When effectively implemented and understood, digital financial services can highly benefit from social media trends. It might seem weird to focus on social media strategy for brokerages or mortgage providers, yet, companies who do so influence spending trends and more.
The role of social media in this economic sector is changing as platforms evolve and enable people and communities to connect in various ways.
Social media marketing for financial institutions has quickly evolved from a purely social tool to an essential solution for providing customised customer experiences for consumers and building customer relationships. This computer-based technology allows credit unions, banks and more to reach their customers through advertising, targeting, customer experience, etc., using platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and more.
These are some of the financial institutions that are exploiting social media trends for their benefit:
- Banks
- Brokerage
- Credit unions
- Credit card companies
- Insurance companies
- Mortgage providers
- Accounting and tax advisory firms.
It’s a growing trend and is getting more complex as technologies develop. Keep reading if you want to learn more about how financial institutions take advantage of social media.
How to increase customer touchpoints
Financial institutions, especially banks, have traditionally struggled to make consumer connections because the interactions and relationships occurred only when necessary and never out of nowhere. Nowadays, social media increases touchpoints, allowing customers to interact with their banks on a monthly or even daily basis.
Furthermore, banks can create genuine relationships with the audience through branding, value-added content, and customer satisfaction. They can provide value to customers while driving customer loyalty and retention by sharing live webinars on savings and debt consolidation.
Similarly, they can facilitate banking through social media and cultivate stronger relationships at a lower cost by responding to social media chat as customer service. Social media marketing for banks shifts the focus to the consumer rather than product, allowing parts to learn who they are and how they can benefit from each other before a need arises.
How to conduct market research
Financial institutions can take advantage of social media to conduct deep market research. This means they observe consumer behaviours, understand their expectations and requirements, and look for further ways to respond to their needs.
Market research is paramount in any industry because it can help institutions understand how preferences change. If companies’ smart techniques attract you, you can learn more about this topic to educate yourself economically. What’s certain is that financial services brands can benefit from companies that help businesses conduct deep market research to deliver intelligent products. Such agencies advise more than businesses in the financial industry, with examples like organisations in the retail, travel, fashion, charity and the like industries.
Financial services, thus, can work with agencies to bring customer personas to life, learn more about customer motivations and profiles, and create and implement a custom customer segmentation strategy that helps them align their services with actual customer requirements. To understand the audience, more types of research must be conducted, including:
- Thought leadership research
- Brand positioning research
- Loyalty market research
- Product and service development.
How to generate leads
How can banks attract prospects to their business through social media? Well, there are plenty of ways they do that besides video marketing:
- Blogs
- E-mails
- Voice-overs
- Advertisements
- Limited-time offers
- Personalised solutions through chatbots.
Banking websites have internet marketing campaigns in place, SEO and PPC campaigns, social media presence or any combination of strategies. After all, banking is a competitive industry. However, video marketing remains one of the most effective methods to reach out to consumers.
Video has entered the marketing scene and shows no signs of going away. One reason for its astounding success is that viewers retain 95% of a message when watching a video, compared to only 10% when reading it in text form. As a result, marketers in every industry have turned to video to engage and connect with their audiences, which works.
How to take advantage of video marketing
The average website user spends 88% more time on a page with videos, and banks use this method to double the visitors’ dwell time. Video banking can speed up the sales cycle as it’s more straightforward and because visual aids like co-browsing and screen sharing make complex topics easier to explain.
Video banking is personal and compared to chat or phone contact, they can increase more sales conversions. This way, advisors grasp consumers’ needs and signal opportunities for upselling or cross-selling.
Here are some examples of use cases for video banking:
- Insurance
- Investments
- Retail banking
- Private banking
- Business Banking
- Customer service.
How to use emotional targeting
Customers switch banks for a variety of reasons, including emotions. While this is frequently expressed as anger or irritation with customer service, being able to connect with the audience’s emotions can give banks an advantage over their competitors. Financial institutions continuously learn how to communicate with them and emphasise that they’re there to help them in times of need at little cost.
It’s easy to build emotional connections to finance through such a powerful tool as social media because financial decisions are frequently motivated by emotions. Mortgages and loans, for example, can be linked to positive events such as purchasing a new home or car, while savings accounts can be linked to family, retirement or children. Social media also enables financial services companies to more precisely target audience through the following techniques:
– Twitter. This application is a go-to for banks who share timely bank updates and is an efficient way to provide customer service.
– LinkedIn. This platform allows banks to connect and reach out to business owners and companies.
– Instagram. This is a good tool for banks to show their human side and raise brand awareness.
– Snapchat or TikTok. Here, banks seek to reach a younger audience.
Conclusion
Banks use social media to inform potential customers about their services and products. However, you shouldn’t fall into the trap of overspending just because you can access money quickly. Never sign documents before analysing thoroughly and understanding what you’re getting into—borrowing from banks and from whoever else should be treated with common sense and lucidity.
