Social media for financial services has revolutionised and modernised the way many now digest financial advice.
Social media platforms, from Facebook to TikTok, have made it easier than ever to share financial content – and advisers around the world have taken advantage of it.
We want to explore best practices for social media for financial services.
The transition to social media in many sectors was slower than expected – especially in financial services.
Although many companies in this sector have now understood the importance of social media marketing and have started their social networking journeys.
But how can the financial sector make social media work for them in today’s world?
We’re here to talk about that, and have prepared this guide to assist you.
Why Social Media for Financial Services is so Important?
One word – trust.
Building trust is a key component of digital marketing for financial services.
Prospects in financial services may find it more difficult to decide on the right path when they enter the sales funnel.
Before spending their hard-earned money, they want to ensure that the brand they trust is legitimate.
Social media is often the first place these consumers will find information about your company.
You can lose them immediately if you have poor social media presence or none at all.
A lack of social media presence can make you appear mysterious, inept, or at worst inaccessible.
Once you have a few followers and are up and running, social media allows you to consistently present your brand identity and communicate with them around the world.
It is an effective way to maintain the trust of your clients and prospects by communicating with them via social media.
Social Media for Financial Services
The field of digital marketing for finance is rapidly growing.
Financial firms spend more money on social media now than ever before.
70% of this amount would go to mobile advertising, an increase of 13% at $13.9 billion.
Financial services are now the second largest consumer of digital advertising.
This figure is expected to increase as more companies take advantage of social networking and their advertising opportunities.
It is clear that digital marketing is now an integral part of the financial services industry.
Many companies believe that social media can be a great way to show prospects and clients confidence beyond advertising materials.
Regulators in the financial sector have limited social media tools in the past.
Although many are now aware of the benefits of individual social media platforms.
With more than 3.5 billion users, Instagram and Facebook are the most used platforms.
While Twitter, Youtube and LinkedIn may not have quite as much reach, financial companies are discovering they are just as effective in marketing their brands.
It is crucial that you understand which platform works best for your specific content and topics.
This greatly increases your chances of developing a successful marketing or branding strategy.
The Key Benefits Of Social Media for Financial Services
Brand Awareness
Although brand awareness and brand visibility can be a marketing buzzword, they are crucial.
Brand visibility is one of the most effective ways to generate more business, as your target audience subconsciously begins to view your brand as familiar and, in turn, trustworthy.
Enhance Customer Service
Social media is more than just a marketing tool.
It can also be used to expand your customer service.
While entertaining and informative content is important, users now want quick and helpful responses online.
Social media can be used to keep clients informed, without having to always speak one on one.
Online chat is the second preferred method of customer support.
Financial service providers, however, are behind in providing chat support on their websites.
Instant messages are now available on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
This can be an alternative to setting up chat functions on your website, although we strongly recommend that too!
Simple communication channels and strong customer engagement can have a super positive effect on client growth.
It also allows clients to build loyalty, and prospects in the discovery or research phase, to seek your guidance to help them move closer to committing.
Humanise Your Brand
Being human in the financial services sector is crucial.
Clients can find it confusing and overwhelming to discuss their wealth.
This is because the financial services industry is full of regulations, jargon and legislation.
Fintech has taken financial services to new digital heights by automating so many operations and processes.
While Fintech has changed the landscape of finance in many ways for the better. It has also replaced many branches, desktops, and friendly faces with AI and robots.
Clients still need to feel comfortable with their advisory firm, and this can be difficult with technology alone.
While younger generations may feel comfortable with robots, many people prefer to talk to people, not brands.
The same goes for social media.
Social media can give your brand a humanised identity.
Social media allows you to connect more personally with your audience, which opens up the possibility of two-way communication.
Target Audience Research
Most social media accounts allow you to see which demographic groups are most interested in your content. This is valuable information that can be used to create marketing campaigns for your products and services.
You should also add your Google Analytics account to your social media marketing platform, so that your research is centralised.
This data can be used to capture the ROI of social media, but also for future content and services that could generate more business.
How To Utilise Social Media In Financial Services
Be Aware of the Challenges
Financial services are one of the world’s most tightly regulated industries.
Companies that want to embrace the digital revolution must ensure that their posts meet all legal requirements.
To ensure compliant content, it is important to keep up to date with all the latest news about changes to regulatory law.
Employees responsible for managing social media content could benefit from additional training.
Alternatively, it is always a good idea to work with an industry-specific agency, such as Opulent Media Group, who are fully aware of the compliance hurdles that need to be lifted.
Provide Value
More than 75% of millennials use social media to make purchasing decisions.
The most important factor in making these purchases is the perceived value and products of your company, even if you are not in visual industries, such as financial services.
You can build a relationship with your clients by providing them with free value-adding content and information.
This builds trust in your company, which can lead to more sales.
Social Media Graphics Are Crucial
The way you visually present your brand on social media can make or break a person’s perception of you and your values.
It is important to have the right graphics for your posts on social media.
It’s also the user’s first impression of you.
Within five seconds of landing on your social network feed, they will decide if your profile is worth following.
Make sure your feed looks professional to make a positive first impression.
What visuals could you use? Is the imagery on brand? Of good quality? Professional and understandable? Consistent?
It’s a smart idea to use real-life images of people in your social media graphics for financial services.
After all, you build trust and familiarity by letting customers see themselves in your content.
It is a way to strengthen the person you want to reach with your products or services, be it families, young professionals, retirees or a mixture of all of them.
Stick to the style that works best for your business.
Consistency is the key, as they say.
Avoid using different styles and colours in your social media visuals.
Your social media visuals should look the same as your letterheads and business cards.
Stick to your brand guidelines, and if you don’t have any, why?!?!
If you run your business professionally, your social media should reflect this.
Mixed messages can make it look like you don’t believe in your brand and have no identity.
Visually strong companies reflect your personality and help you connect with prospects and clients.
When someone scrolls through their social media feed, you want your content to be identifiable as yours within seconds.
How To Use Each Social Platform
Let’s discuss the roles each platform plays in businesses…
Facebook for Financial Services
Facebook is the most widely used social media platform, with over 2.91 billion active users.
This platform is also important for financial companies.
More than 90 million small businesses are using it.
A large proportion of your potential financial audience is on Facebook, even if you are not specifically targeting Gen-Z.
This is because it is the best place to reach millennials, Gen X and baby boomers.
Facebook is one of the oldest social networks still going strong.
However, it offers many advantages, and you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get the best out of it.
Facebook Business Manager is a tool that allows you to manage your business on Facebook.
The toolbox allows you to manage your business from a central location, without having to log in to your profile.
You can track and manage your ads and assets, such as multiple pages or ad accounts.
You can even add business partners or an agency to help you run your business.
You can also manage your ads on other meta-owned social media platforms, such as Instagram, with Facebook Ads Manager.
Facebook is a popular place for prospects to search for contact information about a company.
Facebook is therefore the ideal place to store all your information, including your website, opening hours and contact details.
Ensure they are always kept up to date!
LinkedIn for Financial Services
LinkedIn is considered an established and trusted environment for financial advice.
The huge amount of change currently affecting financial markets and the current uptake of investing is unlike almost anything we’ve seen before.
Against this backdrop, LinkedIn is a trusted and established platform on which wealth management firms can reach new clients and solidify relationships with existing ones.
Various factors make LinkedIn members an attractive target audience for wealth management brands looking to grow their business.
In times of great change, we all look to the places we trust for advice and information. Consumers tend to trust the content they find on LinkedIn.
In fact, LinkedIn for financial services continues to grow, and the audience wants to buy and own more financial assets than members on other social media platforms.
The all new LinkedIn newsletter has further cemented their authority within the business community.
The platform continues to see a 49% increase in engagement on topics such as finance, investing, and retirement year over year – making it the perfect platform to promote your financial brand.
Instagram for Financial Services
No surprise, Instagram is the preferred platform for Millennials and Gen Z, but is it the right platform for finance brands?
Not always. But sometimes – depending on your audience demographic.
Instagram has been a new territory in financial services for a while.
Many brands are now harnessing Instagram’s power to share helpful and aspirational content about finance for younger generations.
Instagram offers you many possibilities to express yourself creatively and visually.
We have already talked about the importance of social media graphics.
This is where you can bring everything to life.
Instagram allows you to make a lasting impression on your potential and current clients through the visual tools available.
It’s also extremely interactive.
Take Instagram’s “story” feature.
Stories are short snapshots of content that expire after 24 hours.
Many users prefer this type of content.
Stories offer your company the opportunity to showcase your brand personality, provide behind-the-scenes access, and get to know your audience better by using surveys, questions and quizzes.
Once you have created an Instagram account for your financial company, you can make it an Instagram business account.
An Instagram business account allows you to add more information to your bio, view Instagram insights such as profile views, reach and impressions, demographics, and use Instagram ads.
You can also add personalised links to Instagram Stories.
Twitter for Financial Services
Twitter is unique in that you can communicate with your followers through short messages called “tweets” that are no more than 280 characters.
Twitter has become an important place for information, almost like a focus group.
It allows you to be up close and personal with your clients, prospects and industry competitors to gain insights into thoughts and feelings.
Twitter also helps with SEO.
In fact, in 2015, Twitter and Google partnered, which changed how SEO works. In this partnership, Google was given access to the Twitter stream, which indexed the tweets in search results.
TikTok for Financial Services
If you are a financial services brand and don’t think TikTok is the right place for you, then you may be wrong.
The platform now hosts a lot of financial content – in and among the hilarious dog videos and dance routines.
As of April 2022, the #finance hashtag received 5.9 billion hits on TikTok.
#PersonalFinance closely follows with 5.7 billion.
FinTok is actually a well known TikTok term.
TikTok is full of expert and business advice, whether it’s FinTok content about money-making, trading, cryptocurrency, or just educating people about finance.
TikTok provides a fantastic opportunity for your financial firm to create engaging video content and reach a new audience generation.
For the word FinTok to even exist it is proof that Gen-Z cares about their money and how to make it work for them.
TikTok, for many young people, is their only source of information on money matters.
Is TikTok a new social media opportunity for financial services waiting to be unlocked? Maybe so.
Getting Started With Social Media for Financial Services
Financial services can get the same benefits from social media as any other business – if not better.
It’s true that social media can be time-consuming and requires effort to master, but it is worth it.
Although social media is still relatively new in the financial services sector, it is becoming more important than ever.
With more businesses taking advantage of the digital revolution, and consumers relying on brand identity to make purchasing decisions, the use of social media in the industry is rapidly growing.
Your business can create a better marketing strategy by being aware of legalities, integrating social media platforms, and offering value to clients.
This will allow you to use consumer behaviour data to increase sales.
It’s a win-win situation.
Here at Opulent Media Group, we know that jumping on the bandwagon of every social media platform isn’t always the best decision.
In fact, you may not realise that some of the biggest social platforms may not even bring anything to your business.
Instead, we understand the need for a tactical social media management strategy that informs, engages and converts by using the right platforms for your messaging and reaching your target audience in the right ways.
Want to get your social media presence up and running, and need some help? Or maybe you want to improve your engagement and grow your audience? Get in touch.
We’re here for advice around all things social media for financial services.
