Here are some guidelines to help you develop or improve your social media strategy:
- Create content that describes account services such as account security, financial planning and changes or improvements to existing products.
- Partner with bloggers, journalists or influencers to promote your brand on either your owned or third-party channels. Consumers seek out information about products and brands from other consumers; third-party news or bloggers can lend credibility to your brand simply because the content is authored by an outside party.
- Develop and promote materials that educate consumers on initiatives, thought leadership and educational resources. You can create this content, or it may even be third-party content. The goal is to gain engagement by sharing content that resonates with your customer or member base.
- Ensure your content is optimized for each channel. Marketing best practices vary from channel to channel, and a one size fits-all content creation approach is not effective. Be aware of these differences to make sure you are utilizing each channel to its full potential.
- Use consistent voice, tone and messaging across all communications and marketing. Social media presents a unique opportunity to build your brand’s persona because of the volume of content creation and the ability to create a personality behind the brand. Ensure that you are creating marketing assets in a consistent way across channels to differentiate your financial institution and its products from others.
- Drive positive conversations about your financial institution through proactive consumer outreach. You can drive positive social media engagement by responding to consumers comments or inquiries, offering insider access to the brand, creating live events with respected leaders, or requesting fans and followers to share their positive experiences.
Your social media strategy should be an integral component of your overall marketing and communication strategy. Harnessing the opportunity is not always easy, but, if done correctly, it can provide immense benefit to your brand.
Sources
1 9 Social Media Marketing Solutions for Banks and Credit Unions. The Financial Brand. March 2015.
2 Cardbeat U.S. Edition. Auriemma Consulting Group. Q1 2017.