, but it comes with risks. After all, just one rogue post could land your financial institution in regulatory hot water. Compliance is complicated, but don’t let it stop your employees from making the most of social media. Think your team is ready to start social selling? Ask yourself these five questions:

Do I know who has social media access and control? 

Your social strategy won’t be compliant unless it’s properly governed, so start by clearly documenting who has access to and control over what social media channels. According to the FFIEC, your social media policy needs to clearly outline individual roles and responsibilities on social. When roles are clearly defined, you’ll eliminate authorization confusion and avoid regulatory trip wires

Is my social media policy well-documented? 

If you don’t already have a social media policy in place, then it’s time to put one together. If you already have one, check that it is up-to-date. Ensure the policy is easy for all employees to digest, understand and implement.

Am I tuned-in to what’s happening on my social channels? 

You should be monitoring all activity across your brand’s and employees’ social media channel to ensure posts and engagement is compliant. 

Am I prepared for an audit? 

Surprise! You’re being audited. Be sure you’re ready with a social media archive that captures all postings and engagement activity. 

Do I have a clear picture of my social media risks? 

You could be fined for a mistake that slipped through the cracks if you don’t have fail-safes, like approvals and compliance checks, in your workflows. Start with a social media risk assessment, and if you already have one, consider re-reviewing it regularly.

Trend Report: A Marketer’s Guide to Social Selling

As financial marketers look to the coming year, most are wondering, “what’s next?” While no one can say for sure, our team of experts here at Denim Social are keeping a pulse on what’s new in digital marketing for financial institutions. Surely every marketer has found frustration in the often slower-than-average pace of digital adoption and change in the financial industry, but there can be benefits. Namely, financial marketers can look to more forward industries (like consumer brands and tech), to see what’s catching on and evolving. Even if you’re not quite ready to dive-in, as new trends emerge, financial marketers can begin to lay the groundwork with leaders for the future. Whether you’re in banking, mortgage, insurance or wealth management, we see a few key trends that every financial institution should begin preparing for.

But why change what’s working? If your institution hasn’t already come around to digital first marketing, let us put this gently – it’s time. In practice, this looks like moving marketing dollars from traditional media to social media centric digital strategies. Consumers in every age group are shifting to digital and it becomes more pronounced the younger the consumer. Younger generations are digital natives and their use of technology is rapidly increasing. In fact, about half of teens say they use the internet almost constantly, up from only about a quarter of teenagers who said the same less than 10 years ago. 

We get it, teens aren’t big revenue drivers for your institution… yet. Believe it or not, younger generation buyers now dominate the housing market, with Millennials representing 43% of home buyers. Housing is only the tip of the iceberg with younger audiences too. A massive generational transfer is underway as Baby Boomers age. Experts predict that $84 trillion will change hands in the next 25 years. All of this is to say, financial marketers need to be where their consumers are. Today, that means social media. Digital marketing and social media show no signs of slowing down, so financial institutions need to invest accordingly

Growth of Short-Form Video Content for Financial Services

Growth in short-form video is both changing what consumers watch and how they watch it. Even on other more traditional social media networks, attention spans are getting shorter. For example, short-form videos were just 21% of YouTube views in Q2 2021, but jumped to a whopping 57% of views in Q2 2022. Social media users are favoring videos in the 30 second to 1-minute range. 

The Rise of Financial Advice Influencers

Whether institutions like it or not, people are getting financial advice on social media. And it’s a trend that’s unlikely to change – Generation Z are almost five times more likely to get financial advice from social media platforms than people aged 41 or over. While this may feel like a challenge for financial marketers, at Denim Social, we see it as a massive opportunity. 

Increase in Personal Content and More Authenticity on Professional Channels

As more and more institutions adopt social selling strategies that put their people front and center, we’re seeing an increase in personal content. User-generated content is at the heart of a good social selling strategy because it is authentic. 

Enhanced Marketing Automation Connections

As institutions build out bigger social selling programs that include both paid and organic strategies, scale is always a challenge. Smart marketers are looking to increase marketing automations to help them effectively and efficiently manage digital marketing strategies. In fact, 63% of marketers plan to increase their marketing automation budgets. 

Social Media as Search Engine

Social media has long been viewed as an excellent brand-building tool, but today, financial institutions need to consider the value of social profiles for search discoverability. Increasingly audiences – especially younger ones – are using social media as a search engine. Recent Google research shows that nearly 40% of Gen Z prefers using TikTok and Instagram for search over Google.

The future of social media for financial institutions is bright and marketers who continue to advocate for increased social resources will reap the rewards. Whether you’re launching a social selling program or building your marketing automations, thinking long-term will help your team build toward a more connected and successful future. Remember this: You don’t have to be ready to dive into the next big thing right now, but it’s important to stay current with the social media trends of today so that you don’t get left behind tomorrow.

Content Strategy
Watch: Marketing Mix for an Informed & Healthy Social Media Feed

Organic social media should still have a place in your strategy, especially in a social selling program. Cultivating organic posts from your associates' accounts is a great way to add context, richness, and humanity to your brand. For current customers, organic social media posts can be a way to demonstrate the heart and culture of your company as you provide “behind the scenes” and in-office content that speaks to the personalities and values of your employees and institution.

For prospective customers, organic social can serve as a "verifier." A strong social media presence signals to prospects that your company and employees are legitimate and lends more insight into your value proposition.

However, what’s missing in this social media marketing strategy is the value for top-of-funnel leads — those who don’t know anything about your institution yet. According to a recent study, only 2.2% of your followers see your posts on Facebook, 5.5% on LinkedIn, and 9.4% on Instagram. Paid social media advertising is one of the most effective ways to introduce people who aren’t yet following your producers, loan officers, or advisors to your institution at the right place and the right time.

Organic and Paid: Better Together

Organic and paid social have a symbiotic relationship. Organic social builds first-degree connections and facilitates awareness, engagement, and branding, while paid social allows you to reach larger, more tailored audiences.

For instance, if you’re working for a wealth management firm, your top-of-funnel leads are unlikely to find your firm by searching Facebook, but if they happen to be scrolling and see your Facebook ad for a financial advisor's retirement planning services, they are more likely to navigate to your social and landing pages. There, your organic posts, which have been building over time, can show off the legitimacy of your brand and your advisor's expertise.

The question, then, is how to marry existing organic strategies with paid campaigns in your social media strategy for the highest return. Start here:

1. Amplify what works (and drop what isn't).

With paid social media ads, you can see immediate results, which makes them great for testing. If a post is underperforming, use A/B testing to experiment with different images, copy, and calls to action to make improvements for the future. A/B testing helps you isolate what elements of your ads need to change by showing which ones resonate and which don’t.

This method can even be applied to previously organic content: Did an employee's post have unexpectedly high engagement? Use it as a blueprint to try to isolate why. A paid ad will bring the post in front of greater audiences, and changing a few aspects can help identify why it was so successful in the first place.

As you see what’s performing, invest more dollars into posts that convert while cutting or changing content that doesn’t. With paid social media ads, you can see immediate results versus organic’s longer-term commitment. That makes paid ads well-suited to testing.

2. Expand your audience base.

Both organic and paid social media can help increase your reach on social media, and it starts with activating advisors in addition to brand pages. A social selling approach can increase your results tenfold and drive higher engagement. Facebook ads reach 1.95 billion average monthly users, and an average user clicks 12 ads per month, so significant reach is up for grabs.

With an organic social selling strategy, you can reach more people in your existing social and professional communities. But with a complementary paid ad strategy on top of that, you can break through your first-degree social connections to reach second- and third-degree connections, who will include important professional referral sources.

Utilize paid amplification of employee posts to benefit. Your advisors should be your brand's ambassadors, so up your social selling game by maximizing the reach of their posts.

3. Drive leads into conversions.

Don't let your marketing funnel lead to dead ends. Make sure employees are linking back to your site or other relevant brand content. A well-crafted organic post that drives to a landing page can be the start of a meaningful digital experience that creates business results. Combine this with paid social media ads, which can generate leads by offering call-to-action options that get attention and clicks.

For instance, an organic post can drive a prospective customer to a first-time homebuyer guide. But a paid social post lets you experiment further with a call-to-action button that makes taking the next step easy for potential customers.

General Social Selling Advice

Download: Denim Social Holiday Content Calendar

Above all else, social selling content should be personal, authentic, and tailored to both the community an institution serves and the audience they hope to reach. An institution’s or intermediary’s  social outreach should illustrate not a provider-to-customer relationship but a human-to-human relationship — after all, people buy from people. As the marketer, it’ll be your responsibility to help intermediaries understand how to do this. But your efforts will pay off in your social metrics: Content shared by employees receives eight times the engagement of posts from brand pages.

Social Selling Examples + Success Stories

Watch: Social Sellers in the Wild 
Financial Institution Social Media Examples

Financial Institution Social Selling Case Studies

Evolve Bank & Trust

Evolve Bank & Trust (“Evolve”) is an $700M+ asset institution with nearly 40 Home Loan Centers (HLC) and nearly 500 employees nationwide. Recognizing the importance of social media in their overall marketing strategy, the team came to Denim Social to improve social media performance metrics across their brand, local Home Loan Centers and individual Home Loan Consultant and Advisor Facebook pages.

Like so many financial institutions, Evolve had begun organic social media efforts, but lacked sufficient resources to scale a robust social media strategy that drove meaningful results.

Denim Social helped Evolve activate HLC Facebook pages over the course of just a few months. But page launches were just the beginning of our full-service onboarding. Denim Social’s dedicated Customer Success team trained users on how to use (and make the most of) the Denim Social platform. Our social media experts provided content strategy guidance and curated content libraries made it easy for the Evolve team to post across numerous pages with limited resources.

Bolstered by stellar results in organic, Evolve continues to expand their strategy with paid social media. In addition to offering a platform that fully integrates organic social media management, Denim Social’s team also provides weekly strategy support. Paid social media continues to drive more likes, higher engagement and increased reach and impressions for Evolve.

“Our sales team wants to be selling, and they don’t want anything to get in the way of selling. With Denim Social they can schedule everything to post and the engage when the time is right. They can easily schedule content and get back to selling.” - Seth Reeks, Digital Marketing Coordinator at Evolve Bank & Trust

BOK Financial: Scaling Social to Deepen Community Connection

BOK Financial is a financial services partner for consumers, businesses and wealth clients with more than 150 users on the Denim Social platform. In addition to building brand credibility and establishing loan officer expertise, Denim Social enables their mortgage loan officers to cultivate relationships in social media and organically source leads. 

Geographically dispersed across midwest and southwest, BOK Financial saw an opportunity to use loan officer social media to build their regional presence and community relationships. Recognizing the potential in a local-focused strategy, BOK Financial wanted hyper-local custom content to inspire follower engagement

Sounds simple, right? Like many financial institutions, the team faced competition for internal priority and a lack of support resources. Further, many seasoned loan officers didn’t understand the power of social media or functionally how to grow their followings. “The marketing team knew social media was a huge opportunity to engage local communities,” said Tiffany VanZandt, social media manager. 

“We noticed that loan officers were hesitant to post because of their lack of experience using social media networks. Finding time to schedule posts and coming up with content ideas was challenging for them, too.” BOK Financial found success in a two-pronged strategy to fire up loan officers’ feeds and local community engagement:

Posting on Behalf of Mortgage Loan Officers + Rallying Loan Officers to Get Active on Social

Recognizing the schedule crunch for mortgage loan officers, BOK Financial leveraged regional administrative teams to consistently schedule regional, company and industry content on behalf of mortgage loan officers. With Denim Social as its social media management platform, one administrative team member could easily post on behalf of many mortgage loan officers, all while staying in compliance. Localized content libraries made it simple for the central marketing team to distribute regionally relevant content to mortgage loan officers. 

While marketing support went a long way to getting loan officers active on social media, the BOK Financial team knew loan officers still needed to understand the potential in social media and how to personalize their feeds with hyper-local individual posts. Regional teams established a regular market leader communication that shared content ideas, examples of monthly top producers posts and showcased positive client reviews.

“Denim Social has drastically improved social media results for our mortgage team. Before we had this platform, only a few [loan officers] were actively using social media for business but today we have much more interest as the platform makes it less intimidating.” - Tiffany VanZandt, Social Media Manager at BOK Financial

AnnieMac Home Mortgage: Streamlining Social Selling

AnnieMac is one of the fastest-growing mortgage loan providers in the U.S., serving clients in 42 states. The team came to Denim Social looking to streamline its brand’s social media strategy and activate social selling for hundreds of loan officers. With significant national reach and scale, the brand sought to produce consistent and compelling content for the field. Recognizing the value of social media, AnnieMac saw an opportunity to stand out in the hyper-competitive mortgage market. But AnnieMac’s top priority? Staying in compliance. With an eager and dispersed field of loan officers, the lender needed tools that would make compliance easy every step of the way

Denim Social helped AnnieMac activate Facebook pages for more than 200 team members in just four months. The full scope of the project eventually encompassed social selling pages for 175 loan officers and 47 branch-level brand pages across 25 states. Once the pages were live, Denim Social provided curated content to fuel the social selling strategy. Denim Social set-up loan officers with success through customized training and today, still provides monthly new user trainings for the growing group of social-savvy loan officers. 

With a deeply-integrated social strategy that activates at the brand, branch and loan officer levels, AnnieMac is driving significant results. In its first year, the AnnieMac brand Facebook audience increased its social following by more than 11% and followers are engaging with its social media content more than ever before. The Denim Social platform has empowered AnnieMac to unlock the power of social selling and followers are noticing. 

Every post whether from the brand, branches or loan officers is compliance approved, significantly reducing risk. What’s more, AnnieMac reports an anecdotal “compliance by osmosis” effect. Thanks to the tools provided by Denim Social, employees and loan officers are continually learning what does and doesn’t meet compliance standards. 

“Denim Social has allowed me to efficiently and effectively manage multiple social media channels. I no longer have to spend hours researching and creating posts that are relevant to my followers. With Denim Social, it now only takes a few minutes to have a month’s worth of fresh content that is inspiring, timely and informational.” - Alexis Zwiesler, Branch Marketing Assistant at AnnieMac

Download: How Six Financial Marketers Are Creating Value in Social Media

What are other financial institutions looking like on social media? 

Your Social Selling Future is Bright

Unlimited Measures of Success

Your measures can evolve over time to include top performing agencies, agency highlights, highest performing content (based on engagement or adoption)

Ongoing Education

Consider hosting regular internal webinars on best practices, how to optimize content, how to start using paid advertising, and agency highlights and more. 

Merchandise Success Internally

Invite a social top performer to share relevant, real-life stories on how social has helped them grow their businesses and build and foster relationships

Drive Adoption 

Check in, check in, check in!  Set up regular check ins with your social sellers to make sure they’re seeing the value and keeping up with posting and responding to their audiences. 

Fuel Success with Content

Include intermediary content in your brand content planning. Start simple by tweaking your brand posts to sound like they’re coming from the voice of the agent.

Measure Your Success

Start small! Sometimes this just means basic adoption of your program. Are agents using it? Are their platforms connected to the technology you’ve invested in? Are they posting?

Download: Social Media Analytics Enhance Your Financial Institution’s Marketing Strategy

As any marketer worth their salt will tell you, analytics should drive your social strategy. While the “spray-and-pray” approach may have worked a decade ago, consumer

expectations for personalized experiences and C-suite demands for measurable results have raised the bar to a whole new level.

The good news is every social media post you publish is generating meaningful data about the audiences you are trying to connect with and convert. Indeed, social media marketing can have a huge reach — 83% of people say they discover new products on Instagram, and 54% of Gen Z say social media is their top influence channel. With the personal networks offered on the organic side and the advanced targeting of paid ads, social media is tough to beat as a customer acquisition tool.

Why is it, then, that so many digital marketers feel uncomfortable evaluating metrics and measuring ROI in social media marketing? Well, for starters, all the social media data in the world means nothing if you can’t transform it into meaningful insights in relation to business objectives.

Identifying meaningful insights around business objectives begins with setting specific, measurable goals for your campaigns. A great place to start is with your customers. You can easily develop goals when you ask questions like these:

  • Which of my customer segments am I most likely to reach on social media?
  • What types of content and experiences will resonate with them?
  • What motivates them and makes them tick?

With questions like these in mind, it’s easier to know what data to collect and how to begin analyzing it to make meaningful decisions. 

1. Efficiency

Social media measurement in itself is nearly impossible to do manually. If you’re trying to get telling analytics with a spreadsheet, you won’t have much luck. Social media measurement, like most analytics, requires the right tools.

Quantify the time you spend on measurement to appeal to management. The right analytics tools can help you collect valuable marketing data faster and easier. Data shows that simplifying workflows with technology can free up 20–30% of employees’ time, so show leadership that with the right tools, you can up your efficiency to do more faster.

Another reason leaders might shy away from the idea of a robust social media marketing strategy is compliance. Financial services is a heavily regulated industry, and electronic communication is certainly not exempt from regulatory scrutiny. Again, the right tools can help. Denim Social’s platform, for example, enables marketers to keep social media compliant in an efficient way. Among other compliance features, the platform automates approval workflows so the right people can sign off on the right social content with ease before it ever goes live.‍

2. Targeting‍

As algorithms change and organic social media is no longer a promising strategy on its own, marketers need to persuade leadership teams to invest in paid social media. Not only will paid get your messages in front of the right people with direct targeting capabilities, but it can also provide more data to help you understand what your target audience groups want and need.

By tracking paid performance by target audience group, you can better understand who’s connecting with what content and hone your social media strategy to connect with more prospects. Show leadership teams that when every message lands in front of exactly the right people, you’re maximizing social media marketing budget dollars — instead of wasting them on irrelevant or unengaged audiences.

3. Competitor tracking‍

Help leaders understand that, while measuring your own social media performance offers valuable insights, measuring your competitors’ performance can take your marketing game to the next level.

With social listening tools that enable you to track competitors’ social media activity, leaders can see your organization’s performance benchmarked against competitors and get a clear picture of where social needs more investment to stay competitive.

What’s more, social listening tools offer financial institutions a clear line of sight into how other brands are resonating with customers and encouraging engagement on social. Your brand can use those insights to craft even more relevant messaging and keep a leg up on the competition at all times.‍

4. Conversion opportunities‍

Landing page linking strategies on social media drive conversions, and nothing is more compelling to a leadership team than a direct line from marketing spend to sales. Track form completion rates to present a clear picture of how many viewers have deemed your content valuable enough to exchange their information for. Then, tie that to sales data to see how many prospects who submitted their information and received follow-ups from sales teams eventually signed on.

When you can draw that clear line from social post all the way to conversion, the bottom-line impact is clear to see. Compare that to traditional marketing tactics — has your leadership team ever seen a recorded, data-backed customer conversion metric from a billboard? Not likely.

Marketers know that staying relevant in today’s digital world requires a strong approach to social media marketing. Show leaders how upping efficiency, performance metrics, and competitive insight can empower your marketing team to elevate a data-driven social media strategy that delivers clear, measurable results.

Most of all, remember, you can do it! However, you don’t have to go it alone; we can help!

We believe social media is a very powerful sales tool and want to help you make social selling easy for your organization to implement.

Ready to learn more? Book a demo today. 

For any marketer planning a social selling program, proving return on investment to leadership is key to ongoing success. Sometimes proving the profitability of social media can be tricky, but there’s a solution. Paid social media advertising is an effective way to show clear, measurable results in real time. 

Marketers looking to make the case for their budgets are often faced with questions about impact: whether time and money spent on social selling is actually bringing in leads or new business. After all, it takes training, resources, and ongoing user adoption to make it work. Smart marketers know that having their intermediaries engage on social media is useful for brand awareness and building connections, but paid advertising can show exactly how many new customers come directly from those efforts. 

Some marketers might balk at the idea of paid social media advertising (it’s pay to play), but the right strategy is worth the investment. Paid ads will guide audiences along the buying journey, leading them to make the final purchase decision in a targeted, intentional way. With the help of metrics that paid ads provide, marketers can feel confident in promoting social selling as a viable and worthy strategy to leaders .

Looking for the best way to prove value? Here are four paid social media advertising metrics that can help financial marketers to show off social selling success: . 

  1. Impressions: Impressions are the number of times content was seen on a given network. When marketers create paid advertisements, this is one of the first ways to assess the level of interest in a given campaign. Impressions are a clear measure that paid ads are getting eyeballs. It often takes multiple exposures before audiences start to recognize or notice content, so the more impressions, the better. For institutions with many social sellers, paid advertisements can multiply awareness across many regions and to an even wider audience. It may feel like posting content on social media networks is inconsequential; many marketers post and cross their fingers that it will be seen. With paid impressions, there’s no question about how often a paid ad is generating awareness and boosting social selling efforts. 
  2. Reach: Reach is the number of people who saw your content. While having a large number of impressions is important, it’s just as important to have those impressions spread across a wide audience. If an institution has agents, loan officers, advisors, or other intermediaries in a variety of geographic locations, reaching the right audiences supports social selling in a specialized way. The ability to target with paid content is one of the greatest strengths over organic publishing. For marketers, knowing the reach of an ad provides key insight into the number of available leads for any social seller’s campaign.
  3. Click Through Rate (CTR): CTR is the number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of impressions. Basically, it shows how often something was seen in order for an audience member to click the call to action. Even if an institution runs ads for many different social sellers, links and landing pages can be unique to each one, giving marketers more leverage to customize based on a variety of factors. Knowing the click through rate shows marketers how relevant an ad is to its audience. For financial services, a good CTR can be anywhere from 0.5%-3%; over time, this will clearly show how successful ads are at sparking interest and driving viewers to to take action. 
  4. Conversion Rate: Conversion rate is the percentage of audience members that saw an advertisement, clicked on it, and completely followed through with the call to action. More often than not, ads lead to a form or gated content to collect prospect information.This step is the most exciting for marketers and social sellers, because with these new leads come new opportunities to grow relationships and close more deals. This way, intermediaries know exactly how much their own business brings in from paid outreach. It’s also a step that requires patience and personalization, because it takes time and effort for the cumulative effect of impressions, reach, and clicks to drive audiences forward. For leadership, this is an important metric to prove that ads can and will bring the right business in at the brand and individual team member levels.

It can be hard to prove ROI of a social selling program, but paid ads provide marketers with the metrics they need to prove success.  With the proof  paid advertisement metrics provide, leaders can rest easy  knowing that resources are being put to the best use possible. Even better, knowing these metrics can help to pivot based on performance, continually improving value. 

Want to learn more about social media ads? Download our guide, Getting Started with Paid Advertising.

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GUIDES

The 4 Answers Financial Marketers Need to Make the Case for Social Selling

Forward-thinking marketers understand the power of social media at all stages of their marketing funnel. From awareness and consideration to loyalty and even advocacy, social and digital channels can and do inform purchase decisions. Financial institutions are catching on — more than 90% of the 50 largest banks are currently on Facebook, and 88% have active Twitter accounts — but being on social media doesn’t equate to a strong social media strategy. Today’s digital market requires an integrated strategy that meets target audiences throughout the buyer’s journey. This means investing in paid social campaigns alongside organic and driving deeper relationships with customers through social selling.

Sounds easy, right? While marketers may understand the strategies and costs associated with modern social success, senior decision makers may still need educating and persuading. That’s why it’s essential to be able to effectively communicate the benefits of integrated social media strategies. In addition to intangible benefits like building trust and humanizing your brand, both organic and paid social selling strategies offer metrics that enable marketers to prove value.

After all, people buy from people. So if you’re ready to advocate for an expanded social media strategy, start by asking yourself these questions. Not only will they help you decide on your strategic priorities, but they will also show you how to articulate the value of social media strategies to the people holding the budget strings. To prove the value of social media in financial services and get buy-in from senior leaders, marketers must ask themselves these questions:

Does Our Social Media Marketing Drive ROI?

Expanding a social media strategy often means increased spending — so you must be able to show decision makers the value of social. While financial marketers are already advocates — they know the power of paid social media efforts and have seen it in action — other leadership may not have that knowledge. It’s up to marketing teams to connect the dots on how their efforts are driving business results, and that means providing a strong argument based on metrics and concrete benefits.

Data tells a powerful story, so let it guide the conversation. And to further strengthen your case for expanded social media strategies, make sure to highlight these benefits:

• Targeting

While organic content is important, leaders must understand that it’s not enough to impact the bottom line without paid support. Paid social media gives more flexibility than organic content — you can target specific customer subsets, or even new audience bases, allowing for greater personalization and a higher ROI. It’s all about delivering relevant content to the right consumers at the right time.

• Feedback

Feedback may not always impact the bottom line, but social media itself does offer a direct line to consumers. With the lines of communication open, it becomes easier to listen and learn about their wants, needs, and interests. An open-ended post, for instance, can encourage comments, which provide qualitative feedback on any given topic. This will improve the trust in your institution; customers (and their followers!) will see the commitment to providing an ever-improving experience.

• Conversion

Social media is about more than likes: If you’re providing links on social media (and you should), you’re creating conversion opportunities. Direct consumers to a landing page — from there, you can collect lead information. All that’s left is a follow-up. If that landing page has a form, track completion rates. The icing on top? These interactions are all measurable. Prove value by comparing these metrics with traditional tactics. When did a leader ever see a recorded, data-backed conversion metric from a billboard?

• Efficiency

Measuring social media marketing ROI, like most analytics, requires technology — and the right technology, at that. Spreadsheets simply won’t cut it, and they’re not as accurate or efficient as the tools that fintech partners offer. That’s why the Denim Social platform was built with financial institutions in mind. Its analytics capabilities allow for a more efficient means of capturing results while also centralizing information. Data is readily available, which can simplify and improve the approval workflow. Improvements to the workflow process have been shown to free up 20% to 30% of employees’ time — so bring that statistic to decision makers to prove its necessity.

How Do You Use Social Media Analytics to Make Your Case?

Expanding marketing strategies means collecting more data, and that necessitates a robust social media management tool. Gathering data on any social media marketing campaign affords you the opportunity to measure its overall performance and gives you clear-cut evidence to support business measures related to those efforts.

Of course, data should be gathered based on specific criteria. Meaningful insights come from specific measurable goals related to your campaign and the goals of company decision makers. While the objectives of any social media strategy for financial services will vary from one institution to the next, any marketing effort can benefit from optimizing strategy through social media ROI metrics.

Use metrics to hone your messaging and audience. Every social media marketing post is a learning opportunity about what resonates with your audience. Analytics show what topics drive engagement, what calls to action inspire clicks, and so on. Then, fine-tune subsequent posts based on your findings. Mastering social is an iterative process. When speaking with upper management, highlight how this process delivers greater value over time by continuously evolving.

As you optimize your messaging, look to target audiences. Social media, and paid social in particular, allows you to target subsets of consumers. Vary your messaging and content, and you begin to understand what connects with whom. This allows you to maximize social media spend going forward — you’re not wasting time and effort putting messaging in front of an uninterested audience. When decision makers want to reach specific audiences, outline how putting money toward paid ad campaigns makes that happen.

When you’re looking at your own metrics, be sure to pay attention to where the customer journey is going. Failure to guide customers to a landing page and other lead-generating tools will lead to dead ends, which isn’t the best use of these channels. Trackable links and analytics help marketers recognize the best avenues for using social media posts to capture leads that translate into sales. If you aren’t effectively working toward leads, it’ll be difficult to defend the necessity of your budget.

Finally, don’t measure your ROI too soon. If you’re going to connect the value of social to your broader business objectives, you need to sync your measurement time with your sales cycle or risk misunderstanding (and likely underestimating) the impact of social. Help leadership understand that ROI isn’t a one-and-done and it’s not instantaneous. That way, you’re guiding their expectations to the bigger picture of what your social media strategy is doing.

Troves of data are available from social media channels, and you’ll need the right technology to organize the information and arrive at a set of objectives that align with your larger business goals. The right measurement tool can build the confidence digital marketers need to foster social media marketing ROI success.

What’s the Cost of Getting Social Media Compliance Wrong?

Social media compliance for financial institutions can feel challenging, especially today. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has brought increased scrutiny to social media since his appointment, and it’s understandable for institutions to want to pull back efforts to mitigate compliance risks. Make sure your executives understand that this method loses more than they gain.

Consider that customers are increasingly using digital methods to meet financial needs. Can anyone afford to lose out on that audience base? You won’t reach new customers, and you’re losing valuable social selling opportunities with the ones you have. Social selling influences half of revenue for 14 major industries — and financial services is one of them.

Rather than scaling back social media efforts (and in the process, your revenue), work to mitigate compliance risks. When senior management airs concerns over compliance, counter with technology to automate compliance monitoring. Denim Social was built for compliance, so you can focus less on worrying if you’re compliant and more on fostering leads.

With Denim Social, you can use numerous tools that can help in ensuring:

• Protection. Problematic posts never see the light of day, as our platform not only establishes an approval workflow but also flags posts containing questionable keywords or phrases even before the review process.

• Education. Our platform can serve as an ongoing compliance education tool. Team members receive almost immediate feedback and can test the equipped filters to understand what might cause regulatory trouble.

• Enablement. Denim Social allows for the creation content libraries and curated, pre-approved posts. Team members can pull from these resources without the need for approvals, adding speed and efficiency to the process.

• Record-keeping. The potential of an audit hangs over every financial institution. Our platform archives all social media posts and interactions. It even does the same with comments. If regulators come knocking, you’ll have a report in no time.

• Notifications. Should a team member try to send a post through the approval process with a prohibited keyword or phrase, those flags send a notification directly to the individual. Employees quickly learn what can and cannot be posted.

• Profile locks. Rules can be built within the platform that can prevent team members from posting problematic content, helping to quell worries about social media compliance. The goal is to provide the controls necessary to avoid issues.

• Editing. Admins can edit or delete team members’ posts, comments, or direct messages right from the platform — across any connected social channel. In fact, the process is automated when prohibited keywords or phrases hit the network.

Social media compliance for financial institutions shouldn’t be more complicated than any other compliance for your operation. It all comes down to your choice of technology, and Denim Social has the experience and tools you need to make it a breeze.

What Do We Need in a Fintech Partner?

The social media marketing needs of financial institutions are unique. You’re not necessarily selling a product or a service but a relationship with a qualified professional, which calls for authenticity and empathy to establish a sense of trust. The tactics used by “traditional” brands simply aren’t as impactful in the financial services space.

Beyond that, social media compliance is complex. Without industry knowledge, it can be difficult for a marketing agency to navigate the nuances set by FINRA. Your fintech partner should fully appreciate the regulatory constraints and respect the concerns of your financial institution while still understanding how to drive real value with your social media strategy.

However, according to Cornerstone’s “What’s Going On In Banking 2021” report, financial institutions aren’t having much success finding these qualified and attentive partners, noting that FI “boards will tire of not seeing results [from fintech partnerships]." Executives are relying on your expertise to identify fintech partners with a proven ability to collaborate and create solutions. And because boards may be wary of partners, you must be able to outline exactly how that partner will help you reach your goals. Help executives understand these benefits.

• Customized onboarding.

Denim Social customizes our onboarding process to meet your specific needs, so executives know they’re getting an experience tailor-made for the company. No questions are left unanswered — we walk alongside you to always offer an explanation. On top of that, our team will help you craft the communication necessary to get employees to use the platform. Emails, messaging, toolkits, and more are available to encourage adoption, so upper-level management knows they’re investing in a tool that will see widespread use.

• Team training.

Depending on your size and needs, we provide kickoff and regular training to help team members make the most of the platform so that decision makers can rest easy knowing our software isn’t being underutilized. We can also provide train-the-trainer sessions to move training internal, and our recently launched Academy can help marketers become certified on our platform.

• Strategy consultation.

Our customer success team can help you identify tactics to move the needle on your social media strategy. Just ask, and we’ll provide best practices and industry-relevant comparisons to inform your tactics and optimize your social selling implementation.

• Content libraries.

We work directly with your institution and UpContent to ensure you can create a customized content library that matches the specific needs of your business and your customers.

In order to optimize a social media strategy, FI leaders and marketers must be able to sustain compliance at scale and understand social media measurement and analytics to see ROI. When you understand your metrics, you can bring that knowledge to decision makers, too. They’ll see the value you bring to the brand and associates (and match that value when it’s time to make budgets). Trusted fintech partners with dedicated customer success teams can help.

Bottom line: Social media is hard, but marketers don’t have to do it alone. With Denim Social, they have dedicated team members they can call to help.

Get in touch with us today to schedule a demo!

GUIDES

The 4 Answers Financial Marketers Need to Make the Case for Social Selling

Forward-thinking marketers understand the power of social media at all stages of their marketing funnel. From awareness and consideration to loyalty and even advocacy, social and digital channels can and do inform purchase decisions. Financial institutions are catching on — more than 90% of the 50 largest banks are currently on Facebook, and 88% have active Twitter accounts — but being on social media doesn’t equate to a strong social media strategy. Today’s digital market requires an integrated strategy that meets target audiences throughout the buyer’s journey. This means investing in paid social campaigns alongside organic and driving deeper relationships with customers through social selling.

Sounds easy, right? While marketers may understand the strategies and costs associated with modern social success, senior decision makers may still need educating and persuading. That’s why it’s essential to be able to effectively communicate the benefits of integrated social media strategies. In addition to intangible benefits like building trust and humanizing your brand, both organic and paid social selling strategies offer metrics that enable marketers to prove value.

After all, people buy from people. So if you’re ready to advocate for an expanded social media strategy, start by asking yourself these questions. Not only will they help you decide on your strategic priorities, but they will also show you how to articulate the value of social media strategies to the people holding the budget strings. To prove the value of social media in financial services and get buy-in from senior leaders, marketers must ask themselves these questions:

Does Our Social Media Marketing Drive ROI?

Expanding a social media strategy often means increased spending — so you must be able to show decision makers the value of social. While financial marketers are already advocates — they know the power of paid social media efforts and have seen it in action — other leadership may not have that knowledge. It’s up to marketing teams to connect the dots on how their efforts are driving business results, and that means providing a strong argument based on metrics and concrete benefits.

Data tells a powerful story, so let it guide the conversation. And to further strengthen your case for expanded social media strategies, make sure to highlight these benefits:

• Targeting

While organic content is important, leaders must understand that it’s not enough to impact the bottom line without paid support. Paid social media gives more flexibility than organic content — you can target specific customer subsets, or even new audience bases, allowing for greater personalization and a higher ROI. It’s all about delivering relevant content to the right consumers at the right time.

• Feedback

Feedback may not always impact the bottom line, but social media itself does offer a direct line to consumers. With the lines of communication open, it becomes easier to listen and learn about their wants, needs, and interests. An open-ended post, for instance, can encourage comments, which provide qualitative feedback on any given topic. This will improve the trust in your institution; customers (and their followers!) will see the commitment to providing an ever-improving experience.

• Conversion

Social media is about more than likes: If you’re providing links on social media (and you should), you’re creating conversion opportunities. Direct consumers to a landing page — from there, you can collect lead information. All that’s left is a follow-up. If that landing page has a form, track completion rates. The icing on top? These interactions are all measurable. Prove value by comparing these metrics with traditional tactics. When did a leader ever see a recorded, data-backed conversion metric from a billboard?

• Efficiency

Measuring social media marketing ROI, like most analytics, requires technology — and the right technology, at that. Spreadsheets simply won’t cut it, and they’re not as accurate or efficient as the tools that fintech partners offer. That’s why the Denim Social platform was built with financial institutions in mind. Its analytics capabilities allow for a more efficient means of capturing results while also centralizing information. Data is readily available, which can simplify and improve the approval workflow. Improvements to the workflow process have been shown to free up 20% to 30% of employees’ time — so bring that statistic to decision makers to prove its necessity.

How Do You Use Social Media Analytics to Make Your Case?

Expanding marketing strategies means collecting more data, and that necessitates a robust social media management tool. Gathering data on any social media marketing campaign affords you the opportunity to measure its overall performance and gives you clear-cut evidence to support business measures related to those efforts.

Of course, data should be gathered based on specific criteria. Meaningful insights come from specific measurable goals related to your campaign and the goals of company decision makers. While the objectives of any social media strategy for financial services will vary from one institution to the next, any marketing effort can benefit from optimizing strategy through social media ROI metrics.

Use metrics to hone your messaging and audience. Every social media marketing post is a learning opportunity about what resonates with your audience. Analytics show what topics drive engagement, what calls to action inspire clicks, and so on. Then, fine-tune subsequent posts based on your findings. Mastering social is an iterative process. When speaking with upper management, highlight how this process delivers greater value over time by continuously evolving.

As you optimize your messaging, look to target audiences. Social media, and paid social in particular, allows you to target subsets of consumers. Vary your messaging and content, and you begin to understand what connects with whom. This allows you to maximize social media spend going forward — you’re not wasting time and effort putting messaging in front of an uninterested audience. When decision makers want to reach specific audiences, outline how putting money toward paid ad campaigns makes that happen.

When you’re looking at your own metrics, be sure to pay attention to where the customer journey is going. Failure to guide customers to a landing page and other lead-generating tools will lead to dead ends, which isn’t the best use of these channels. Trackable links and analytics help marketers recognize the best avenues for using social media posts to capture leads that translate into sales. If you aren’t effectively working toward leads, it’ll be difficult to defend the necessity of your budget.

Finally, don’t measure your ROI too soon. If you’re going to connect the value of social to your broader business objectives, you need to sync your measurement time with your sales cycle or risk misunderstanding (and likely underestimating) the impact of social. Help leadership understand that ROI isn’t a one-and-done and it’s not instantaneous. That way, you’re guiding their expectations to the bigger picture of what your social media strategy is doing.

Troves of data are available from social media channels, and you’ll need the right technology to organize the information and arrive at a set of objectives that align with your larger business goals. The right measurement tool can build the confidence digital marketers need to foster social media marketing ROI success.

What’s the Cost of Getting Social Media Compliance Wrong?

Social media compliance for financial institutions can feel challenging, especially today. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has brought increased scrutiny to social media since his appointment, and it’s understandable for institutions to want to pull back efforts to mitigate compliance risks. Make sure your executives understand that this method loses more than they gain.

Consider that customers are increasingly using digital methods to meet financial needs. Can anyone afford to lose out on that audience base? You won’t reach new customers, and you’re losing valuable social selling opportunities with the ones you have. Social selling influences half of revenue for 14 major industries — and financial services is one of them.

Rather than scaling back social media efforts (and in the process, your revenue), work to mitigate compliance risks. When senior management airs concerns over compliance, counter with technology to automate compliance monitoring. Denim Social was built for compliance, so you can focus less on worrying if you’re compliant and more on fostering leads.

With Denim Social, you can use numerous tools that can help in ensuring:

• Protection. Problematic posts never see the light of day, as our platform not only establishes an approval workflow but also flags posts containing questionable keywords or phrases even before the review process.

• Education. Our platform can serve as an ongoing compliance education tool. Team members receive almost immediate feedback and can test the equipped filters to understand what might cause regulatory trouble.

• Enablement. Denim Social allows for the creation content libraries and curated, pre-approved posts. Team members can pull from these resources without the need for approvals, adding speed and efficiency to the process.

• Record-keeping. The potential of an audit hangs over every financial institution. Our platform archives all social media posts and interactions. It even does the same with comments. If regulators come knocking, you’ll have a report in no time.

• Notifications. Should a team member try to send a post through the approval process with a prohibited keyword or phrase, those flags send a notification directly to the individual. Employees quickly learn what can and cannot be posted.

• Profile locks. Rules can be built within the platform that can prevent team members from posting problematic content, helping to quell worries about social media compliance. The goal is to provide the controls necessary to avoid issues.

• Editing. Admins can edit or delete team members’ posts, comments, or direct messages right from the platform — across any connected social channel. In fact, the process is automated when prohibited keywords or phrases hit the network.

Social media compliance for financial institutions shouldn’t be more complicated than any other compliance for your operation. It all comes down to your choice of technology, and Denim Social has the experience and tools you need to make it a breeze.

What Do We Need in a Fintech Partner?

The social media marketing needs of financial institutions are unique. You’re not necessarily selling a product or a service but a relationship with a qualified professional, which calls for authenticity and empathy to establish a sense of trust. The tactics used by “traditional” brands simply aren’t as impactful in the financial services space.

Beyond that, social media compliance is complex. Without industry knowledge, it can be difficult for a marketing agency to navigate the nuances set by FINRA. Your fintech partner should fully appreciate the regulatory constraints and respect the concerns of your financial institution while still understanding how to drive real value with your social media strategy.

However, according to Cornerstone’s “What’s Going On In Banking 2021” report, financial institutions aren’t having much success finding these qualified and attentive partners, noting that FI “boards will tire of not seeing results [from fintech partnerships]." Executives are relying on your expertise to identify fintech partners with a proven ability to collaborate and create solutions. And because boards may be wary of partners, you must be able to outline exactly how that partner will help you reach your goals. Help executives understand these benefits.

• Customized onboarding.

Denim Social customizes our onboarding process to meet your specific needs, so executives know they’re getting an experience tailor-made for the company. No questions are left unanswered — we walk alongside you to always offer an explanation. On top of that, our team will help you craft the communication necessary to get employees to use the platform. Emails, messaging, toolkits, and more are available to encourage adoption, so upper-level management knows they’re investing in a tool that will see widespread use.

• Team training.

Depending on your size and needs, we provide kickoff and regular training to help team members make the most of the platform so that decision makers can rest easy knowing our software isn’t being underutilized. We can also provide train-the-trainer sessions to move training internal, and our recently launched Academy can help marketers become certified on our platform.

• Strategy consultation.

Our customer success team can help you identify tactics to move the needle on your social media strategy. Just ask, and we’ll provide best practices and industry-relevant comparisons to inform your tactics and optimize your social selling implementation.

• Content libraries.

We work directly with your institution and UpContent to ensure you can create a customized content library that matches the specific needs of your business and your customers.

In order to optimize a social media strategy, FI leaders and marketers must be able to sustain compliance at scale and understand social media measurement and analytics to see ROI. When you understand your metrics, you can bring that knowledge to decision makers, too. They’ll see the value you bring to the brand and associates (and match that value when it’s time to make budgets). Trusted fintech partners with dedicated customer success teams can help.

Bottom line: Social media is hard, but marketers don’t have to do it alone. With Denim Social, they have dedicated team members they can call to help.

Get in touch with us today to schedule a demo!

Download the Guide

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Download Guide
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Download Guide
ALL GUIDES:

Like many community banks, Dart Bank wanted to keep customer relationships a top priority. This meant being more available to customers and meeting them where they are. In modern terms, that means on social media.

When Dart Bank learned about how Denim Social supports social selling for loan officers, they knew it was the perfect fit to keep their team engaged at every step of the journey. They wanted to empower their loan officers to create and grow authentic relationships online, never missing an opportunity to connect.

Shelter Insurance® sought to launch a social selling program that would not only create posting efficiency, but also make it easy for agents to establish subject matter expertise via high quality social media content. They also saw an opportunity to empower digitally savvy agents to cultivate leads online to drive business results in a compliant social selling program.

Before launching the program, it was essential that agents understood the pillars of social selling. Together with the Denim Social team, Shelter Insurance® developed a best-in-class program communication, onboarding and training process for agents.

Social selling is just what it sounds like: using social media to sell a product or service. It’s leveraging social to build personal relationships, showcase thought leadership, engage with prospects, interact with existing customers, and ultimately build trust and rapport that will eventually lead to sales.

It enables intermediaries – like insurance agents – to add value to the customer journey where there wouldn’t otherwise be an opportunity.

This guide will help financial services marketers understand why social media should be a core component of their marketing strategy and showcase how the collective reach of their intermediaries’ social media presence can be harnessed to more deeply connect with prospective clients, position producers as thought leaders in their communities, and, ultimately, build trust with clients that translates to positive business results.

It’s called social selling and it works.

The spring 2023 buying season has arrived and with it – you guessed – uncertainty. Spring has long been make-it or break-it season for lenders and loan officers, and despite present conditions, the same holds true this year. But 2023 holds unique challenges and opportunities.

As the season opens, there are a few key considerations the Denim Social team sees as critical for mortgage marketers.

Paid social is one of the most effective ways to introduce people who aren’t yet following your producers, agents, loan officers, or advisors to your financial institution at the right place and the right time.

Paid social is complementary to organic. While organic social builds first-degree connections and facilitates awareness, engagement, and branding, paid social allows you to reach larger, more tailored audiences.

BOK Financial is a financial services partner for consumers, businesses and wealth clients with more than 150 users on the Denim Social platform.

In addition to building brand credibility and establishing loan officer expertise, Denim Social enables their mortgage loan officers to cultivate relationships in social media and organically source leads.

As financial marketers look to the coming year, most are wondering, “what’s next?” While no one can say for sure, our team of experts here at Denim Social are keeping a pulse on what’s new in digital marketing for financial institutions on social media. This guide will not only educate you on the latest trends, but help you make the case for increased investment in social selling and digital marketing strategies at your institution.

Evolve Bank & Trust (“Evolve”) is an $700M+ asset institution with nearly 40 Home Loan Centers (HLC) and nearly 500 employees nationwide. See how Denim Social helped Evolve activate Home Loan Center Facebook pages over the course of just a few months.

Whether you’re in banking, wealth management, insurance or mortgage, relationships are the bedrock of your business.

Considering clients in these industries are handing over the keys to their personal kingdoms, it’s no surprise that trust and connection matter. That’s why successful sales strategies for these industries are focused on building long-term, trusted relationships.

To truly unleash the potential of social, financial institutions need to use social media as a sales tool. It’s called social selling and it works.

The power of social media is undeniable. The ability of banks to engage with and influence customers and prospects via interactive digital channels is an essential tool and a cornerstone of marketing. Gone are the days when it was “nice to have” a presence on platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Today, these pathways are helping banks to build relationships that were historically cultivated by tirelessly walking up and down Main Street, shaking hands and leaving behind business cards.

In this case study by Denim Social and American Bankers Association, we take a look at how banks are using social media to ramp up digital engagement and build sales.

As any marketer worth their salt will tell you, analytics should drive your social strategy. The key to success is understanding how to link social media efforts to ROI metrics. Read this guide to learn how to gain insights that matter, optimize your strategy and prove your social success.

It’s no surprise that social media can help drive results for your mortgage business. In fact, the question for most marketers at mortgage lending institutions isn’t IF they should be doing more social media marketing - it’s HOW. Download to learn how to:

  • Scale your social selling program
  • Plan your content strategy
  • Train your loan officers

AnnieMac is one of the fastest-growing mortgage loan providers in the U.S., serving clients in 42 states. Learn how Denim Social helped their team to streamline its brand’s social media strategy and activate social selling for hundreds of loan officers in just four months.

As mortgage demand surges to historic highs, home purchase and refinance markets remain hot. This is excellent news for loan officers, but it also means the environment is more competitive than ever.

So how can marketers ensure that their loan officers stand out? The answer is social media.

Read this guidebook from Denim Social to learn how you can help your loan officers build strong relationships, stand out from the crowd and win more business using social media.

Every Mortgage Marketer Should Ask Themselves

Compliance is complicated, but don’t let it stop your lending team from making the most of social media. Think you’re ready to start social selling? Ask yourself these five questions!

Read this guide if you’re asking yourself:

  • Is my social media policy current and comprehensive?
  • How do I ensure social media compliance during M&A?
  • What do I need to consider for direct messaging compliance?

In this guide we will help you think about your all important social media policy and thoughtfully consider how changes in social media tech and even your bank’s structure may impact compliance.

Every Financial Services Marketer Should Ask Themselves

Compliance is complicated, but don’t let it stop your lending team from making the most of social media. Think you’re ready to start social selling? Ask yourself these five questions!

Stronger Customer Relationships on Instagram

Financial Services companies should be marketing and advertising on Instagram. We break down why, and help you create a strategy to reach new customers- while continuing to build trust in your brand.

How 6 Financial Marketers Are Creating Value in Social Media

Ever wonder what everyone else is doing in social media? We talked to six leading financial marketers about how they’re succeeding today and planning for the next big thing.

Get their insights on strengthening your social strategies, unlocking the power of employee networks and creating next-level content that drives engagement.

Download this guidebook to learn how 3 mortgage lenders are using social media to:

  • Position themselves in a place the community is already looking ... their social media
  • Empower loan officers to engage in local conversations
  • Turn their institution's loan officers into the voice of their brand
  • Build trust within the community

Which roles do you fill when building your bank's marketing dream team? This guide will show you the following:

  • Who does what
  • The right structure to execute strategy
  • How compliance software can help

Enjoy!

ABA Study: The Current State of Social Media

See what nearly 430 bank marketers had to say when asked questions such as:

  • Is it important to equip your sales personnel with social media accounts?
  • Does your bank measure the impact of your social media use?
  • COVID-19 & Bank Social Media

    Times are different and how you connect with customers and potential customers has changed drastically. In a socially distant world, learn to still build lasting relationships.

    Download and learn the guiding principles for using social media to serve both your customers and communities in the midst of a pandemic.

    GUIDES

    The 4 Answers Financial Marketers Need to Make the Case for Social Selling

    Forward-thinking marketers understand the power of social media at all stages of their marketing funnel. From awareness and consideration to loyalty and even advocacy, social and digital channels can and do inform purchase decisions. Financial institutions are catching on — more than 90% of the 50 largest banks are currently on Facebook, and 88% have active Twitter accounts — but being on social media doesn’t equate to a strong social media strategy. Today’s digital market requires an integrated strategy that meets target audiences throughout the buyer’s journey. This means investing in paid social campaigns alongside organic and driving deeper relationships with customers through social selling.

    Sounds easy, right? While marketers may understand the strategies and costs associated with modern social success, senior decision makers may still need educating and persuading. That’s why it’s essential to be able to effectively communicate the benefits of integrated social media strategies. In addition to intangible benefits like building trust and humanizing your brand, both organic and paid social selling strategies offer metrics that enable marketers to prove value.

    After all, people buy from people. So if you’re ready to advocate for an expanded social media strategy, start by asking yourself these questions. Not only will they help you decide on your strategic priorities, but they will also show you how to articulate the value of social media strategies to the people holding the budget strings. To prove the value of social media in financial services and get buy-in from senior leaders, marketers must ask themselves these questions:

    Does Our Social Media Marketing Drive ROI?

    Expanding a social media strategy often means increased spending — so you must be able to show decision makers the value of social. While financial marketers are already advocates — they know the power of paid social media efforts and have seen it in action — other leadership may not have that knowledge. It’s up to marketing teams to connect the dots on how their efforts are driving business results, and that means providing a strong argument based on metrics and concrete benefits.

    Data tells a powerful story, so let it guide the conversation. And to further strengthen your case for expanded social media strategies, make sure to highlight these benefits:

    • Targeting

    While organic content is important, leaders must understand that it’s not enough to impact the bottom line without paid support. Paid social media gives more flexibility than organic content — you can target specific customer subsets, or even new audience bases, allowing for greater personalization and a higher ROI. It’s all about delivering relevant content to the right consumers at the right time.

    • Feedback

    Feedback may not always impact the bottom line, but social media itself does offer a direct line to consumers. With the lines of communication open, it becomes easier to listen and learn about their wants, needs, and interests. An open-ended post, for instance, can encourage comments, which provide qualitative feedback on any given topic. This will improve the trust in your institution; customers (and their followers!) will see the commitment to providing an ever-improving experience.

    • Conversion

    Social media is about more than likes: If you’re providing links on social media (and you should), you’re creating conversion opportunities. Direct consumers to a landing page — from there, you can collect lead information. All that’s left is a follow-up. If that landing page has a form, track completion rates. The icing on top? These interactions are all measurable. Prove value by comparing these metrics with traditional tactics. When did a leader ever see a recorded, data-backed conversion metric from a billboard?

    • Efficiency

    Measuring social media marketing ROI, like most analytics, requires technology — and the right technology, at that. Spreadsheets simply won’t cut it, and they’re not as accurate or efficient as the tools that fintech partners offer. That’s why the Denim Social platform was built with financial institutions in mind. Its analytics capabilities allow for a more efficient means of capturing results while also centralizing information. Data is readily available, which can simplify and improve the approval workflow. Improvements to the workflow process have been shown to free up 20% to 30% of employees’ time — so bring that statistic to decision makers to prove its necessity.

    How Do You Use Social Media Analytics to Make Your Case?

    Expanding marketing strategies means collecting more data, and that necessitates a robust social media management tool. Gathering data on any social media marketing campaign affords you the opportunity to measure its overall performance and gives you clear-cut evidence to support business measures related to those efforts.

    Of course, data should be gathered based on specific criteria. Meaningful insights come from specific measurable goals related to your campaign and the goals of company decision makers. While the objectives of any social media strategy for financial services will vary from one institution to the next, any marketing effort can benefit from optimizing strategy through social media ROI metrics.

    Use metrics to hone your messaging and audience. Every social media marketing post is a learning opportunity about what resonates with your audience. Analytics show what topics drive engagement, what calls to action inspire clicks, and so on. Then, fine-tune subsequent posts based on your findings. Mastering social is an iterative process. When speaking with upper management, highlight how this process delivers greater value over time by continuously evolving.

    As you optimize your messaging, look to target audiences. Social media, and paid social in particular, allows you to target subsets of consumers. Vary your messaging and content, and you begin to understand what connects with whom. This allows you to maximize social media spend going forward — you’re not wasting time and effort putting messaging in front of an uninterested audience. When decision makers want to reach specific audiences, outline how putting money toward paid ad campaigns makes that happen.

    When you’re looking at your own metrics, be sure to pay attention to where the customer journey is going. Failure to guide customers to a landing page and other lead-generating tools will lead to dead ends, which isn’t the best use of these channels. Trackable links and analytics help marketers recognize the best avenues for using social media posts to capture leads that translate into sales. If you aren’t effectively working toward leads, it’ll be difficult to defend the necessity of your budget.

    Finally, don’t measure your ROI too soon. If you’re going to connect the value of social to your broader business objectives, you need to sync your measurement time with your sales cycle or risk misunderstanding (and likely underestimating) the impact of social. Help leadership understand that ROI isn’t a one-and-done and it’s not instantaneous. That way, you’re guiding their expectations to the bigger picture of what your social media strategy is doing.

    Troves of data are available from social media channels, and you’ll need the right technology to organize the information and arrive at a set of objectives that align with your larger business goals. The right measurement tool can build the confidence digital marketers need to foster social media marketing ROI success.

    What’s the Cost of Getting Social Media Compliance Wrong?

    Social media compliance for financial institutions can feel challenging, especially today. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has brought increased scrutiny to social media since his appointment, and it’s understandable for institutions to want to pull back efforts to mitigate compliance risks. Make sure your executives understand that this method loses more than they gain.

    Consider that customers are increasingly using digital methods to meet financial needs. Can anyone afford to lose out on that audience base? You won’t reach new customers, and you’re losing valuable social selling opportunities with the ones you have. Social selling influences half of revenue for 14 major industries — and financial services is one of them.

    Rather than scaling back social media efforts (and in the process, your revenue), work to mitigate compliance risks. When senior management airs concerns over compliance, counter with technology to automate compliance monitoring. Denim Social was built for compliance, so you can focus less on worrying if you’re compliant and more on fostering leads.

    With Denim Social, you can use numerous tools that can help in ensuring:

    • Protection. Problematic posts never see the light of day, as our platform not only establishes an approval workflow but also flags posts containing questionable keywords or phrases even before the review process.

    • Education. Our platform can serve as an ongoing compliance education tool. Team members receive almost immediate feedback and can test the equipped filters to understand what might cause regulatory trouble.

    • Enablement. Denim Social allows for the creation content libraries and curated, pre-approved posts. Team members can pull from these resources without the need for approvals, adding speed and efficiency to the process.

    • Record-keeping. The potential of an audit hangs over every financial institution. Our platform archives all social media posts and interactions. It even does the same with comments. If regulators come knocking, you’ll have a report in no time.

    • Notifications. Should a team member try to send a post through the approval process with a prohibited keyword or phrase, those flags send a notification directly to the individual. Employees quickly learn what can and cannot be posted.

    • Profile locks. Rules can be built within the platform that can prevent team members from posting problematic content, helping to quell worries about social media compliance. The goal is to provide the controls necessary to avoid issues.

    • Editing. Admins can edit or delete team members’ posts, comments, or direct messages right from the platform — across any connected social channel. In fact, the process is automated when prohibited keywords or phrases hit the network.

    Social media compliance for financial institutions shouldn’t be more complicated than any other compliance for your operation. It all comes down to your choice of technology, and Denim Social has the experience and tools you need to make it a breeze.

    What Do We Need in a Fintech Partner?

    The social media marketing needs of financial institutions are unique. You’re not necessarily selling a product or a service but a relationship with a qualified professional, which calls for authenticity and empathy to establish a sense of trust. The tactics used by “traditional” brands simply aren’t as impactful in the financial services space.

    Beyond that, social media compliance is complex. Without industry knowledge, it can be difficult for a marketing agency to navigate the nuances set by FINRA. Your fintech partner should fully appreciate the regulatory constraints and respect the concerns of your financial institution while still understanding how to drive real value with your social media strategy.

    However, according to Cornerstone’s “What’s Going On In Banking 2021” report, financial institutions aren’t having much success finding these qualified and attentive partners, noting that FI “boards will tire of not seeing results [from fintech partnerships]." Executives are relying on your expertise to identify fintech partners with a proven ability to collaborate and create solutions. And because boards may be wary of partners, you must be able to outline exactly how that partner will help you reach your goals. Help executives understand these benefits.

    • Customized onboarding.

    Denim Social customizes our onboarding process to meet your specific needs, so executives know they’re getting an experience tailor-made for the company. No questions are left unanswered — we walk alongside you to always offer an explanation. On top of that, our team will help you craft the communication necessary to get employees to use the platform. Emails, messaging, toolkits, and more are available to encourage adoption, so upper-level management knows they’re investing in a tool that will see widespread use.

    • Team training.

    Depending on your size and needs, we provide kickoff and regular training to help team members make the most of the platform so that decision makers can rest easy knowing our software isn’t being underutilized. We can also provide train-the-trainer sessions to move training internal, and our recently launched Academy can help marketers become certified on our platform.

    • Strategy consultation.

    Our customer success team can help you identify tactics to move the needle on your social media strategy. Just ask, and we’ll provide best practices and industry-relevant comparisons to inform your tactics and optimize your social selling implementation.

    • Content libraries.

    We work directly with your institution and UpContent to ensure you can create a customized content library that matches the specific needs of your business and your customers.

    In order to optimize a social media strategy, FI leaders and marketers must be able to sustain compliance at scale and understand social media measurement and analytics to see ROI. When you understand your metrics, you can bring that knowledge to decision makers, too. They’ll see the value you bring to the brand and associates (and match that value when it’s time to make budgets). Trusted fintech partners with dedicated customer success teams can help.

    Bottom line: Social media is hard, but marketers don’t have to do it alone. With Denim Social, they have dedicated team members they can call to help.

    Get in touch with us today to schedule a demo!

    Download the Guide

    Thank you! Your submission has been received!
    Download Guide
    Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
    Download Guide
    ALL GUIDES:

    Like many community banks, Dart Bank wanted to keep customer relationships a top priority. This meant being more available to customers and meeting them where they are. In modern terms, that means on social media.

    When Dart Bank learned about how Denim Social supports social selling for loan officers, they knew it was the perfect fit to keep their team engaged at every step of the journey. They wanted to empower their loan officers to create and grow authentic relationships online, never missing an opportunity to connect.

    Shelter Insurance® sought to launch a social selling program that would not only create posting efficiency, but also make it easy for agents to establish subject matter expertise via high quality social media content. They also saw an opportunity to empower digitally savvy agents to cultivate leads online to drive business results in a compliant social selling program.

    Before launching the program, it was essential that agents understood the pillars of social selling. Together with the Denim Social team, Shelter Insurance® developed a best-in-class program communication, onboarding and training process for agents.

    Social selling is just what it sounds like: using social media to sell a product or service. It’s leveraging social to build personal relationships, showcase thought leadership, engage with prospects, interact with existing customers, and ultimately build trust and rapport that will eventually lead to sales.

    It enables intermediaries – like insurance agents – to add value to the customer journey where there wouldn’t otherwise be an opportunity.

    This guide will help financial services marketers understand why social media should be a core component of their marketing strategy and showcase how the collective reach of their intermediaries’ social media presence can be harnessed to more deeply connect with prospective clients, position producers as thought leaders in their communities, and, ultimately, build trust with clients that translates to positive business results.

    It’s called social selling and it works.

    The spring 2023 buying season has arrived and with it – you guessed – uncertainty. Spring has long been make-it or break-it season for lenders and loan officers, and despite present conditions, the same holds true this year. But 2023 holds unique challenges and opportunities.

    As the season opens, there are a few key considerations the Denim Social team sees as critical for mortgage marketers.

    Paid social is one of the most effective ways to introduce people who aren’t yet following your producers, agents, loan officers, or advisors to your financial institution at the right place and the right time.

    Paid social is complementary to organic. While organic social builds first-degree connections and facilitates awareness, engagement, and branding, paid social allows you to reach larger, more tailored audiences.

    BOK Financial is a financial services partner for consumers, businesses and wealth clients with more than 150 users on the Denim Social platform.

    In addition to building brand credibility and establishing loan officer expertise, Denim Social enables their mortgage loan officers to cultivate relationships in social media and organically source leads.

    As financial marketers look to the coming year, most are wondering, “what’s next?” While no one can say for sure, our team of experts here at Denim Social are keeping a pulse on what’s new in digital marketing for financial institutions on social media. This guide will not only educate you on the latest trends, but help you make the case for increased investment in social selling and digital marketing strategies at your institution.

    Evolve Bank & Trust (“Evolve”) is an $700M+ asset institution with nearly 40 Home Loan Centers (HLC) and nearly 500 employees nationwide. See how Denim Social helped Evolve activate Home Loan Center Facebook pages over the course of just a few months.

    Whether you’re in banking, wealth management, insurance or mortgage, relationships are the bedrock of your business.

    Considering clients in these industries are handing over the keys to their personal kingdoms, it’s no surprise that trust and connection matter. That’s why successful sales strategies for these industries are focused on building long-term, trusted relationships.

    To truly unleash the potential of social, financial institutions need to use social media as a sales tool. It’s called social selling and it works.

    The power of social media is undeniable. The ability of banks to engage with and influence customers and prospects via interactive digital channels is an essential tool and a cornerstone of marketing. Gone are the days when it was “nice to have” a presence on platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Today, these pathways are helping banks to build relationships that were historically cultivated by tirelessly walking up and down Main Street, shaking hands and leaving behind business cards.

    In this case study by Denim Social and American Bankers Association, we take a look at how banks are using social media to ramp up digital engagement and build sales.

    As any marketer worth their salt will tell you, analytics should drive your social strategy. The key to success is understanding how to link social media efforts to ROI metrics. Read this guide to learn how to gain insights that matter, optimize your strategy and prove your social success.

    It’s no surprise that social media can help drive results for your mortgage business. In fact, the question for most marketers at mortgage lending institutions isn’t IF they should be doing more social media marketing - it’s HOW. Download to learn how to:

    • Scale your social selling program
    • Plan your content strategy
    • Train your loan officers

    AnnieMac is one of the fastest-growing mortgage loan providers in the U.S., serving clients in 42 states. Learn how Denim Social helped their team to streamline its brand’s social media strategy and activate social selling for hundreds of loan officers in just four months.

    As mortgage demand surges to historic highs, home purchase and refinance markets remain hot. This is excellent news for loan officers, but it also means the environment is more competitive than ever.

    So how can marketers ensure that their loan officers stand out? The answer is social media.

    Read this guidebook from Denim Social to learn how you can help your loan officers build strong relationships, stand out from the crowd and win more business using social media.

    Every Mortgage Marketer Should Ask Themselves

    Compliance is complicated, but don’t let it stop your lending team from making the most of social media. Think you’re ready to start social selling? Ask yourself these five questions!

    Read this guide if you’re asking yourself:

    • Is my social media policy current and comprehensive?
    • How do I ensure social media compliance during M&A?
    • What do I need to consider for direct messaging compliance?

    In this guide we will help you think about your all important social media policy and thoughtfully consider how changes in social media tech and even your bank’s structure may impact compliance.

    Every Financial Services Marketer Should Ask Themselves

    Compliance is complicated, but don’t let it stop your lending team from making the most of social media. Think you’re ready to start social selling? Ask yourself these five questions!

    Stronger Customer Relationships on Instagram

    Financial Services companies should be marketing and advertising on Instagram. We break down why, and help you create a strategy to reach new customers- while continuing to build trust in your brand.

    How 6 Financial Marketers Are Creating Value in Social Media

    Ever wonder what everyone else is doing in social media? We talked to six leading financial marketers about how they’re succeeding today and planning for the next big thing.

    Get their insights on strengthening your social strategies, unlocking the power of employee networks and creating next-level content that drives engagement.

    Download this guidebook to learn how 3 mortgage lenders are using social media to:

    • Position themselves in a place the community is already looking ... their social media
    • Empower loan officers to engage in local conversations
    • Turn their institution's loan officers into the voice of their brand
    • Build trust within the community

    Which roles do you fill when building your bank's marketing dream team? This guide will show you the following:

    • Who does what
    • The right structure to execute strategy
    • How compliance software can help

    Enjoy!

    ABA Study: The Current State of Social Media

    See what nearly 430 bank marketers had to say when asked questions such as:

  • Is it important to equip your sales personnel with social media accounts?
  • Does your bank measure the impact of your social media use?
  • COVID-19 & Bank Social Media

    Times are different and how you connect with customers and potential customers has changed drastically. In a socially distant world, learn to still build lasting relationships.

    Download and learn the guiding principles for using social media to serve both your customers and communities in the midst of a pandemic.

    GUIDES

    The 4 Answers Financial Marketers Need to Make the Case for Social Selling

    Forward-thinking marketers understand the power of social media at all stages of their marketing funnel. From awareness and consideration to loyalty and even advocacy, social and digital channels can and do inform purchase decisions. Financial institutions are catching on — more than 90% of the 50 largest banks are currently on Facebook, and 88% have active Twitter accounts — but being on social media doesn’t equate to a strong social media strategy. Today’s digital market requires an integrated strategy that meets target audiences throughout the buyer’s journey. This means investing in paid social campaigns alongside organic and driving deeper relationships with customers through social selling.

    Sounds easy, right? While marketers may understand the strategies and costs associated with modern social success, senior decision makers may still need educating and persuading. That’s why it’s essential to be able to effectively communicate the benefits of integrated social media strategies. In addition to intangible benefits like building trust and humanizing your brand, both organic and paid social selling strategies offer metrics that enable marketers to prove value.

    After all, people buy from people. So if you’re ready to advocate for an expanded social media strategy, start by asking yourself these questions. Not only will they help you decide on your strategic priorities, but they will also show you how to articulate the value of social media strategies to the people holding the budget strings. To prove the value of social media in financial services and get buy-in from senior leaders, marketers must ask themselves these questions:

    Does Our Social Media Marketing Drive ROI?

    Expanding a social media strategy often means increased spending — so you must be able to show decision makers the value of social. While financial marketers are already advocates — they know the power of paid social media efforts and have seen it in action — other leadership may not have that knowledge. It’s up to marketing teams to connect the dots on how their efforts are driving business results, and that means providing a strong argument based on metrics and concrete benefits.

    Data tells a powerful story, so let it guide the conversation. And to further strengthen your case for expanded social media strategies, make sure to highlight these benefits:

    • Targeting

    While organic content is important, leaders must understand that it’s not enough to impact the bottom line without paid support. Paid social media gives more flexibility than organic content — you can target specific customer subsets, or even new audience bases, allowing for greater personalization and a higher ROI. It’s all about delivering relevant content to the right consumers at the right time.

    • Feedback

    Feedback may not always impact the bottom line, but social media itself does offer a direct line to consumers. With the lines of communication open, it becomes easier to listen and learn about their wants, needs, and interests. An open-ended post, for instance, can encourage comments, which provide qualitative feedback on any given topic. This will improve the trust in your institution; customers (and their followers!) will see the commitment to providing an ever-improving experience.

    • Conversion

    Social media is about more than likes: If you’re providing links on social media (and you should), you’re creating conversion opportunities. Direct consumers to a landing page — from there, you can collect lead information. All that’s left is a follow-up. If that landing page has a form, track completion rates. The icing on top? These interactions are all measurable. Prove value by comparing these metrics with traditional tactics. When did a leader ever see a recorded, data-backed conversion metric from a billboard?

    • Efficiency

    Measuring social media marketing ROI, like most analytics, requires technology — and the right technology, at that. Spreadsheets simply won’t cut it, and they’re not as accurate or efficient as the tools that fintech partners offer. That’s why the Denim Social platform was built with financial institutions in mind. Its analytics capabilities allow for a more efficient means of capturing results while also centralizing information. Data is readily available, which can simplify and improve the approval workflow. Improvements to the workflow process have been shown to free up 20% to 30% of employees’ time — so bring that statistic to decision makers to prove its necessity.

    How Do You Use Social Media Analytics to Make Your Case?

    Expanding marketing strategies means collecting more data, and that necessitates a robust social media management tool. Gathering data on any social media marketing campaign affords you the opportunity to measure its overall performance and gives you clear-cut evidence to support business measures related to those efforts.

    Of course, data should be gathered based on specific criteria. Meaningful insights come from specific measurable goals related to your campaign and the goals of company decision makers. While the objectives of any social media strategy for financial services will vary from one institution to the next, any marketing effort can benefit from optimizing strategy through social media ROI metrics.

    Use metrics to hone your messaging and audience. Every social media marketing post is a learning opportunity about what resonates with your audience. Analytics show what topics drive engagement, what calls to action inspire clicks, and so on. Then, fine-tune subsequent posts based on your findings. Mastering social is an iterative process. When speaking with upper management, highlight how this process delivers greater value over time by continuously evolving.

    As you optimize your messaging, look to target audiences. Social media, and paid social in particular, allows you to target subsets of consumers. Vary your messaging and content, and you begin to understand what connects with whom. This allows you to maximize social media spend going forward — you’re not wasting time and effort putting messaging in front of an uninterested audience. When decision makers want to reach specific audiences, outline how putting money toward paid ad campaigns makes that happen.

    When you’re looking at your own metrics, be sure to pay attention to where the customer journey is going. Failure to guide customers to a landing page and other lead-generating tools will lead to dead ends, which isn’t the best use of these channels. Trackable links and analytics help marketers recognize the best avenues for using social media posts to capture leads that translate into sales. If you aren’t effectively working toward leads, it’ll be difficult to defend the necessity of your budget.

    Finally, don’t measure your ROI too soon. If you’re going to connect the value of social to your broader business objectives, you need to sync your measurement time with your sales cycle or risk misunderstanding (and likely underestimating) the impact of social. Help leadership understand that ROI isn’t a one-and-done and it’s not instantaneous. That way, you’re guiding their expectations to the bigger picture of what your social media strategy is doing.

    Troves of data are available from social media channels, and you’ll need the right technology to organize the information and arrive at a set of objectives that align with your larger business goals. The right measurement tool can build the confidence digital marketers need to foster social media marketing ROI success.

    What’s the Cost of Getting Social Media Compliance Wrong?

    Social media compliance for financial institutions can feel challenging, especially today. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has brought increased scrutiny to social media since his appointment, and it’s understandable for institutions to want to pull back efforts to mitigate compliance risks. Make sure your executives understand that this method loses more than they gain.

    Consider that customers are increasingly using digital methods to meet financial needs. Can anyone afford to lose out on that audience base? You won’t reach new customers, and you’re losing valuable social selling opportunities with the ones you have. Social selling influences half of revenue for 14 major industries — and financial services is one of them.

    Rather than scaling back social media efforts (and in the process, your revenue), work to mitigate compliance risks. When senior management airs concerns over compliance, counter with technology to automate compliance monitoring. Denim Social was built for compliance, so you can focus less on worrying if you’re compliant and more on fostering leads.

    With Denim Social, you can use numerous tools that can help in ensuring:

    • Protection. Problematic posts never see the light of day, as our platform not only establishes an approval workflow but also flags posts containing questionable keywords or phrases even before the review process.

    • Education. Our platform can serve as an ongoing compliance education tool. Team members receive almost immediate feedback and can test the equipped filters to understand what might cause regulatory trouble.

    • Enablement. Denim Social allows for the creation content libraries and curated, pre-approved posts. Team members can pull from these resources without the need for approvals, adding speed and efficiency to the process.

    • Record-keeping. The potential of an audit hangs over every financial institution. Our platform archives all social media posts and interactions. It even does the same with comments. If regulators come knocking, you’ll have a report in no time.

    • Notifications. Should a team member try to send a post through the approval process with a prohibited keyword or phrase, those flags send a notification directly to the individual. Employees quickly learn what can and cannot be posted.

    • Profile locks. Rules can be built within the platform that can prevent team members from posting problematic content, helping to quell worries about social media compliance. The goal is to provide the controls necessary to avoid issues.

    • Editing. Admins can edit or delete team members’ posts, comments, or direct messages right from the platform — across any connected social channel. In fact, the process is automated when prohibited keywords or phrases hit the network.

    Social media compliance for financial institutions shouldn’t be more complicated than any other compliance for your operation. It all comes down to your choice of technology, and Denim Social has the experience and tools you need to make it a breeze.

    What Do We Need in a Fintech Partner?

    The social media marketing needs of financial institutions are unique. You’re not necessarily selling a product or a service but a relationship with a qualified professional, which calls for authenticity and empathy to establish a sense of trust. The tactics used by “traditional” brands simply aren’t as impactful in the financial services space.

    Beyond that, social media compliance is complex. Without industry knowledge, it can be difficult for a marketing agency to navigate the nuances set by FINRA. Your fintech partner should fully appreciate the regulatory constraints and respect the concerns of your financial institution while still understanding how to drive real value with your social media strategy.

    However, according to Cornerstone’s “What’s Going On In Banking 2021” report, financial institutions aren’t having much success finding these qualified and attentive partners, noting that FI “boards will tire of not seeing results [from fintech partnerships]." Executives are relying on your expertise to identify fintech partners with a proven ability to collaborate and create solutions. And because boards may be wary of partners, you must be able to outline exactly how that partner will help you reach your goals. Help executives understand these benefits.

    • Customized onboarding.

    Denim Social customizes our onboarding process to meet your specific needs, so executives know they’re getting an experience tailor-made for the company. No questions are left unanswered — we walk alongside you to always offer an explanation. On top of that, our team will help you craft the communication necessary to get employees to use the platform. Emails, messaging, toolkits, and more are available to encourage adoption, so upper-level management knows they’re investing in a tool that will see widespread use.

    • Team training.

    Depending on your size and needs, we provide kickoff and regular training to help team members make the most of the platform so that decision makers can rest easy knowing our software isn’t being underutilized. We can also provide train-the-trainer sessions to move training internal, and our recently launched Academy can help marketers become certified on our platform.

    • Strategy consultation.

    Our customer success team can help you identify tactics to move the needle on your social media strategy. Just ask, and we’ll provide best practices and industry-relevant comparisons to inform your tactics and optimize your social selling implementation.

    • Content libraries.

    We work directly with your institution and UpContent to ensure you can create a customized content library that matches the specific needs of your business and your customers.

    In order to optimize a social media strategy, FI leaders and marketers must be able to sustain compliance at scale and understand social media measurement and analytics to see ROI. When you understand your metrics, you can bring that knowledge to decision makers, too. They’ll see the value you bring to the brand and associates (and match that value when it’s time to make budgets). Trusted fintech partners with dedicated customer success teams can help.

    Bottom line: Social media is hard, but marketers don’t have to do it alone. With Denim Social, they have dedicated team members they can call to help.

    Get in touch with us today to schedule a demo!

    Download the Guide

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    ALL GUIDES:

    Like many community banks, Dart Bank wanted to keep customer relationships a top priority. This meant being more available to customers and meeting them where they are. In modern terms, that means on social media.

    When Dart Bank learned about how Denim Social supports social selling for loan officers, they knew it was the perfect fit to keep their team engaged at every step of the journey. They wanted to empower their loan officers to create and grow authentic relationships online, never missing an opportunity to connect.

    Shelter Insurance® sought to launch a social selling program that would not only create posting efficiency, but also make it easy for agents to establish subject matter expertise via high quality social media content. They also saw an opportunity to empower digitally savvy agents to cultivate leads online to drive business results in a compliant social selling program.

    Before launching the program, it was essential that agents understood the pillars of social selling. Together with the Denim Social team, Shelter Insurance® developed a best-in-class program communication, onboarding and training process for agents.

    Social selling is just what it sounds like: using social media to sell a product or service. It’s leveraging social to build personal relationships, showcase thought leadership, engage with prospects, interact with existing customers, and ultimately build trust and rapport that will eventually lead to sales.

    It enables intermediaries – like insurance agents – to add value to the customer journey where there wouldn’t otherwise be an opportunity.

    This guide will help financial services marketers understand why social media should be a core component of their marketing strategy and showcase how the collective reach of their intermediaries’ social media presence can be harnessed to more deeply connect with prospective clients, position producers as thought leaders in their communities, and, ultimately, build trust with clients that translates to positive business results.

    It’s called social selling and it works.

    The spring 2023 buying season has arrived and with it – you guessed – uncertainty. Spring has long been make-it or break-it season for lenders and loan officers, and despite present conditions, the same holds true this year. But 2023 holds unique challenges and opportunities.

    As the season opens, there are a few key considerations the Denim Social team sees as critical for mortgage marketers.

    Paid social is one of the most effective ways to introduce people who aren’t yet following your producers, agents, loan officers, or advisors to your financial institution at the right place and the right time.

    Paid social is complementary to organic. While organic social builds first-degree connections and facilitates awareness, engagement, and branding, paid social allows you to reach larger, more tailored audiences.

    BOK Financial is a financial services partner for consumers, businesses and wealth clients with more than 150 users on the Denim Social platform.

    In addition to building brand credibility and establishing loan officer expertise, Denim Social enables their mortgage loan officers to cultivate relationships in social media and organically source leads.

    As financial marketers look to the coming year, most are wondering, “what’s next?” While no one can say for sure, our team of experts here at Denim Social are keeping a pulse on what’s new in digital marketing for financial institutions on social media. This guide will not only educate you on the latest trends, but help you make the case for increased investment in social selling and digital marketing strategies at your institution.

    Evolve Bank & Trust (“Evolve”) is an $700M+ asset institution with nearly 40 Home Loan Centers (HLC) and nearly 500 employees nationwide. See how Denim Social helped Evolve activate Home Loan Center Facebook pages over the course of just a few months.

    Whether you’re in banking, wealth management, insurance or mortgage, relationships are the bedrock of your business.

    Considering clients in these industries are handing over the keys to their personal kingdoms, it’s no surprise that trust and connection matter. That’s why successful sales strategies for these industries are focused on building long-term, trusted relationships.

    To truly unleash the potential of social, financial institutions need to use social media as a sales tool. It’s called social selling and it works.

    The power of social media is undeniable. The ability of banks to engage with and influence customers and prospects via interactive digital channels is an essential tool and a cornerstone of marketing. Gone are the days when it was “nice to have” a presence on platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Today, these pathways are helping banks to build relationships that were historically cultivated by tirelessly walking up and down Main Street, shaking hands and leaving behind business cards.

    In this case study by Denim Social and American Bankers Association, we take a look at how banks are using social media to ramp up digital engagement and build sales.

    As any marketer worth their salt will tell you, analytics should drive your social strategy. The key to success is understanding how to link social media efforts to ROI metrics. Read this guide to learn how to gain insights that matter, optimize your strategy and prove your social success.

    It’s no surprise that social media can help drive results for your mortgage business. In fact, the question for most marketers at mortgage lending institutions isn’t IF they should be doing more social media marketing - it’s HOW. Download to learn how to:

    • Scale your social selling program
    • Plan your content strategy
    • Train your loan officers

    AnnieMac is one of the fastest-growing mortgage loan providers in the U.S., serving clients in 42 states. Learn how Denim Social helped their team to streamline its brand’s social media strategy and activate social selling for hundreds of loan officers in just four months.

    As mortgage demand surges to historic highs, home purchase and refinance markets remain hot. This is excellent news for loan officers, but it also means the environment is more competitive than ever.

    So how can marketers ensure that their loan officers stand out? The answer is social media.

    Read this guidebook from Denim Social to learn how you can help your loan officers build strong relationships, stand out from the crowd and win more business using social media.

    Every Mortgage Marketer Should Ask Themselves

    Compliance is complicated, but don’t let it stop your lending team from making the most of social media. Think you’re ready to start social selling? Ask yourself these five questions!

    Read this guide if you’re asking yourself:

    • Is my social media policy current and comprehensive?
    • How do I ensure social media compliance during M&A?
    • What do I need to consider for direct messaging compliance?

    In this guide we will help you think about your all important social media policy and thoughtfully consider how changes in social media tech and even your bank’s structure may impact compliance.

    Every Financial Services Marketer Should Ask Themselves

    Compliance is complicated, but don’t let it stop your lending team from making the most of social media. Think you’re ready to start social selling? Ask yourself these five questions!

    Stronger Customer Relationships on Instagram

    Financial Services companies should be marketing and advertising on Instagram. We break down why, and help you create a strategy to reach new customers- while continuing to build trust in your brand.

    How 6 Financial Marketers Are Creating Value in Social Media

    Ever wonder what everyone else is doing in social media? We talked to six leading financial marketers about how they’re succeeding today and planning for the next big thing.

    Get their insights on strengthening your social strategies, unlocking the power of employee networks and creating next-level content that drives engagement.

    Download this guidebook to learn how 3 mortgage lenders are using social media to:

    • Position themselves in a place the community is already looking ... their social media
    • Empower loan officers to engage in local conversations
    • Turn their institution's loan officers into the voice of their brand
    • Build trust within the community

    Which roles do you fill when building your bank's marketing dream team? This guide will show you the following:

    • Who does what
    • The right structure to execute strategy
    • How compliance software can help

    Enjoy!

    ABA Study: The Current State of Social Media

    See what nearly 430 bank marketers had to say when asked questions such as:

  • Is it important to equip your sales personnel with social media accounts?
  • Does your bank measure the impact of your social media use?
  • COVID-19 & Bank Social Media

    Times are different and how you connect with customers and potential customers has changed drastically. In a socially distant world, learn to still build lasting relationships.

    Download and learn the guiding principles for using social media to serve both your customers and communities in the midst of a pandemic.

    RESOURCES

    NEWS
    August 2, 2022

    The 4 Answers Financial Marketers Need to Make the Case for Social Selling

    By
    Denim Social

    Forward-thinking marketers understand the power of social media at all stages of their marketing funnel. From awareness and consideration to loyalty and even advocacy, social and digital channels can and do inform purchase decisions. Financial institutions are catching on — more than 90% of the 50 largest banks are currently on Facebook, and 88% have active Twitter accounts — but being on social media doesn’t equate to a strong social media strategy. Today’s digital market requires an integrated strategy that meets target audiences throughout the buyer’s journey. This means investing in paid social campaigns alongside organic and driving deeper relationships with customers through social selling.

    Sounds easy, right? While marketers may understand the strategies and costs associated with modern social success, senior decision makers may still need educating and persuading. That’s why it’s essential to be able to effectively communicate the benefits of integrated social media strategies. In addition to intangible benefits like building trust and humanizing your brand, both organic and paid social selling strategies offer metrics that enable marketers to prove value.

    After all, people buy from people. So if you’re ready to advocate for an expanded social media strategy, start by asking yourself these questions. Not only will they help you decide on your strategic priorities, but they will also show you how to articulate the value of social media strategies to the people holding the budget strings. To prove the value of social media in financial services and get buy-in from senior leaders, marketers must ask themselves these questions:

    Does Our Social Media Marketing Drive ROI?

    Expanding a social media strategy often means increased spending — so you must be able to show decision makers the value of social. While financial marketers are already advocates — they know the power of paid social media efforts and have seen it in action — other leadership may not have that knowledge. It’s up to marketing teams to connect the dots on how their efforts are driving business results, and that means providing a strong argument based on metrics and concrete benefits.

    Data tells a powerful story, so let it guide the conversation. And to further strengthen your case for expanded social media strategies, make sure to highlight these benefits:

    • Targeting

    While organic content is important, leaders must understand that it’s not enough to impact the bottom line without paid support. Paid social media gives more flexibility than organic content — you can target specific customer subsets, or even new audience bases, allowing for greater personalization and a higher ROI. It’s all about delivering relevant content to the right consumers at the right time.

    • Feedback

    Feedback may not always impact the bottom line, but social media itself does offer a direct line to consumers. With the lines of communication open, it becomes easier to listen and learn about their wants, needs, and interests. An open-ended post, for instance, can encourage comments, which provide qualitative feedback on any given topic. This will improve the trust in your institution; customers (and their followers!) will see the commitment to providing an ever-improving experience.

    • Conversion

    Social media is about more than likes: If you’re providing links on social media (and you should), you’re creating conversion opportunities. Direct consumers to a landing page — from there, you can collect lead information. All that’s left is a follow-up. If that landing page has a form, track completion rates. The icing on top? These interactions are all measurable. Prove value by comparing these metrics with traditional tactics. When did a leader ever see a recorded, data-backed conversion metric from a billboard?

    • Efficiency

    Measuring social media marketing ROI, like most analytics, requires technology — and the right technology, at that. Spreadsheets simply won’t cut it, and they’re not as accurate or efficient as the tools that fintech partners offer. That’s why the Denim Social platform was built with financial institutions in mind. Its analytics capabilities allow for a more efficient means of capturing results while also centralizing information. Data is readily available, which can simplify and improve the approval workflow. Improvements to the workflow process have been shown to free up 20% to 30% of employees’ time — so bring that statistic to decision makers to prove its necessity.

    How Do You Use Social Media Analytics to Make Your Case?

    Expanding marketing strategies means collecting more data, and that necessitates a robust social media management tool. Gathering data on any social media marketing campaign affords you the opportunity to measure its overall performance and gives you clear-cut evidence to support business measures related to those efforts.

    Of course, data should be gathered based on specific criteria. Meaningful insights come from specific measurable goals related to your campaign and the goals of company decision makers. While the objectives of any social media strategy for financial services will vary from one institution to the next, any marketing effort can benefit from optimizing strategy through social media ROI metrics.

    Use metrics to hone your messaging and audience. Every social media marketing post is a learning opportunity about what resonates with your audience. Analytics show what topics drive engagement, what calls to action inspire clicks, and so on. Then, fine-tune subsequent posts based on your findings. Mastering social is an iterative process. When speaking with upper management, highlight how this process delivers greater value over time by continuously evolving.

    As you optimize your messaging, look to target audiences. Social media, and paid social in particular, allows you to target subsets of consumers. Vary your messaging and content, and you begin to understand what connects with whom. This allows you to maximize social media spend going forward — you’re not wasting time and effort putting messaging in front of an uninterested audience. When decision makers want to reach specific audiences, outline how putting money toward paid ad campaigns makes that happen.

    When you’re looking at your own metrics, be sure to pay attention to where the customer journey is going. Failure to guide customers to a landing page and other lead-generating tools will lead to dead ends, which isn’t the best use of these channels. Trackable links and analytics help marketers recognize the best avenues for using social media posts to capture leads that translate into sales. If you aren’t effectively working toward leads, it’ll be difficult to defend the necessity of your budget.

    Finally, don’t measure your ROI too soon. If you’re going to connect the value of social to your broader business objectives, you need to sync your measurement time with your sales cycle or risk misunderstanding (and likely underestimating) the impact of social. Help leadership understand that ROI isn’t a one-and-done and it’s not instantaneous. That way, you’re guiding their expectations to the bigger picture of what your social media strategy is doing.

    Troves of data are available from social media channels, and you’ll need the right technology to organize the information and arrive at a set of objectives that align with your larger business goals. The right measurement tool can build the confidence digital marketers need to foster social media marketing ROI success.

    What’s the Cost of Getting Social Media Compliance Wrong?

    Social media compliance for financial institutions can feel challenging, especially today. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has brought increased scrutiny to social media since his appointment, and it’s understandable for institutions to want to pull back efforts to mitigate compliance risks. Make sure your executives understand that this method loses more than they gain.

    Consider that customers are increasingly using digital methods to meet financial needs. Can anyone afford to lose out on that audience base? You won’t reach new customers, and you’re losing valuable social selling opportunities with the ones you have. Social selling influences half of revenue for 14 major industries — and financial services is one of them.

    Rather than scaling back social media efforts (and in the process, your revenue), work to mitigate compliance risks. When senior management airs concerns over compliance, counter with technology to automate compliance monitoring. Denim Social was built for compliance, so you can focus less on worrying if you’re compliant and more on fostering leads.

    With Denim Social, you can use numerous tools that can help in ensuring:

    • Protection. Problematic posts never see the light of day, as our platform not only establishes an approval workflow but also flags posts containing questionable keywords or phrases even before the review process.

    • Education. Our platform can serve as an ongoing compliance education tool. Team members receive almost immediate feedback and can test the equipped filters to understand what might cause regulatory trouble.

    • Enablement. Denim Social allows for the creation content libraries and curated, pre-approved posts. Team members can pull from these resources without the need for approvals, adding speed and efficiency to the process.

    • Record-keeping. The potential of an audit hangs over every financial institution. Our platform archives all social media posts and interactions. It even does the same with comments. If regulators come knocking, you’ll have a report in no time.

    • Notifications. Should a team member try to send a post through the approval process with a prohibited keyword or phrase, those flags send a notification directly to the individual. Employees quickly learn what can and cannot be posted.

    • Profile locks. Rules can be built within the platform that can prevent team members from posting problematic content, helping to quell worries about social media compliance. The goal is to provide the controls necessary to avoid issues.

    • Editing. Admins can edit or delete team members’ posts, comments, or direct messages right from the platform — across any connected social channel. In fact, the process is automated when prohibited keywords or phrases hit the network.

    Social media compliance for financial institutions shouldn’t be more complicated than any other compliance for your operation. It all comes down to your choice of technology, and Denim Social has the experience and tools you need to make it a breeze.

    What Do We Need in a Fintech Partner?

    The social media marketing needs of financial institutions are unique. You’re not necessarily selling a product or a service but a relationship with a qualified professional, which calls for authenticity and empathy to establish a sense of trust. The tactics used by “traditional” brands simply aren’t as impactful in the financial services space.

    Beyond that, social media compliance is complex. Without industry knowledge, it can be difficult for a marketing agency to navigate the nuances set by FINRA. Your fintech partner should fully appreciate the regulatory constraints and respect the concerns of your financial institution while still understanding how to drive real value with your social media strategy.

    However, according to Cornerstone’s “What’s Going On In Banking 2021” report, financial institutions aren’t having much success finding these qualified and attentive partners, noting that FI “boards will tire of not seeing results [from fintech partnerships]." Executives are relying on your expertise to identify fintech partners with a proven ability to collaborate and create solutions. And because boards may be wary of partners, you must be able to outline exactly how that partner will help you reach your goals. Help executives understand these benefits.

    • Customized onboarding.

    Denim Social customizes our onboarding process to meet your specific needs, so executives know they’re getting an experience tailor-made for the company. No questions are left unanswered — we walk alongside you to always offer an explanation. On top of that, our team will help you craft the communication necessary to get employees to use the platform. Emails, messaging, toolkits, and more are available to encourage adoption, so upper-level management knows they’re investing in a tool that will see widespread use.

    • Team training.

    Depending on your size and needs, we provide kickoff and regular training to help team members make the most of the platform so that decision makers can rest easy knowing our software isn’t being underutilized. We can also provide train-the-trainer sessions to move training internal, and our recently launched Academy can help marketers become certified on our platform.

    • Strategy consultation.

    Our customer success team can help you identify tactics to move the needle on your social media strategy. Just ask, and we’ll provide best practices and industry-relevant comparisons to inform your tactics and optimize your social selling implementation.

    • Content libraries.

    We work directly with your institution and UpContent to ensure you can create a customized content library that matches the specific needs of your business and your customers.

    In order to optimize a social media strategy, FI leaders and marketers must be able to sustain compliance at scale and understand social media measurement and analytics to see ROI. When you understand your metrics, you can bring that knowledge to decision makers, too. They’ll see the value you bring to the brand and associates (and match that value when it’s time to make budgets). Trusted fintech partners with dedicated customer success teams can help.

    Bottom line: Social media is hard, but marketers don’t have to do it alone. With Denim Social, they have dedicated team members they can call to help.

    Get in touch with us today to schedule a demo!

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    OTHER NEWS:

    Instagram stands out as the shining star of social media platforms. While Facebook still reigns supreme and TikTok grows, Instagram is quickly catching up fast with more than 2 billion users worldwide.

    With users under age 34 making up nearly 60 percent of this user population, financial services marketers looking to reach younger generations should take note. And with an estimated sum of $68 trillion in wealth expected to transfer from Baby Boomers to Millennials in the next couple of decades, Millennials are a worthwhile target.

    Studies predict that, after inheriting wealth, 80% or more young heirs will seek out a new financial advisor. Considering that 9 in 10 accounts follow at least one business on Instagram and 8 in 10 users find new products and services in the app, it’s a safe bet that Instagram will be a place to influence many Millennials. Wise financial services marketers will meet them where they are with strong Instagram marketing strategies, and the following tips can help:

    1. Focus on paid ads

    Instagram is a visual platform for sharing photos and videos, so it’s important for brand pages to populate their profiles with organic posts. While this presence is important, organic content isn’t what will move the needle on business goals. Financial services aren’t exactly visually interesting, and organic posts tend to have low reach as they only show up in the feeds of a brand’s current followers. Without the ability to include hyperlinks in captions, they also won’t drive any traffic back to your site. If you want to build the type of following needed to generate new business, including paid advertising in your Instagram marketing strategy is your ticket.

    With Instagram advertising, institutions and advisors can target ads to land with exactly the right audience — even outside their follower base — and include links in posts to drive more traffic to the brand. With a specific call to action that directs consumers to learn more about a topic, Instagram ads offer a straight-line path to giving customers the valuable information they desire — in their own time and at their own place. What’s more, Instagram advertising is seamlessly integrated directly into Instagram feeds and stories, creating a smoother user experience all around.

    2. Connect with consumers on a local level

    Instagram marketing on the corporate brand level is a great starting point, but advertising on behalf of your individual advisors can take your strategy to the next level. Think of it this way: If a consumer sees a well-known brand on social media, they might recognize the name, but they won’t feel an intrinsic connection beyond initial familiarity. In contrast, they’ll feel familiarity and an immediate connection when they see a post from an advisor in their own community. Consumers want to build relationships with brands, and a shared community is a great starting point.

    Of course, most advisors and other financial services employees are not experts on how to market the business on Instagram. And marketers know they must keep all social media marketing for their financial institutions compliant to avoid heavy regulatory reprimands. To keep posts compliant, save employees time, and help them build relationships with consumers in their physical communities, financial services marketers can set up and run ads on their behalf.


    3. Micro-target content to your audience

    As big-name brands like Amazon continue to elevate the digital customer experience with seamless customer service, purchasing, and delivery, customer expectations are higher than ever before. When customers evaluate a financial institution, they compare it not only to other organizations in the industry, but also to tech giants in any industry that give them exactly what they need when they need it.

    They expect a high level of personalization and convenience, and Instagram marketing with paid advertising can help you give it to them. Match basic behavioral and geographic data to potential customers on Instagram to target ads, and then track clicks, engagements, and post-click actions. These data points don’t indicate much on their own, but together they offer a rich story about what consumers want. Continually refine your strategy with these data points in mind to deliver the kind of highly personalized experiences your audiences want on Instagram.

    With a large Millennial user base that engages actively with brands online and the ability to target highly personalized ads to exactly the right audiences, Instagram is a must-have in any financial services marketing strategy. To learn more about how Instagram marketing can work to drive your business forward, download our guide to building stronger customer relationships on Instagram for free today.

    “If you build it, they will come.” 

    While this advice may work in fictional baseball movies, it’s a bad strategy for building your Facebook business page following. 

    Successfully growing your page likes and follows requires ongoing attention, but it pays off. 

    More followers indicates greater popularity and trust in your brand and also means more eyeballs on your content.

    Follow these tips to start growing your following today. 

    1. Share meaningful content. Before posting anything on your page, make sure it provides value to your audience. When you do this consistently, your existing followers will share it with their friends, attracting more followers. As you plan your content strategy, think about the topics you can speak to with authority. Then look for gaps in the content already being shared with your audience. Where these two intersect is a great place to focus your thought leadership efforts. 

    2. Be consistent. It goes without saying that consistency in voice, tone and style should be inherent in any marketing message. As you work to grow your Facebook page following, it’s also important to aim for consistency in when and how often you post content. When your content quality, quantity or schedule isn’t consistent, it can confuse your audience. Staying on a schedule will improve the experience you deliver and build your business’s credibility and reputation. Use a tool like Denim Social’s Analytics to test and monitor when engagement is at its highest, and design your content schedule accordingly.

    3. Invite friends. One of the quickest, most efficient ways to start driving awareness and growing your audience is to invite your friends to follow your page. Remember, your friends have friends, and they might be interested in following your business and your new page.

    4. Run ads. A surefire way to grow your following is to run Facebook ads. Ads are an effective tool for promoting your page, boosting your posts, getting more leads, increasing conversions and performing a number of other actions. Keep in mind, however, that it may not always be in your best interest to grow your following just for the sake of a bigger number. You want to attract people who are interested in your products and services (and, in turn, more likely to engage with your content). Using audience targeting strategies will help you reach the right consumer with the right message.

    A Facebook business page is an easy and effective way to grow your brand awareness and credibility. Although it’s not as simple as set-it-and-forget-it, if you follow the tips outlined above, you will be well on your way to growing your Facebook fan base. ‍If you need help engaging your audience on social media, get in touch with us today.

    Known as the professional social networking platform, LinkedIn is a powerful tool for social selling, allowing your team to foster strategic customer relationships and build credibility. An important part of your online brand, your LinkedIn profile is a key source of information for people looking to learn more about you.

    A strong LinkedIn profile creates opportunities for meaningful connections and interactions with other professionals. But how do you make LinkedIn a successful part of your marketing strategy? Well, for starters, you need to build trust. Use the following best practices to do just that.

    1.) Add professional profile and cover photos. According to LinkedIn, a professional headshot makes your profile 21x more likely to be viewed, and profiles with photos get a 40% better message response rate. For best results, upload JPEG or PNG images sized as follows:

    • Profile photo: 400x400 pixels
    • Cover photo: 1584x396 pixels

    Pro Tip: Bookmark our Up-to-Date Social Media Sizing & Resource Guide to optimize your images on every social media platform.

    2. Write a compelling headline and summary. Your headline and summary should clearly and succinctly state who you are and why someone should connect with you.

    • Headline: More than simply your job title, your headline should answer these two questions: 
    • Who do you help?
    • How do you help?
    • Summary: Use the following framework to write a compelling professional summary:
    • Paragraph 1: In three sentences or less, what is your value prop to your prospective customers? Reiterate your purpose from your headline.
    • Paragraph 2: In three sentences or less, how do you help customers achieve results?
    • Paragraph 3: In three sentences or less, what is your call-to-action for the prospective customer?

    Pro Tip: In your headline and summary, be sure to include keywords prospective customers might search for.

    3. Engage frequently and consistently. Every week, apply consistent effort to LinkedIn to build credibility and keep content relevant and valuable for customers. Below is checklist of activities we recommend performing on a weekly basis:

    • Post relevant content: Check your content library or search for trending topics in the LinkedIn search bar. You can find some great recent inspiration from others in your field.
    • Post/schedule content at the right time: Generally, the best time to post on LinkedIn is Tuesday through Thursday between 10 and 11 a.m. Content posted in the evenings and on weekends tends to get less engagement. Check out this guide in our Help Center for more information on when to post on various social media channels.
    • Seek recommendations from customers and share success stories: What’s better than telling your networks how great you are? Someone else saying it for you! Positive testimonials, endorsements and reviews go a long way in building your credibility.
    • Check likes, follows, shares, hashtags and comments. Be sure to engage and respond as appropriate. Set weekly or monthly goals for growth and track progress.
    • Grow your network: Join relevant groups in your industry to gain customer insights about needs and interests, follow influencers and connect with others.

    Pro tip: Add a 30-minute weekly recurring event on your calendar to go through the above checklist.

    LinkedIn should be an essential part of your team’s social selling strategy. Stay visible and build trust with consistency and an optimized profile. 
    Looking for a quick reference for all of this information? Check out this infographic.


    A consistent and full social media calendar is essential for the success of your strategy, but feeling stumped about what to post in 2024? From news articles to gifs, your social posts need to resonate with your audience. But you don’t have to go it alone… Denim Social can help your team with content ideas. 

    An easy way to create engaging content?  Post around Holidays! And as we know, there is a day for everything. From "National Clean Off Your Desk Day" to "National Trivia Day," these days are ways you can create authentic content and have fun with your followers.

    ‍We've compiled a list of 2024 Holidays you can celebrate with your audience all year round. Download our PDF calendar to be ready with content all year that is sure to create engagement.

    Make the most of your social media pages and posts by optimizing your images and including essential information about your business on each platform. By giving customers an optimal digital experience, you can broaden reach and provide better customer service through your digital platforms.

    Facebook

    IMAGE SIZING:

    Profile picture: 176 x 176px (desktop), 196x 196px (smartphones)

    Cover photo: 820 x 312px (desktop), 640 x 360px (smartphones)

    Keep the main content of your image centered. On a desktop the photo will display as 840x312px, but on mobile will size down to 640x360px.

    Facebook post image: 1200 x 630px

    The ideal width for a Facebook post image is 1200px, but height can vary based on what type of device the image display is optimized for. We recommend keeping it at the recommended size to keep consistency on all devices.

    When creating a Facebook Ad graphic, any text should not take up more than 20% of the photo. You can find a cheat sheet here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay.

    Facebook Video: 1280 x 720px

    The optimal length for a short-form video on Facebook is 15 seconds to 1 minute; for a long-form video, it is 3 minutes. The maximum file size is 10GB. 

    Facebook Link Image: 1200 x 630px

    Make sure to claim ownership of your links for the ability to change the link preview photo. You can find more info on that here: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/528858287471922?id=708699556338610.

    Carousel Post: 1080 x 1080px

    Carousel posts are a great way to display multiple services or features that you offer to your customers. When placing a Facebook ad you can link each carousel photo to a different link, making it easy for people to navigate to your specific products.

    Facebook Story: 1080 x 1920px

    Make the most of your stories by using all of your space and creating a fullscreen experience.

    IMPORTANT PAGE INFORMATION:

    Page name:

    This is where you can name your Facebook Page, but be sure to keep it shorter than 75 characters.

    Page username:

    Customize your page URL by adding a username, making it easier for people to locate and navigate people from other digital platforms. Your Facebook URL can include up to 50 characters.

    Page call to action:

    Facebook gives you a variety of choices on calls to action. For example, if you’d like customers to contact you by email, you can set up a “Send Email” button with your email address connected and ready to go.

    LinkedIn

    IMAGE SIZING:

    Profile picture: 400 x 400px

    Upload your business logo here to personalize your profile. If this page is for an individual, this is where you will upload their headshot.

    Cover Photo: 1584 x 396px

    Having a personalized business cover photo will make your profile look more professional and give you the opportunity to provide page visitors with more of the look and feel of your business. This can include an image related to your business or a graphic with information on services you provide or your business slogan.

    LinkedIn post photo: 1200 x 628px (mobile), 1200 x 1200px (desktop)

    When targeting an audience on both desktop and mobile, make sure that you optimize for mobile to give people the best experience.

    LinkedIn Link Photo: 1200 x 628px (mobile), 1200 x 1200px (desktop)

    Providing an image with your link preview can help give viewers a better idea of article content and improve your click thru rates. 

    LinkedIn Link Video: 4096 x 2304px maximum, 256 x 144 pixels minimum

    The optimal video length for LinkedIn is 30-90 seconds and the maximum file size is 5GB.

    IMPORTANT PAGE INFORMATION

    Page name:

    This is where your business name is located, as well as your company industry, location, and number of followers.

    Page description:

    Add your business slogan, mission, or a short description that tells people what your company, products, and services can do for them.

    X (Formerly Known as Twitter)

    IMAGE SIZING

    Profile picture: 400 x 400px

    Upload your business logo or headshot to personalize your profile.

    Cover photo: 1500 x 500px

    Be sure to center your content to give your followers an optimized experience on mobile.

    Twitter post photo: 1600 x 900px

    Allow your followers to see the entirety of the photo in their feed by adhering to this sizing guideline. The maximum file size is 5MB.

    X video: 1280 x 720px (desktop, recommended), 720 x 720px (mobile)

    The optimal video length for Twitter is 20-45 seconds and the maximum file size is 512MB.

    IMPORTANT PAGE INFORMATION

    Underneath your profile photo, your company name and username will be displayed.

    Write a short bio to tell people more about your business.

    Instagram

    IMAGE SIZING

    Profile photo: 110 x 110px

    Your profile picture will be small, so be sure your image is sized correctly and centered. This is a great place for your company logo.

    Profile thumbnail: Displays as 161 x 161px

    This is a preview of your large image post, but looks best when the photo posted is square.

    Highlight Cover: 1080 x 1920px

    Your cover photos should have centered images to give your highlight reel a balanced look. You can also name your highlights, but be concise as they can only be 15 characters long.

    Instagram Feed Photo: 1080 x 1080px (square), 1080 x 1350 (portrait), 1080 x 566 (landscape)

    The recommended width for all Instagram feed photos is 1080px, but the height can vary. To optimize for your feed display within your profile, we recommend using the sizing listed above to keep your image square.

    Instagram Feed Video:  1080 x 1080px (square), 1080 x 1350 (portrait), 1080 x 566 (landscape)

    The optimal length for an Instagram video is 30-60 seconds and the max file size is 650MB.

    Instagram Feed Ad Photo: 1080 x 1080px

    Your ad photo will display the same as a normal feed photo, but with a link attached. When creating an ad in Ads Manager, you’ll be able to upload a separate photo for Instagram to keep your photos optimized for the user experience.

    Instagram Story: 1080 x 1920px (portrait), 1080 x 601 (landscape)

    Make the most of your stories by using all of your space and creating a fullscreen experience. The maximum length of the story is 60 seconds.

    Instagram Reels & Live: 1080 x 1920px

    Reels can be used to offer tutorials, demos, or service features. These will be saved under your profile page for viewers to go back and watch at their leisure. The maximum length for Reels is 90 seconds. For Live, this can be used for announcements, events, or other Q&A sessions. These can also be saved for later viewing, and can last up to 4 hours.

    As the end of the year looms, budget is on every leader’s and marketer’s mind. Now is the time for financial institutions to step back and assess performance and determine how to spend wisely next year. In the face of climbing interest rates, uncertain economic conditions and hesitant customers, financial marketers will need to be effective and efficient in 2024. 

    Luckily, there’s a way loan officers, insurance agents, and financial advisors can cost-effectively build new (and strengthen existing) relationships: social media. A strong social media strategy helps intermediaries meet customers where they are in a personalized way. This is important, as 72% of consumers rate personalization as highly important in finance.

    In today’s digital world, being on social media is a non-negotiable for financial professionals looking to stay top of mind with customers. Consider this: employees have 10x the amount of reach as brand pages alone, and social media users that regularly share content are 57% likely to generate leads. For institutions on a budget , social media makes the most of resources and lays the foundation for long-term success. 

    Sound familiar? Many financial marketers deal with reduced budgets and fewer resources. The good news is that social media can be one of the best (and most cost-effective ways) to get the most out of overall marketing and generate real business ROI. No matter how large or small a budget, with the right approach, marketers and financial professionals can use social media to make new connections and drive results. 

    The question is, how exactly do you get buy-in from leadership to start personalizing and investing more money for social media marketing? The following strategies can help you get started:

    1. Target your audience: Identify the advocates for your mission and the people who you need to get buy-in from. Social media marketing is about identifying target audiences and catering strategies accordingly. The same applies when securing your social media marketing budget. When looking for buy-in, target those on the leadership team who are likely to understand what excellence in personalization looks like. Great personalization is omnichannel; it engages consumers on the channels of their choice and it’s deeply human. To humanize marketing beyond the brand level, financial institutions need to reach out to leaders who will be open to highly personalized tactics such as social selling, which puts employees and producers on the frontlines to build relationships for the brand.
    2. Craft the right message: Messaging is critical in marketing — and that goes double for selling the idea of a more personalized social strategy. Your message needs to resonate with your audience, even if your audience is one decision-maker. Link everything back to ROI by explaining that customers weigh reputation and online presence when choosing financial institutions. Be prepared to explain how you’ll track and increase customer conversion metrics through your campaigns. When arguing for more money toward paid social media advertising, for example, you’ll want to explain how it can boost conversion rates, meaning more customers (and revenue) coming in from your ads. Framing your message in business terms will help you advocate for funds to support personalization at scale.
    3. Present the right data: Use compelling data to bring your message home. With 75% of B2B buyers using social media to make buying decisions, social selling is a powerful way to attract new customers. In addition to all the facts and figures about why brand is important, you should also be ready to support the idea that people buy from people. At the end of the day, it’s about relationships. That’s why so many financial institutions find it valuable to launch social selling programs that position agents, advisors and loan officers to build customer relationships. 54% of prospects today use social networks to conduct product research. Your team can capture prospects where they are with the right strategies, processes and technology.
    4. Decide the right timing: The time to start advocating for personalization is now. Approach leadership about earmarking money for personalization in the budget for social media marketing. Remember that most financial institutions establish their fiscal budgets for the year and often don’t revisit those budgets for another year. 41% of marketing budgets are based on the previous year, with only 10% revisited quarterly— so plan ahead for social initiatives that might take more money down the line. You likely won’t get another chance to advocate for that money once the budget is set.

    No matter the size or scope of a bank, insurance agency, mortgage lender, or financial firm marketing budget, the end of the year is the best time to assess what’s going well and what needs to change in the coming year. There’s no doubt that social media has a place in every marketer’s budget, and knowing where and how to spend can support business goals and keep financial brands relevant and accessible. 

    Social media supercharges marketing budgets to reach more customers and prospects.. Marketers that build a smart strategy through personalized social selling will be well positioned to get the most out of any budget. See how Denim Social can help you do more with less by scheduling a demo here

    Connect & Convert on Social

    Successfully scale conversion optimized campaigns across all social media channels with built-in compliance, publishing tools, and more.
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    August 2, 2022

    The 4 Answers Financial Marketers Need to Make the Case for Social Selling

    By
    Denim Social

    Forward-thinking marketers understand the power of social media at all stages of their marketing funnel. From awareness and consideration to loyalty and even advocacy, social and digital channels can and do inform purchase decisions. Financial institutions are catching on — more than 90% of the 50 largest banks are currently on Facebook, and 88% have active Twitter accounts — but being on social media doesn’t equate to a strong social media strategy. Today’s digital market requires an integrated strategy that meets target audiences throughout the buyer’s journey. This means investing in paid social campaigns alongside organic and driving deeper relationships with customers through social selling.

    Sounds easy, right? While marketers may understand the strategies and costs associated with modern social success, senior decision makers may still need educating and persuading. That’s why it’s essential to be able to effectively communicate the benefits of integrated social media strategies. In addition to intangible benefits like building trust and humanizing your brand, both organic and paid social selling strategies offer metrics that enable marketers to prove value.

    After all, people buy from people. So if you’re ready to advocate for an expanded social media strategy, start by asking yourself these questions. Not only will they help you decide on your strategic priorities, but they will also show you how to articulate the value of social media strategies to the people holding the budget strings. To prove the value of social media in financial services and get buy-in from senior leaders, marketers must ask themselves these questions:

    Does Our Social Media Marketing Drive ROI?

    Expanding a social media strategy often means increased spending — so you must be able to show decision makers the value of social. While financial marketers are already advocates — they know the power of paid social media efforts and have seen it in action — other leadership may not have that knowledge. It’s up to marketing teams to connect the dots on how their efforts are driving business results, and that means providing a strong argument based on metrics and concrete benefits.

    Data tells a powerful story, so let it guide the conversation. And to further strengthen your case for expanded social media strategies, make sure to highlight these benefits:

    • Targeting

    While organic content is important, leaders must understand that it’s not enough to impact the bottom line without paid support. Paid social media gives more flexibility than organic content — you can target specific customer subsets, or even new audience bases, allowing for greater personalization and a higher ROI. It’s all about delivering relevant content to the right consumers at the right time.

    • Feedback

    Feedback may not always impact the bottom line, but social media itself does offer a direct line to consumers. With the lines of communication open, it becomes easier to listen and learn about their wants, needs, and interests. An open-ended post, for instance, can encourage comments, which provide qualitative feedback on any given topic. This will improve the trust in your institution; customers (and their followers!) will see the commitment to providing an ever-improving experience.

    • Conversion

    Social media is about more than likes: If you’re providing links on social media (and you should), you’re creating conversion opportunities. Direct consumers to a landing page — from there, you can collect lead information. All that’s left is a follow-up. If that landing page has a form, track completion rates. The icing on top? These interactions are all measurable. Prove value by comparing these metrics with traditional tactics. When did a leader ever see a recorded, data-backed conversion metric from a billboard?

    • Efficiency

    Measuring social media marketing ROI, like most analytics, requires technology — and the right technology, at that. Spreadsheets simply won’t cut it, and they’re not as accurate or efficient as the tools that fintech partners offer. That’s why the Denim Social platform was built with financial institutions in mind. Its analytics capabilities allow for a more efficient means of capturing results while also centralizing information. Data is readily available, which can simplify and improve the approval workflow. Improvements to the workflow process have been shown to free up 20% to 30% of employees’ time — so bring that statistic to decision makers to prove its necessity.

    How Do You Use Social Media Analytics to Make Your Case?

    Expanding marketing strategies means collecting more data, and that necessitates a robust social media management tool. Gathering data on any social media marketing campaign affords you the opportunity to measure its overall performance and gives you clear-cut evidence to support business measures related to those efforts.

    Of course, data should be gathered based on specific criteria. Meaningful insights come from specific measurable goals related to your campaign and the goals of company decision makers. While the objectives of any social media strategy for financial services will vary from one institution to the next, any marketing effort can benefit from optimizing strategy through social media ROI metrics.

    Use metrics to hone your messaging and audience. Every social media marketing post is a learning opportunity about what resonates with your audience. Analytics show what topics drive engagement, what calls to action inspire clicks, and so on. Then, fine-tune subsequent posts based on your findings. Mastering social is an iterative process. When speaking with upper management, highlight how this process delivers greater value over time by continuously evolving.

    As you optimize your messaging, look to target audiences. Social media, and paid social in particular, allows you to target subsets of consumers. Vary your messaging and content, and you begin to understand what connects with whom. This allows you to maximize social media spend going forward — you’re not wasting time and effort putting messaging in front of an uninterested audience. When decision makers want to reach specific audiences, outline how putting money toward paid ad campaigns makes that happen.

    When you’re looking at your own metrics, be sure to pay attention to where the customer journey is going. Failure to guide customers to a landing page and other lead-generating tools will lead to dead ends, which isn’t the best use of these channels. Trackable links and analytics help marketers recognize the best avenues for using social media posts to capture leads that translate into sales. If you aren’t effectively working toward leads, it’ll be difficult to defend the necessity of your budget.

    Finally, don’t measure your ROI too soon. If you’re going to connect the value of social to your broader business objectives, you need to sync your measurement time with your sales cycle or risk misunderstanding (and likely underestimating) the impact of social. Help leadership understand that ROI isn’t a one-and-done and it’s not instantaneous. That way, you’re guiding their expectations to the bigger picture of what your social media strategy is doing.

    Troves of data are available from social media channels, and you’ll need the right technology to organize the information and arrive at a set of objectives that align with your larger business goals. The right measurement tool can build the confidence digital marketers need to foster social media marketing ROI success.

    What’s the Cost of Getting Social Media Compliance Wrong?

    Social media compliance for financial institutions can feel challenging, especially today. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has brought increased scrutiny to social media since his appointment, and it’s understandable for institutions to want to pull back efforts to mitigate compliance risks. Make sure your executives understand that this method loses more than they gain.

    Consider that customers are increasingly using digital methods to meet financial needs. Can anyone afford to lose out on that audience base? You won’t reach new customers, and you’re losing valuable social selling opportunities with the ones you have. Social selling influences half of revenue for 14 major industries — and financial services is one of them.

    Rather than scaling back social media efforts (and in the process, your revenue), work to mitigate compliance risks. When senior management airs concerns over compliance, counter with technology to automate compliance monitoring. Denim Social was built for compliance, so you can focus less on worrying if you’re compliant and more on fostering leads.

    With Denim Social, you can use numerous tools that can help in ensuring:

    • Protection. Problematic posts never see the light of day, as our platform not only establishes an approval workflow but also flags posts containing questionable keywords or phrases even before the review process.

    • Education. Our platform can serve as an ongoing compliance education tool. Team members receive almost immediate feedback and can test the equipped filters to understand what might cause regulatory trouble.

    • Enablement. Denim Social allows for the creation content libraries and curated, pre-approved posts. Team members can pull from these resources without the need for approvals, adding speed and efficiency to the process.

    • Record-keeping. The potential of an audit hangs over every financial institution. Our platform archives all social media posts and interactions. It even does the same with comments. If regulators come knocking, you’ll have a report in no time.

    • Notifications. Should a team member try to send a post through the approval process with a prohibited keyword or phrase, those flags send a notification directly to the individual. Employees quickly learn what can and cannot be posted.

    • Profile locks. Rules can be built within the platform that can prevent team members from posting problematic content, helping to quell worries about social media compliance. The goal is to provide the controls necessary to avoid issues.

    • Editing. Admins can edit or delete team members’ posts, comments, or direct messages right from the platform — across any connected social channel. In fact, the process is automated when prohibited keywords or phrases hit the network.

    Social media compliance for financial institutions shouldn’t be more complicated than any other compliance for your operation. It all comes down to your choice of technology, and Denim Social has the experience and tools you need to make it a breeze.

    What Do We Need in a Fintech Partner?

    The social media marketing needs of financial institutions are unique. You’re not necessarily selling a product or a service but a relationship with a qualified professional, which calls for authenticity and empathy to establish a sense of trust. The tactics used by “traditional” brands simply aren’t as impactful in the financial services space.

    Beyond that, social media compliance is complex. Without industry knowledge, it can be difficult for a marketing agency to navigate the nuances set by FINRA. Your fintech partner should fully appreciate the regulatory constraints and respect the concerns of your financial institution while still understanding how to drive real value with your social media strategy.

    However, according to Cornerstone’s “What’s Going On In Banking 2021” report, financial institutions aren’t having much success finding these qualified and attentive partners, noting that FI “boards will tire of not seeing results [from fintech partnerships]." Executives are relying on your expertise to identify fintech partners with a proven ability to collaborate and create solutions. And because boards may be wary of partners, you must be able to outline exactly how that partner will help you reach your goals. Help executives understand these benefits.

    • Customized onboarding.

    Denim Social customizes our onboarding process to meet your specific needs, so executives know they’re getting an experience tailor-made for the company. No questions are left unanswered — we walk alongside you to always offer an explanation. On top of that, our team will help you craft the communication necessary to get employees to use the platform. Emails, messaging, toolkits, and more are available to encourage adoption, so upper-level management knows they’re investing in a tool that will see widespread use.

    • Team training.

    Depending on your size and needs, we provide kickoff and regular training to help team members make the most of the platform so that decision makers can rest easy knowing our software isn’t being underutilized. We can also provide train-the-trainer sessions to move training internal, and our recently launched Academy can help marketers become certified on our platform.

    • Strategy consultation.

    Our customer success team can help you identify tactics to move the needle on your social media strategy. Just ask, and we’ll provide best practices and industry-relevant comparisons to inform your tactics and optimize your social selling implementation.

    • Content libraries.

    We work directly with your institution and UpContent to ensure you can create a customized content library that matches the specific needs of your business and your customers.

    In order to optimize a social media strategy, FI leaders and marketers must be able to sustain compliance at scale and understand social media measurement and analytics to see ROI. When you understand your metrics, you can bring that knowledge to decision makers, too. They’ll see the value you bring to the brand and associates (and match that value when it’s time to make budgets). Trusted fintech partners with dedicated customer success teams can help.

    Bottom line: Social media is hard, but marketers don’t have to do it alone. With Denim Social, they have dedicated team members they can call to help.

    Get in touch with us today to schedule a demo!

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    The effects of economic disruption and uncertainty have many families facing tough financial questions they are not sure how to answer. 

    Unfortunately, financial literacy rates remain startlingly low. A recent study showed three quarters of Americans say they do not feel confident about their personal finances. When a  another survey asked over 1,000 American adults who they turn to for trusted financial advice, almost 25 percent said they had no one to turn to. Providing financial education has always been a core purpose of banks, but the financial turmoil of recent years has made financial literacy even more important.

    Financial professionals have an obligation to educate their customers, and today, social media is one of the most effective ways to do so. Luckily, social media-driven education already aligns with consumer preferences:  Pew Research Center reports  that more than half of U.S. adults get their news from social media, and 79% Millennials or Gen Zers have gotten financial advice from social media.

    Many financial institutions are already capitalizing on this by using social media to connect with their customers and communities, but there’s still ample opportunity to provide financial education to current and prospective customers. Here are three tips:

    1. CURATE RELEVANT AND TRUSTWORTHY NEWS

    Social media is flooded with misinformation and misleading data, and your audience members know this. To become a trusted source, be highly selective in choosing accurate, useful and relevant news to post on your branded social media pages. You can take several steps to ensure that the information you share comes from trusted sources before distributing it to your followers.

    Established news organizations, such as CNBC and ABC News, seem easy enough to identify, but be wary of illegitimate sites trying to mimic them. The source’s domain and URL will help you identify whether the reference is credible. For instance, sites with URLs that end in “.com.co” might be cause for concern. If you’re still unsure, investigate the site further for more information. The “About” page should provide plenty of verifiable information about the organization’s staff and leadership team. If you’re still unsure, choose another source.

    It’s also important to be aware of news bias and how it impacts your ability to build a healthy news diet that protects your brand reputation. Seek out resources (like this one) that help visualize where certain media outlets fall on the political spectrum. Armed with this information, you can help your institution’s brand avoid bias. You can also be sure you’re not resharing information that’s deceiving, one-sided, or untrustworthy.

    2. EMPHASIZE YOUR TEAM’S THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

    Credible news updates draw in social media users searching for financial news, but rather than simply sharing links, weave in original insights to make the information more digestible and jargon-free. Remember: Your employees are financial experts, so empower them to share their knowledge through a strong social selling strategy.

    In doing so, you’ll not only educate your followers, but also humanize your brand and build trust with your audience. After all, people trust people more than brands, and research bears this out:  Nearly three-fourths  of social media users say they are more heavily persuaded by posts shared from employees rather than brand pages. Engage team members to share their knowledge in original content like blog posts, social media posts and short videos.

    3. BE ENGAGED

    Social media is a two-way communication channel. A survey by The Manifest revealed that  74 percent of consumers follow brands  on social media, and of that group, 96 percent said they directly interact with those brands. To make the most of your social media presence, your team needs to be engaged and respond to questions, comments and concerns in a timely manner. Stay connected with your followers and you’ll build stronger, more meaningful relationships within your community in the long term.

    Financial literacy is an acute need. By using social media to educate current and prospective customers, banks can improve financial literacy, be a good steward for their customers and serve as a trusted source of information.

    Connecting with customers and prospects on social media is a natural extension of the financial services industry becoming more digital. Consumers expect the businesses they patronize to be on the same social platforms they use — and they expect those brands to be ready to interact with them. Case in point: A survey of over 500 social media users found that nearly three-quarters follow organizations on social platforms, and the vast majority of them interact with those brands on social.

    Social media is the perfect tool for financial institutions to build brand awareness, meet the demand for greater digital engagement, recruit prospective customers, and drive referrals.

    While social media is a great way to connect with customers and prospects, it’s not without its risk. It’s essential to use social media tools that will keep your team in compliance. 

    1. START WITH A SOCIAL SELLING STRATEGY.

    There are few limits to how you can connect with customers and prospects on social media, but it needs to be about more than posts from a brand page. Direct messaging is always an option for private communication, but to reach more people at scale, social sellers (i.e., agents, loan officers, financial advisors, intermediaries, etc.) should also be posting original content, resharing educational articles, responding to comments and questions, and liking others’ posts. With so many options, it’s important for marketers to craft a social selling strategy that guides social sellers in their social interactions on behalf of the institution.

    A well-thought-out strategy can ensure effective social selling. For instance, rather than posting on channels at random and hoping for the best, social sellers can determine which social media platforms suit them best based on audience engagement and follower counts; then they can focus their efforts there. Consider also equipping intermediaries with a library of branded content they can mix in with their personal posts. This strategy will inform your all-important social media policy moving forward.

    2. TURN YOUR STRATEGY INTO A DETAILED POLICY.

    In a heavily regulated industry, it’s essential for firms to have a comprehensive social media policy. This is a package of brand messaging in a detailed policy to help ensure consistency when social sellers post on your behalf.

    Take the plan you mapped out in your strategy and turn it into a documented policy that intermediaries can access easily. Social media and the way people use it continues to evolve, which is why your social media policy should always be a work in progress. Make updates periodically to account for shifts in your approval workflow, changes in messaging, and general social media best practices. As social sellers become savvier, your policy will grow more detailed.

    3. MAKE TRAINING AN ONGOING EFFORT.

    Intermediaries who are new to social media will require initial training — but it shouldn’t be a one-and-done initiative. Hold regular social selling workshops to keep all social sellers up to date on your social media policy and messaging.

    You can also use workshop time to walk your team through any tools you invest in to fuel social media efforts. Denim Social, for example, offers live product demos you can share to show them how to use the technology and get the most benefit. 

    Demonstrate how the software streamlines the approval process for posts and automatically archives them for future reference. The more they know, the more comfortable they’ll be using such tools to facilitate social selling efforts. The great news is, our customer success team is here to help get your team trained and ready.

    Social media opens up a world of opportunity for financial institutions to reach and engage customers and prospects, but that doesn’t mean you should set your team free to do as they please. The right strategy and social media management software can make it a lot easier to avoid mistakes and create a successful social selling strategy. Want to see how Denim Social can help your team up their social media game? Schedule a demo today!

    If you didn’t want to believe it before, digital banking is here to stay. While most were on the path toward digital, COVID vastly accelerated digital adoption. That behavior is unlikely to change:  84 percent of banking customers polled said they plan to maintain the same level of digital banking services post-pandemic. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for traditional banks.

    The good news is that the key differentiating factor for traditional banks remains the same: human relationships with customers.

    The challenge is that maintaining strong relationships in a digital environment can be difficult for traditional banks. And without strong anchoring relationships, banks miss out on valuable cross-selling opportunities and lose customers to competitors that offer better digital services. Customer defection can be costly, as it’s five to 25 times more expensive to acquire than retain customers—but increasing customer retention rates by a mere 5 percent can boost profits by 25 to 95 percent.

    Banks that turn their focus toward strengthening digital customer experience can solidify relationships for the long term, secure more business with new and existing customers, and thrive well into the future.

    HOW TO CREATE AN EXCEPTIONAL DIGITAL CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

    Delivering high-quality digital experiences is two-fold challenge for banks. First, traditional banks tend to struggle to design meaningful and emotional experiences in digital ways. Second, they struggle to deliver those experiences impactfully due to internal and external digital transformation hurdles.

    With these two challenges in mind, bank marketers can lead their organizations to success by first focusing on their teams’ willingness to evolve and openness to the larger concepts of digital transformation. Without widespread buy-in, even a million of the fanciest bells and whistles on the market won’t help a bank evolve to meet and exceed consumers’ digital expectations.

    Marketers must ensure an overall understanding of these four digital transformation initiatives and how they can help improve digital customer experiences and strengthen human relationships:

    1. Continual tool improvement and refinement. Most financial institutions likely accelerated the pace of their digital transformations in recent years and they need to keep up the momentum. In fact, the primary goal behind digital transformation for 79 percent of respondents in one survey was to improve customer experience. You can’t improve experiences without continuous transformation efforts.

    Gather data to show how customers are using your digital tools and continually evaluate how to improve your tools to create better and better experiences. Seeking strong and strategic partnerships with fintech vendors is an excellent way to stay on top of the latest innovations in technology and continue providing the best digital services.

    2. Optimal onboarding. Your team and fintech partners might put a lot of time, money, and effort into building new and impressive digital widgets—but if your customers don’t know how to use them, they won’t bring any value. That’s why part of any bank’s digital transformation strategy should involve onboarding customers to ensure the adoption and use of new digital services.If new account openers don’t engage within the first month of opening an account, they likely never will. Encourage frequent and continued engagement by clearly demonstrating the value customers can find in your digital services and tools. Provide convenient and accessible customer support to keep the value stream flowing without interruption.

    3. Transferring relationships to digital. Preserving human connections in the virtual world can be a challenge for banks accustomed to old ways, but with the right approach, digitization can actually help banks build and maintain stronger relationships. That’s why 72 percent of business leaders who responded to Harvard Business Review Analytics Services researchers said they expected the digital shift to create closer relationships with customers.

    Take social media as one example. With an active social media strategy, loan officers can keep up with past customers and even get new prospects’ attention. And with the right social media management tools, marketers can help loan officers pull off social selling campaigns at scale. Ensure that customers also have a direct line to access employees who can facilitate customer service so that they always have a resource to answer questions and guide them along the digital journey without a hitch.

    4. Constant value with content and data. The more value a financial institution can offer, the less likely customer defection will be. Provide useful information to customers through frequent social media content, blog posts, landing pages and more. Use targeting strategies such as paid social media advertising and create personalized content based on data. The more relevant the information is to your customers’ specific needs, the more valuable it will be. Personalize landing pages and gate information behind contact submission forms. When visitors exchange their contact information for the content they need, you can reach out directly to primed leads to continue the conversation with human-to-human touchpoints.

    No matter the state of digital transformation, strong customer sentiment around digital banking is unlikely to wane. In fact, consumers are likely to expect better and better digital experiences from financial institutions as technology becomes an even bigger part of everyday life. Traditional banks that focus on creating exceptional digital customer experience based on human connection will thrive.

    This article was originally published on ABA Bank Marketing.

    Instagram stands out as the shining star of social media platforms. While Facebook still reigns supreme and TikTok grows, Instagram is quickly catching up fast with more than 2 billion users worldwide.

    With users under age 34 making up nearly 60 percent of this user population, financial services marketers looking to reach younger generations should take note. And with an estimated sum of $68 trillion in wealth expected to transfer from Baby Boomers to Millennials in the next couple of decades, Millennials are a worthwhile target.

    Studies predict that, after inheriting wealth, 80% or more young heirs will seek out a new financial advisor. Considering that 9 in 10 accounts follow at least one business on Instagram and 8 in 10 users find new products and services in the app, it’s a safe bet that Instagram will be a place to influence many Millennials. Wise financial services marketers will meet them where they are with strong Instagram marketing strategies, and the following tips can help:

    1. Focus on paid ads

    Instagram is a visual platform for sharing photos and videos, so it’s important for brand pages to populate their profiles with organic posts. While this presence is important, organic content isn’t what will move the needle on business goals. Financial services aren’t exactly visually interesting, and organic posts tend to have low reach as they only show up in the feeds of a brand’s current followers. Without the ability to include hyperlinks in captions, they also won’t drive any traffic back to your site. If you want to build the type of following needed to generate new business, including paid advertising in your Instagram marketing strategy is your ticket.

    With Instagram advertising, institutions and advisors can target ads to land with exactly the right audience — even outside their follower base — and include links in posts to drive more traffic to the brand. With a specific call to action that directs consumers to learn more about a topic, Instagram ads offer a straight-line path to giving customers the valuable information they desire — in their own time and at their own place. What’s more, Instagram advertising is seamlessly integrated directly into Instagram feeds and stories, creating a smoother user experience all around.

    2. Connect with consumers on a local level

    Instagram marketing on the corporate brand level is a great starting point, but advertising on behalf of your individual advisors can take your strategy to the next level. Think of it this way: If a consumer sees a well-known brand on social media, they might recognize the name, but they won’t feel an intrinsic connection beyond initial familiarity. In contrast, they’ll feel familiarity and an immediate connection when they see a post from an advisor in their own community. Consumers want to build relationships with brands, and a shared community is a great starting point.

    Of course, most advisors and other financial services employees are not experts on how to market the business on Instagram. And marketers know they must keep all social media marketing for their financial institutions compliant to avoid heavy regulatory reprimands. To keep posts compliant, save employees time, and help them build relationships with consumers in their physical communities, financial services marketers can set up and run ads on their behalf.


    3. Micro-target content to your audience

    As big-name brands like Amazon continue to elevate the digital customer experience with seamless customer service, purchasing, and delivery, customer expectations are higher than ever before. When customers evaluate a financial institution, they compare it not only to other organizations in the industry, but also to tech giants in any industry that give them exactly what they need when they need it.

    They expect a high level of personalization and convenience, and Instagram marketing with paid advertising can help you give it to them. Match basic behavioral and geographic data to potential customers on Instagram to target ads, and then track clicks, engagements, and post-click actions. These data points don’t indicate much on their own, but together they offer a rich story about what consumers want. Continually refine your strategy with these data points in mind to deliver the kind of highly personalized experiences your audiences want on Instagram.

    With a large Millennial user base that engages actively with brands online and the ability to target highly personalized ads to exactly the right audiences, Instagram is a must-have in any financial services marketing strategy. To learn more about how Instagram marketing can work to drive your business forward, download our guide to building stronger customer relationships on Instagram for free today.

    “If you build it, they will come.” 

    While this advice may work in fictional baseball movies, it’s a bad strategy for building your Facebook business page following. 

    Successfully growing your page likes and follows requires ongoing attention, but it pays off. 

    More followers indicates greater popularity and trust in your brand and also means more eyeballs on your content.

    Follow these tips to start growing your following today. 

    1. Share meaningful content. Before posting anything on your page, make sure it provides value to your audience. When you do this consistently, your existing followers will share it with their friends, attracting more followers. As you plan your content strategy, think about the topics you can speak to with authority. Then look for gaps in the content already being shared with your audience. Where these two intersect is a great place to focus your thought leadership efforts. 

    2. Be consistent. It goes without saying that consistency in voice, tone and style should be inherent in any marketing message. As you work to grow your Facebook page following, it’s also important to aim for consistency in when and how often you post content. When your content quality, quantity or schedule isn’t consistent, it can confuse your audience. Staying on a schedule will improve the experience you deliver and build your business’s credibility and reputation. Use a tool like Denim Social’s Analytics to test and monitor when engagement is at its highest, and design your content schedule accordingly.

    3. Invite friends. One of the quickest, most efficient ways to start driving awareness and growing your audience is to invite your friends to follow your page. Remember, your friends have friends, and they might be interested in following your business and your new page.

    4. Run ads. A surefire way to grow your following is to run Facebook ads. Ads are an effective tool for promoting your page, boosting your posts, getting more leads, increasing conversions and performing a number of other actions. Keep in mind, however, that it may not always be in your best interest to grow your following just for the sake of a bigger number. You want to attract people who are interested in your products and services (and, in turn, more likely to engage with your content). Using audience targeting strategies will help you reach the right consumer with the right message.

    A Facebook business page is an easy and effective way to grow your brand awareness and credibility. Although it’s not as simple as set-it-and-forget-it, if you follow the tips outlined above, you will be well on your way to growing your Facebook fan base. ‍If you need help engaging your audience on social media, get in touch with us today.

    Known as the professional social networking platform, LinkedIn is a powerful tool for social selling, allowing your team to foster strategic customer relationships and build credibility. An important part of your online brand, your LinkedIn profile is a key source of information for people looking to learn more about you.

    A strong LinkedIn profile creates opportunities for meaningful connections and interactions with other professionals. But how do you make LinkedIn a successful part of your marketing strategy? Well, for starters, you need to build trust. Use the following best practices to do just that.

    1.) Add professional profile and cover photos. According to LinkedIn, a professional headshot makes your profile 21x more likely to be viewed, and profiles with photos get a 40% better message response rate. For best results, upload JPEG or PNG images sized as follows:

    • Profile photo: 400x400 pixels
    • Cover photo: 1584x396 pixels

    Pro Tip: Bookmark our Up-to-Date Social Media Sizing & Resource Guide to optimize your images on every social media platform.

    2. Write a compelling headline and summary. Your headline and summary should clearly and succinctly state who you are and why someone should connect with you.

    • Headline: More than simply your job title, your headline should answer these two questions: 
    • Who do you help?
    • How do you help?
    • Summary: Use the following framework to write a compelling professional summary:
    • Paragraph 1: In three sentences or less, what is your value prop to your prospective customers? Reiterate your purpose from your headline.
    • Paragraph 2: In three sentences or less, how do you help customers achieve results?
    • Paragraph 3: In three sentences or less, what is your call-to-action for the prospective customer?

    Pro Tip: In your headline and summary, be sure to include keywords prospective customers might search for.

    3. Engage frequently and consistently. Every week, apply consistent effort to LinkedIn to build credibility and keep content relevant and valuable for customers. Below is checklist of activities we recommend performing on a weekly basis:

    • Post relevant content: Check your content library or search for trending topics in the LinkedIn search bar. You can find some great recent inspiration from others in your field.
    • Post/schedule content at the right time: Generally, the best time to post on LinkedIn is Tuesday through Thursday between 10 and 11 a.m. Content posted in the evenings and on weekends tends to get less engagement. Check out this guide in our Help Center for more information on when to post on various social media channels.
    • Seek recommendations from customers and share success stories: What’s better than telling your networks how great you are? Someone else saying it for you! Positive testimonials, endorsements and reviews go a long way in building your credibility.
    • Check likes, follows, shares, hashtags and comments. Be sure to engage and respond as appropriate. Set weekly or monthly goals for growth and track progress.
    • Grow your network: Join relevant groups in your industry to gain customer insights about needs and interests, follow influencers and connect with others.

    Pro tip: Add a 30-minute weekly recurring event on your calendar to go through the above checklist.

    LinkedIn should be an essential part of your team’s social selling strategy. Stay visible and build trust with consistency and an optimized profile. 
    Looking for a quick reference for all of this information? Check out this infographic.


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