Getting Started with Paid Social Media Advertising for Financial Institutions
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.
Getting Started with Paid Social Media Advertising for Financial Institutions

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.
Doug Wilber helps financial institutions communicate through social media.
Wilber is the CEO of Denim Social, a Clayton, Missouri-based company that can help life insurers, banks, wealth management firms and other highly regulated clients reach out with ordinary posts and ads on services such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.
The company has about 250 clients. In 2021, it attracted $5 million in financing from an investor group that included Fintop Capital.
Wilber has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a master’s degree in business from Penn State University.
He has been involved with financial services marketing and startup management since 2006, when he became a prepaid card marketer at Discover Financial Services. For about 10 years, he has served on the investment committee of SixThirty Ventures, a business development program for financial technology startups.
He took over as the top executive at Denim Social in April 2020.
Wilber answered questions via email about how he thinks financial professionals should go about creating, using and sharing social media content.
The interview has been condensed and edited.
THINKADVISOR: Can efforts to reach out through social media be compatible with all of the compliance concerns that financial professionals face?
DOUG WILBER: Social media compliance keeps people up at night for a reason, but it doesn’t have to.
The right social media management tools can help ensure any post — whether it’s directly from a financial professional or a partner — is compliant.
Look for tools that offer approval workflows and keyword red flags.
What do you think, generally, about financial professionals sharing the content used in consumer awareness and outreach campaigns?
Shared content strategies can be effective, but only if the content is useful and the financial professional is being authentic.
Social media is really about relationships, and that means financial professionals need to engage with their communities online.
If partner content educates investors and showcases an advisor’s expertise, that can be a nice addition to their social feed. But shared content shouldn’t be the only thing they are posting.
Ideally, their social posts would primarily be personal, authentic content, with a measured amount of promotional and partner content.
Just like in real life, advisors need to educate first and sell second.
Are there some situations in which using shared outreach content makes more sense than others?
Shared content can be useful for broader topics, like financial education or market updates.
Financial professionals should avoid using partner content as their sole content source, though. Social media should be an extension of a professional’s real-life relationships.
Think about it this way: If you wouldn’t have a solely promotional conversation in real life, you shouldn’t do it on social media either.
Is creating a post from scratch different from sharing someone else’s post?
Whether a financial professional is creating or sharing a post, they should consider themselves and their firm responsible for the content.
One financial professional’s social media can impact the entire firm brand, after all.
Social media compliance is complex and requires marketing, compliance, and individual advisors to work together.
While we recommend every advisor be active on social media to share thought leadership and amplify the brand, they definitely shouldn’t go it alone or execute a strategy by posting natively to social media networks.
A social media management tool built for compliance can ensure every new and shared post is reviewed and approved by the right experts.
How can financial professionals avoid complaints about use of other people’s content?
Whether it’s financial information or cat videos, it’s good social media etiquette to give credit to the original creator.
The greater risk is a financial professional posting misinformation that could damage the reputation of a firm or non-compliant content that draws the attention of regulators.
What should financial professionals do if they see standard, compliance-approved social media content and want to personalize it?
Financial professionals should definitely be personalizing content. This is a great way to make social media posts more authentic, but an approval workflow in a social media management tool is essential.
Once a financial professional personalizes a post, they can submit it for approval to ensure their commentary is factually correct and compliant.
Without the right tools, scaling a review and approval process is impractical (if not impossible) and opens up a financial institution to risk.
In your opinion, are there any drawbacks to financial professionals using packaged content from outside content? If so, how can financial professionals address those challenges?
Standard and packaged content can be a great tool, but it has to be personalized and useful to be effective. Think about the value a follower is getting from the post. It needs to matter to them.
Today’s financial professionals must be social selling, not just building the brand by sharing content.
Smart financial professionals are using social media 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.

Reality check: One-third of all internet users (102.4 million people!) find new products and brands through paid ads. That’s a big opportunity for marketers to reach prospects and customers. Paid social media advertising is a highly effective way to introduce people to financial institutions, loan officers, agents, and advisors. Today, organic social media only reaches 2.2% of a page’s followers, but paid social can make your social selling program even more effective by reaching larger, more tailored audiences.
We get it, launching a paid social media strategy can feel daunting, but Denim Social can help. Check out our guidebook, Getting Started with Paid Social Media Advertising for Financial Institutions, to learn how paid works and understand how to launch your own program. With the latest insights from Denim Social, you’ll be ready to supercharge your social selling program with paid social media advertising. Download 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: .
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.

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.
Click below to get started on your social selling journey:
How To Launch A Social Selling Program For A Financial Institution
Financial institutions often play it safe when it comes to marketing — and for good reason. They need to be certain they follow all compliance and governing regulations. But problems can also arise when firms play it too safe with their marketing mix and forgo largely effective modern tactics, such as paid social media advertising.
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.
Organic and paid social advertising work best in tandem. To ensure you're getting the most out of your social selling strategy, check out our Social Selling Playbook for Financial Marketers.
Marketing professionals understand the necessity of numbers. Click-to-open rates, qualified leads, and new customer acquisition are just a few metrics marketers are keen to monitor when launching a new marketing initiative. But measuring the success of any campaign always goes back to one thing: objectives. Your goals should give you a clearer understanding of what you are trying to achieve with a campaign — organic search, paid advertising, or otherwise. And how efficiently you hit your goals directly impacts the scalability of your social media efforts.
Depending on your goals, you’ll be looking at a select few metrics. The most common in marketing for financial institutions is often click-through rates. They almost always top the list because they represent the percentage of consumers who’ve clicked on an ad, opting into a next step. Engagement can also be of interest, as it tracks likes, shares, and comments on a post.
But keeping track of a few metrics doesn’t equate to a sound marketing strategy. In the digital age, financial institutions need to understand how to best use tactics specific to social media marketing. It’s not enough to see what’s working; those data insights must inform new iterations of content to increase reach and nurture leads. This is what creates a successful, scalable social media advertising strategy.
The question then is, which metrics make the most sense to follow for a social media advertising campaign for financial institutions? And how can you best collect data to scale marketing efforts and drive engagement between your financial institution and its customers? Below, we’ll cover how to start choosing the right metrics for your goals and scaling your marketing efforts based on the information available to you.
Choosing the Right Metrics for Your Goals
Your metrics should be your North Star key performance indicators of your goals. Always select these based on what your financial institution wants to achieve. Consider brand awareness: Reach will be a metric to track, as will likes and followers. If you’re running paid ads on social media, you want to capture the number of people who’ve been exposed to your messaging. You also want to track the number of people who’ve engaged with that ad and are looking for updates from your social media page. Make sure to benchmark these metrics regularly, and always consult them prior to running a new campaign.
If customer engagement is the goal for a social media ad campaign, you’ll also be monitoring likes in addition to shares, comments, and messages. Because social media is about being social, these metrics can tell you what resonates with a target audience and can help shape conversations with potential customers going forward.
Should conversion be an overarching goal, your attention would turn to clicks. Clicks show intent on the customer’s part to act. Depending on the content associated with those clicks, you can also understand what products or services are of interest to specific consumers. As with likes, shares, and comments, this information can inform your conversations with these prospects because it tells you what content they might need to receive in order to move further down the sales funnel.

How to Scale Your Marketing With the Right Data
Once you’ve settled on your goals and associated metrics, the task at hand becomes scaling your marketing efforts based on the information available to you. Though tactics will vary from one financial institution to the next, a few strategies almost always prove beneficial:
1. Use social listening to optimize in real time.
With digital interactions growing in importance, financial institutions must take greater care in the messaging and content of each exchange. It’s here where social media can be of real value, and integrating insights gathered from social chatter can help improve the performance of your next paid social media advertising campaign.
Let’s say your institution starts using social listening tools to understand what’s on the mind of prospects. That lets your team get a jump on the competition by posting social media content sooner when a trend emerges — even if it has nothing to do with paid online advertising. Social chatter also can be beneficial for budget planning and allocating spend on specific audiences and marketing activities with the greatest likelihood of engagement. If you were to run a social media ad campaign around 529 planning, for example, it wouldn’t resonate with audiences not intent on going to college.
Capturing and using social media data allows you to target your campaign in those areas of greater interest to consumers. That same information can also help decrease spend in areas where the message isn’t connecting.
2. Use social media data to inform your marketing content.
For many institutions, social media is a marketing dead end because they haven’t considered their audiences’ post-click experience. Your social media should connect to other customer acquisition tools such as landing pages, contact forms, guides, or a recent blog post so these resources can serve as next steps in the customer journey.
Knowing which content is interesting to your audience requires mining your social media data. Specifically, click-through data can tell you more about where to focus future paid advertising campaigns and content development efforts. If customers are spending their time with articles on loan options, down payments, or financial assessments, don’t spend money promoting an e-book on “living well in retirement” to them. Using data will increase the likelihood that your consumers continue through the consumer funnel.
3. Advocate for your paid ad budget with success data.
Justifying a marketing budget, let alone an increase in spend, can leave many marketers in a quandary. Even when you come in with a set of paid social media advertising goals tied to the overarching goals of the institution, buy-in isn’t a guarantee. Without the right metrics, changes to the budget will be difficult to implement.
According to Harvard Business Review, 41% of marketing budgets are based on the previous year, while only 10% are revisited quarterly. Employing the most current information available to shape marketing conversations will allow others in your company to see the value of your proposed ad spend plan, so it’s important to use your social media data judiciously.
4. Invest in marketing tools.
Marketing tools are now becoming a dime a dozen. If you hope to access and use the data available from social media, selection is critical. Choose one designed for your industry, making sure that it can measure organic activities and paid online advertising initiatives.
Denim Social offers a solution. Our platform, services, and analytics features were built specifically with regulated institutions in mind. Real-time analytics are compiled from user data across several social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), offering not only actionable insights on target audiences but a greater understanding of the effectiveness of current social media ad campaigns.
Make messaging or content adjustments immediately if need be — or simply use the analytics to inform the direction of future campaigns. Should the leadership team call for an update, presentation-ready reports are just a few clicks away.
Social media and paid social media advertising campaigns provide an opportunity to get to know potential customers but will be ineffective without the proper strategy. It’s all about capturing and tracking the right data to inform the direction of each interaction along the path to purchase. Your institution will be better off, and so will your customers.
It takes a lot of data to craft a top-tier social media strategy. That’s why Denim Social is here to help. Reach out for your personalized platform demo today.
Connect & Convert on Social
Getting Started with Paid Social Media Advertising for Financial Institutions
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.
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.
Find out how more than 400 financial institutions across asset classes, geographies, and more used social media in 2020 to effectively support their business objectives. We’ve also outlined key trends to inform your social media future.
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!
Download this guidebook to learn how marketers are using social media to:
- Drive business with the lowest digital spend compared to traditional media
- Position employees as thought-leaders while leveraging their collective reach of their social media presence
- Ultimately, build trust with their communities and customers that translates to positive business results
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.
Download this guidebook to learn how marketers are using social media to:
- Drive business with the lowest digital spend compared to traditional media
- Position employees as thought-leaders while leveraging their collective reach of their social media presence
- Ultimately, build trust with their communities and customers that translates to positive business results
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!
Download this guidebook to learn how marketers are using social media to:
- Drive business with the lowest digital spend compared to traditional media
- Position employees as thought-leaders while leveraging their collective reach of their social media presence
- Ultimately, build trust with their communities and customers that translates to positive business results
ABA Study: The Current State of Social Media
See what nearly 430 bank marketers had to say when asked questions such as:
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.
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.
Getting Started with Paid Social Media Advertising for Financial Institutions
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.
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.
Find out how more than 400 financial institutions across asset classes, geographies, and more used social media in 2020 to effectively support their business objectives. We’ve also outlined key trends to inform your social media future.
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!
Download this guidebook to learn how marketers are using social media to:
- Drive business with the lowest digital spend compared to traditional media
- Position employees as thought-leaders while leveraging their collective reach of their social media presence
- Ultimately, build trust with their communities and customers that translates to positive business results
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.
Download this guidebook to learn how marketers are using social media to:
- Drive business with the lowest digital spend compared to traditional media
- Position employees as thought-leaders while leveraging their collective reach of their social media presence
- Ultimately, build trust with their communities and customers that translates to positive business results
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!
Download this guidebook to learn how marketers are using social media to:
- Drive business with the lowest digital spend compared to traditional media
- Position employees as thought-leaders while leveraging their collective reach of their social media presence
- Ultimately, build trust with their communities and customers that translates to positive business results
ABA Study: The Current State of Social Media
See what nearly 430 bank marketers had to say when asked questions such as:
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.
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.
Getting Started with Paid Social Media Advertising for Financial Institutions
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.
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.
Find out how more than 400 financial institutions across asset classes, geographies, and more used social media in 2020 to effectively support their business objectives. We’ve also outlined key trends to inform your social media future.
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!
Download this guidebook to learn how marketers are using social media to:
- Drive business with the lowest digital spend compared to traditional media
- Position employees as thought-leaders while leveraging their collective reach of their social media presence
- Ultimately, build trust with their communities and customers that translates to positive business results
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.
Download this guidebook to learn how marketers are using social media to:
- Drive business with the lowest digital spend compared to traditional media
- Position employees as thought-leaders while leveraging their collective reach of their social media presence
- Ultimately, build trust with their communities and customers that translates to positive business results
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!
Download this guidebook to learn how marketers are using social media to:
- Drive business with the lowest digital spend compared to traditional media
- Position employees as thought-leaders while leveraging their collective reach of their social media presence
- Ultimately, build trust with their communities and customers that translates to positive business results
ABA Study: The Current State of Social Media
See what nearly 430 bank marketers had to say when asked questions such as:
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.
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.
Getting Started with Paid Social Media Advertising for Financial Institutions
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.
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.
Find out how more than 400 financial institutions across asset classes, geographies, and more used social media in 2020 to effectively support their business objectives. We’ve also outlined key trends to inform your social media future.
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!
Download this guidebook to learn how marketers are using social media to:
- Drive business with the lowest digital spend compared to traditional media
- Position employees as thought-leaders while leveraging their collective reach of their social media presence
- Ultimately, build trust with their communities and customers that translates to positive business results
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.
Download this guidebook to learn how marketers are using social media to:
- Drive business with the lowest digital spend compared to traditional media
- Position employees as thought-leaders while leveraging their collective reach of their social media presence
- Ultimately, build trust with their communities and customers that translates to positive business results
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!
Download this guidebook to learn how marketers are using social media to:
- Drive business with the lowest digital spend compared to traditional media
- Position employees as thought-leaders while leveraging their collective reach of their social media presence
- Ultimately, build trust with their communities and customers that translates to positive business results
ABA Study: The Current State of Social Media
See what nearly 430 bank marketers had to say when asked questions such as:
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.
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.
Getting Started with Paid Social Media Advertising for Financial Institutions

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.
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
Connect & Convert on Social
Getting Started with Paid Social Media Advertising for Financial Institutions

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.
With inflation still looming, clients and prospects remain cautious about spending and investments. This is especially evident in how today’s investors choose which financial advisors to work with (and how your brand acquires new prospects). As clients’ financials become even more vulnerable during market volatility, they need to know that their financial advisors are ready to build plans to help them meet their financial goals.
Current and potential investors are looking for trustworthy advice—and building strong relationships is key to that. To truly cultivate financial advisor and client relationships that will lead to client acquisition and retention, bank financial advisors can be very effective through social selling.
The importance of social selling for financial advisors
Social selling is precisely 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 clients and ultimately build trust and rapport that will eventually lead to more accounts opened.
It’s understandable that people might feel afraid and confused during market volatility, which is what makes social selling a critical trust-building opportunity. With social selling, financial advisors meet investors online in meaningful ways.
Marketers now recognize the modern power of social media, and in today’s market your financial advisors can use social to reassure clients. When 73 percent of clients who work with financial advisors feel more prepared for a recession, it’s essential that financial brands proactively discuss the value of advice. But to do that successfully, advisors need to be at the center of the conversation.
However, a social media brand presence does not equal a solid social selling strategy. You need your advisors to meet prospects throughout the buying journey, which requires investing in comprehensive social selling campaigns to connect with investors and build trust. When deciding who handles their investments, people don’t choose institutions; they choose people. So, help your advisors build those relationships online.
How to build trust with potential clients using social selling
This should go without saying, but prospective clients are already getting financial advice on social media. In fact, Gen Z is five times more likely to get financial advice on social media channels than people age 41 and over.
To stay visible and competitive, your brand’s financial advisors can use social selling to become financial micro-influencers in their local communities. At its core, social selling is about the human element of one person’s relationship with another. Not just client to bank.
Here are four ways to empower financial advisors to build impactful relationships with clients and new prospects:
1. Post consistently
If an advisor is new to using social selling, don’t worry. The first key to using social media to build trust and relationships is simple: consistency. Advisors should post often to stay top-of-mind with investors and build algorithmic preference. Consistency ensures that advisors are providing value to clients and prospects on a regular basis.
And remember, every post counts. Not every post will get the engagement marketers hope for (or even the same amount), but each post should feel intentional and authentic to the advisors publishing it. Also, when your advisors post, they need to make sure there is a goal and specific audience for each one.
2. Upload quality content to favor the algorithm
Consistent posts are crucial, but you also have to ensure that advisors are posting high-quality content. One hot tip is to include a video or image (social media posts with images tend to garner more engagement). Also schedule posts for the ideal time for target audiences. After all, it doesn’t matter how great a post looks if no one sees it.
Marketing teams can also help intermediaries craft copy that opens the door to conversations with their audiences, such as asking open-ended questions, soliciting responses, or featuring polls that can be answered on the spot. Social posts are at the top of any new client’s journey, so helping your social sellers craft posts with interactive elements will lead to more engagement and conversions.
3. Source content from trusted third parties
To facilitate advisors’ trust-building with clients and prospects, it is critical to ensure they only share information from credible third-party sources. There’s a lot of bad financial advice and misinformation out there. If the audience suspects that an advisor is full of baloney, the brand risks losing a lot of trust.
Social content libraries can help ensure social sellers have access to trustworthy, fact-checked third-party content. It’s essential that financial advisors add personal commentary to make third-party content more authentic and personable.
4. Encourage authenticity
It seems simple to say, but trust hinges on authentic relationships. Today’s investors want to work with real people who connect with them on a human level. That’s why it’s so important to instruct and encourage advisors to be themselves when social selling. Suggest that they put some of their personality into their social selling posts, talk about things that are important to them, or ask their networks questions. (If this keeps you up at night from a risk perspective, know that approval tools can help ensure compliance.)
When people interact with your advisors through social selling, they’ll see how much reliable value those advisors provide to their lives and will be more likely to trust your brand with their livelihoods. Authenticity is even more crucial when it comes to attracting prospects at the top of the funnel who haven’t gotten the chance to meet (and befriend) advisors yet.
While the current economic climate poses many potential challenges, remember that gaining and keeping investors’ trust is the key to acquiring and retaining clients (even in tough times). Lean on social selling to tell the bank brand’s story, build thought leadership online for intermediaries, and gain more followers who convert into new clients. Let them get to know your institution and your intermediaries, and they’ll want to work with you, too.
*This article was originally published in ABA Banking Journal.

There’s no doubt about it: Firms that prioritize digital connections with clients are the ones who will succeed in the future.
I was thrilled to speak at this year’s SIFMA Social Media & Digital Marketing Seminar. From compliance pros to financial advisors, we were all there to learn more about digital transformation and what’s next for the client experience. I was there to speak, sure, but I most enjoyed listening to how financial services leaders are navigating the real-world digital challenges and building strategies that enable their institutions to thrive. The common thread in every discussion was there – relationships will always be the top priority for firms and advisors.
Here are a few other key trends I saw emerge from the discussions:
- Social media is an integral part of digital transformation. As the industry undergoes massive digital transformation, social media will continue to play an important role in the client experience. For industries that go to market through intermediaries, it’s an essential communications channel. Helping your team understand the importance of social media and its value in creating real business results should be a pillar in a more robust digital transformation. .
- Education and training are necessary for advisor success. While most financial advisors see the power of social, they need support from marketing teams to be successful. From content resources to functional training, advisors are hungry for marketing guidance to optimize their strategies.
- Compliance and marketing have to work together. Teams need to work for, not against, one another in order to be successful in any social media or digital marketing strategy. There will always be risk for financial services providers sharing information online, but with a coordinated approach, marketers can be confident that anything being shared is approved.
The future of the industry is bright and digital transformation offers the opportunity to reach even more potential clients. Marketers can use the power of social media to support advisors and provide clients an experience that converts. Denim Social can help institutions with tools and resources to make building those meaningful relationships easy. See how social selling works in our Social Selling Guidebook for Financial Institutions.

Personalization isn’t new to marketing. The process of connecting with customers has been moving in that direction for years, and for good reason. One survey found that 80% of respondents would be more likely to do business with companies that offered personalized experiences. But it seems many financial institutions haven’t yet gotten the news.
If you dig through the numbers, you’ll find that personalization applies to the financial industry. In fact, 72% of consumers rate personalization as highly important in finance. They value text alerts, customized tasks and opportunities to transact more efficiently. They also want digitally driven features that save them time with routine tasks and the ability to track multiple accounts using a single dashboard.
Financial marketers’ job is figuring out how to use personalization to gain (and retain) customers — and how to get leadership to buy in. It’s an easy sell: Personalization enhances the customer experience and also helps teams use social media marketing budgets more efficiently.
But financial marketers are often up against a knowledge gap. Senior management doesn’t always understand a digital-first strategy focused on personalization. Financial institutions historically aren’t known to be early adopters or quick to change, which can leave marketers spending years advocating for updates.
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:
Target the right people: 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 would be open to highly personalized tactics such as social selling, which puts employees and producers on the frontlines to build relationships for the brand.
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 bank reputation and online presence when deciding among 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.
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 powerful for attracting new customers. But it’s important to understand whether your customers want to talk to your brand. Your audience is likely more comfortable engaging with brand intermediaries instead; people buy from other people.
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. Social media is thick with prospects, as 54% today use social networks to conduct product research. Your team can capture prospects where they are with the right strategies, processes and technology.
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, meaning you should 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.
Personalized relationships matter, and it’s time to make the case for an expanded marketing budget to support better personalization. With any marketing strategy, you want to approach the right audience with the right message at the right time. Then, with funds secured, your team can get to the exciting part: attracting prospects with education, keeping customers engaged with personalized messaging, and driving bottom-line impacts.
*This article was originally published in BAI.

With a less than rosy outlook, it’s essential that every mortgage loan officer maintain an edge on the competition. The marketing tactics of the past may not be successful when there are fewer buyers in the pool of prospects. Now is the time to be more strategic and paid social advertising can help loan officers make the most of every marketing penny.
One-third of internet users find new products and brands through paid ads. That’s a lot of opportunity. Paid social is one of the most effective ways to introduce people who aren’t yet following your loan officers to your financial institution at the right place and the right time.
Let’s start with some good news. Although paid social media may feel intimating, if you’re already doing organic social media, you’re off to a great start. But if you’re not using paid social advertising, you’re missing out. Here are three reasons to add it to your marketing strategy:
1. Understand what’s working in social media
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 and make improvements for the future. A/B testing helps you isolate what elements of your ads need to change by showing what resonates and what doesn’t. This means you’ll never waste a dollar on the wrong creative or message.
Think about it this way, does a billboard ever provide performance data? Didn’t think so.
Further, paid social media insights can even be applied to your organic social media strategy. Did a paid post have unexpectedly high engagement? Use it as a blueprint to try to isolate why. As you see what’s performing, invest more dollars into posts that convert while cutting or changing content that doesn’t.
2. Reach new audiences
Another reason paid social is so important is that organic content only reaches an average of 2.2% of followers of social media platforms. But this doesn’t mean it’s time to ditch organic social media and put all your eggs in the paid basket.
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.
Both organic and paid social media can help increase your reach on social media, and it starts with activating loan officers. A social selling approach can increase your results tenfold and drive higher engagement. Paid social then supercharges your social strategy and helps you reach new prospects.
Complementary paid advertising, breaks through a loan officer’s first-degree social connections to reach second- and third-degree connections, who will include important professional referral sources.
3. Drive leads into conversions.
Don’t let your marketing funnel lead to dead ends. Make sure loan officers are linking back to a website or other relevant brand content. Paid social media ads can generate leads by offering call-to-action options that get attention and clicks.
With the right technology, clicks on social media ads can trigger a loan officer’s CRM. That’s warm leads in their inbox.
With spring buying season on the horizon, now’s the right time to start formulating a plan to differentiate. Paid social media advertising can give loan officers a leg up on the competition. Ready to learn how to start? Check out Denim Social’s guidebook, Getting Started with Paid Social Media Advertising for Financial Institutions.
*This article was originally published in MBA Newslink.

People buy from people. It’s an old adage in business that still holds true today: Trust and relationships are the bedrock of insurance. A deeper agent-customer relationship means more products sold over a longer period. It’s crucial to understand that trust extends to the world of digital, especially social media.
In today’s environment, it’s not enough to release content from your carrier’s social accounts and hope that consumers will connect with it. Your strategy needs to include agents, the advisors building customer relationships in their communities. Enabling agents to leverage social media to engage and form bonds with existing and potential customers opens the door to agent-centered digital sales. As part of a bigger digital strategy, a social selling program for intermediaries helps establish their presence within the digital landscape, showcasing thought leadership, building relationships, and ultimately growing business.
Why Is Social Selling Important for Building Trust in Insurance?
As digitization continues to be a hot topic, one thing has remained steady: the agent’s role. Although many customers are accustomed to buying auto coverage online, for example, that isn’t the case as their needs mature. Just because a customer is digital-first doesn’t mean they don’t want human guidance, especially when protecting their futures.
Social selling is a powerful addition to an agent’s toolbox (and your marketing toolbox!). After all, most consumers spend roughly two and a half hours online daily. So, agents who engage their online networks through social media are more likely to expand their prospect and customer relationships.
However, it’s not enough to show up in digital spaces. “Being there” is a great first step but doesn’t ramp up trust-building in a systematic, measurable way. Instead, you need to establish digital marketing strategies that lean on social media and social selling as powerful sales tools (which they are!).
Here are some key steps:
1. Identify your agents’ social maturity.
There will always be varying levels of social media experience from the agent perspective. From naysayers to dabblers to experts, evaluating and segmenting your agent group is critical before constructing a social selling program.
The agents most comfortable and active on social media often become early adopters and champions of internal social selling programs and digital marketing strategies. With some education and profile optimization, this elite team is an incredible tool for securing more buy-in. Getting them started on social selling before their peers allows them to gain experience with the process, build interest, and better advocate for the strategy.
2. Educate agents on the value of social media as a sales tool.
Agents might assume that because they have social accounts for their business, they must be social selling. They’re not. Social selling is much more than “keeping up” a social media account. It’s consistently posting organic content, strategically weaving in paid advertising, and engaging with an audience. Just like in-person relationship building, the value comes in the conversations and connections. Agents should continually engage and turn those conversations into digital-first relationships to grow their business.
It’s worth the effort to teach your agents about the unique benefits social selling can bring to their roles. Patience and demonstrating value are key. One way to demonstrate that value is by sharing a striking social selling statistic: 80% of salespeople who hit at least 150% of their goals say they’ve leveraged technology consistently to connect with consumers. That statistic is hard for ambitious, high-performing agents to ignore. More agents will be willing to get on board with social selling when they believe it can directly affect their paycheck, promotions, and commissions. (And it can!)
3. Invest in a comprehensive social selling platform.
Social selling at scale can seem overwhelming for even the most seasoned leaders. Understanding that not all social media management tools are created equal is the best place to start. Finding a platform dedicated to social selling, especially one that’s industry-specific, is key.
A solid social selling tool should do several things. It should enable a small and mighty team of marketers to manage a robust content library, analyze the broader story of the value of agent social selling, and monitor and archive from a compliance and regulatory perspective. Most of all, it needs to be easy for agents to use.
After choosing a social selling platform that does all these things, it’s good to run some test drives with your expert social media users (the agents who were first identified as being active on social media). Beginning with a concentrated group of agents allows everyone involved to learn the social selling tool’s nuances before scaling. After the initial user group is up and running, it’s easy to fold more agents into the process.
4. Collect data and optimize over time.
Getting your agents to believe in social media as a powerful relationship-building tool is the foundation of any successful social selling program. Building a content library to help position them as thought leaders within their social networks is the next layer. Once agents have adopted the concept of social selling and are posting regularly, you can establish benchmarks for what social selling means for your organization.
It’s important to track social selling like any other marketing or sales program. You can set general KPIs to start, such as agent adoption, basic content usage, and engagement. More KPIs can be added to the mix later, such as return on ad spend and leads generated.
Finally, it’s essential to make sure agents know social selling is a slow-and-steady process. The power of social selling grows over time — the way trust and good relationships do. When done correctly and patiently, it can move the sales needle in trackable ways.
Whether in person or online, consumers will always value the guidance of a trusted advisor. Building that trust and providing value through an effective social selling strategy with the above steps is crucial to establishing your agents’ positions within the digital landscape. Some things change in business, but others never do: “People buy from people” will always be true.
*This article was originally published in Digital Insurance.

Denim Social has been named to the HousingWire 2023 Tech100 list for mortgage. The exclusive list of honorees recognizes the most innovative technology in the mortgage industry.
The Tech100 program provides housing professionals with a comprehensive list of the most innovative and impactful organizations. The list can be leveraged to identify partners and solutions to the challenges that mortgage lenders and real estate professionals face every day.
“In a competitive environment, every edge matters for mortgage loan officers,” said Doug Wilber, CEO at Denim Social. “A social selling program managed with our platform empowers mortgage loan officers to use social media to reach prospects, build relationships and close more deals.”
This is Denim Social’s first appearance on the HousingWire list. The platform is used by more than 250 institutions in mortgage, banking, wealth management and insurance.
To learn more about how Denim Social can help mortgage loan officers activate social selling, read our guidebook, Helping Mortgage Loan Officers Achieve Success with Social Media Marketing.

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