How to Launch Unique Paid Ad Campaigns as a Financial Institution
For financial institutions, digital marketing for their financial services is a must, but organic posts are not enough on their own to build and nurture audiences. Organic content only reach an average of 2.2% of followers of social media platforms, so how can financial institutions stand out in busy social media newsfeeds and reach more people in their natural environments? The answer lies in paid social media advertising.
A third of internet users find new products and brands through paid ads, so it’s no surprise to see a rise in digital ad spend over the years. While organic posts are also an important part of a social media strategy, paid ads are where financial institutions can grow their audience and reach their marketing goal metrics.
You’re not doing ads for the sake of ads. Know your goals. Do you want to convert, get people to consider you, or build brand awareness? The platforms are going to ask you these questions, but you should know before you ever start building the ad sets. Once you have your ad campaign, budget, and targeting ready — the red tape needed before breaking ground — you can begin implementing your digital marketing strategy. This process can be repeated on multiple campaigns for maximum impact, increasing your ROI with each successful campaign.
Creating Paid Ad Campaigns for More Effective Marketing Efforts
When optimizing digital marketing for banking or any other financial institution, you’ll always hit these four key pillars:
1. Choose a Platform
Determining which platform is right for your financial institution depends on your objectives and target audience. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s about whom you want your ads to reach and for what purpose. For example, if you’re looking to build trust with professionals, LinkedIn is consistently rated as the most trustworthy platform. Featuring your ads there will have a higher impact than posting on platforms such as Instagram.
Speaking of, Instagram is often used by Gen Z, and the most popular platform for following brands — almost 90% of people say they have followed, visited a brand site, or made a purchase because of Instagram ads. This would be a great place to post investment tips and personal finance advice because, according to FINRA data, Gen Z users are looking specifically for that subject. Tailoring your content to a specific platform requires thoughtful planning, but it’s a step you won’t regret.
2. Create and Test Content
Even a single social media post is made up of a lot of moving parts — from the images, to the copy, to the call to action — and each part can be optimized. Look at what pieces of your ads work, and change what doesn’t. Don’t follow trend articles; rather, pay attention to what works for your audience and your institution.
This could mean using paid ads to A/B test different audiences or trying out different CTAs. The options are nearly endless. Track the performance of individual content decisions and use these insights to make improvements. And remember, all these content decisions — especially the placement of links — should be made with your customers’ purchase decision journeys in mind. Consumers want brands to be practical, authentic, and engaging. Test your content to ensure you’re delighting your audiences at every touchpoint.
3. Monitor Analytics
Every platform has analytics — but they all handle them differently. That’s why Denim Social gives you access to real-time, easy-to-understand engagement metrics across the board. Monitoring your analytics helps you track engagement metrics and benchmark your success against forecasts and competitors. By tracking which posts your audience engages with the most, you can also give your team a place to start when creating new content: Our platform lets you share local insights with your teammates in just two clicks. Taking high-performing topics and adapting them further will help you provide customers with the knowledge they find most valuable and cultivate trust. Almost a third of internet users say they find new products and brands through paid social ads, so monitor who you’re reaching and how it’s boosting your institution.
4. Optimize Budget
We’ve mentioned the need to set a budget, but let us emphasize that budgeting is crucial in your digital marketing strategy. With so many ad options available and so many potential target audiences to reach, it can be confusing to know where to invest your marketing dollars. Thankfully, Denim Social uses a proprietary social media ads manager to automatically optimize ad performance across multiple platforms. This allows you to run an omnichannel marketing strategy with ease.
Digital marketing for financial services can seem daunting at first. Financial services marketers have a lot of details to pay attention to, and each platform has its unique way of serving ads. But a singular platform like Denim Social can help you run and monitor social media ad campaigns across all networks and ensure you’re standing out among the competition — to get started, reach out for a demo of the Denim Social platform today.
How to Launch Unique Paid Ad Campaigns as a Financial Institution
For financial institutions, digital marketing for their financial services is a must, but organic posts are not enough on their own to build and nurture audiences. Organic content only reach an average of 2.2% of followers of social media platforms, so how can financial institutions stand out in busy social media newsfeeds and reach more people in their natural environments? The answer lies in paid social media advertising.
A third of internet users find new products and brands through paid ads, so it’s no surprise to see a rise in digital ad spend over the years. While organic posts are also an important part of a social media strategy, paid ads are where financial institutions can grow their audience and reach their marketing goal metrics.
You’re not doing ads for the sake of ads. Know your goals. Do you want to convert, get people to consider you, or build brand awareness? The platforms are going to ask you these questions, but you should know before you ever start building the ad sets. Once you have your ad campaign, budget, and targeting ready — the red tape needed before breaking ground — you can begin implementing your digital marketing strategy. This process can be repeated on multiple campaigns for maximum impact, increasing your ROI with each successful campaign.
Creating Paid Ad Campaigns for More Effective Marketing Efforts
When optimizing digital marketing for banking or any other financial institution, you’ll always hit these four key pillars:
1. Choose a Platform
Determining which platform is right for your financial institution depends on your objectives and target audience. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s about whom you want your ads to reach and for what purpose. For example, if you’re looking to build trust with professionals, LinkedIn is consistently rated as the most trustworthy platform. Featuring your ads there will have a higher impact than posting on platforms such as Instagram.
Speaking of, Instagram is often used by Gen Z, and the most popular platform for following brands — almost 90% of people say they have followed, visited a brand site, or made a purchase because of Instagram ads. This would be a great place to post investment tips and personal finance advice because, according to FINRA data, Gen Z users are looking specifically for that subject. Tailoring your content to a specific platform requires thoughtful planning, but it’s a step you won’t regret.
2. Create and Test Content
Even a single social media post is made up of a lot of moving parts — from the images, to the copy, to the call to action — and each part can be optimized. Look at what pieces of your ads work, and change what doesn’t. Don’t follow trend articles; rather, pay attention to what works for your audience and your institution.
This could mean using paid ads to A/B test different audiences or trying out different CTAs. The options are nearly endless. Track the performance of individual content decisions and use these insights to make improvements. And remember, all these content decisions — especially the placement of links — should be made with your customers’ purchase decision journeys in mind. Consumers want brands to be practical, authentic, and engaging. Test your content to ensure you’re delighting your audiences at every touchpoint.
3. Monitor Analytics
Every platform has analytics — but they all handle them differently. That’s why Denim Social gives you access to real-time, easy-to-understand engagement metrics across the board. Monitoring your analytics helps you track engagement metrics and benchmark your success against forecasts and competitors. By tracking which posts your audience engages with the most, you can also give your team a place to start when creating new content: Our platform lets you share local insights with your teammates in just two clicks. Taking high-performing topics and adapting them further will help you provide customers with the knowledge they find most valuable and cultivate trust. Almost a third of internet users say they find new products and brands through paid social ads, so monitor who you’re reaching and how it’s boosting your institution.
4. Optimize Budget
We’ve mentioned the need to set a budget, but let us emphasize that budgeting is crucial in your digital marketing strategy. With so many ad options available and so many potential target audiences to reach, it can be confusing to know where to invest your marketing dollars. Thankfully, Denim Social uses a proprietary social media ads manager to automatically optimize ad performance across multiple platforms. This allows you to run an omnichannel marketing strategy with ease.
Digital marketing for financial services can seem daunting at first. Financial services marketers have a lot of details to pay attention to, and each platform has its unique way of serving ads. But a singular platform like Denim Social can help you run and monitor social media ad campaigns across all networks and ensure you’re standing out among the competition — to get started, reach out for a demo of the Denim Social platform today.
Retail banks in the U.S. are facing a major customer attrition challenges. According to a recent Bain report, customers make as many as 55 percent of financial-related purchases from their primary bank’s competitors. While primary banks may be able to retain customers’ savings and checking accounts, the report suggests that they’re likely losing out on lucrative sales when it comes to loans, credit cards and investments.
Considering that almost one-third of those who defected from their primary bank did so in response to a direct offer from a competitor, wise marketers will up their customer engagement and outreach efforts to retain more customers. Affordability of products is the top reason for customer defection, which marketers may not have much say in, but it isn’t the only contributing factor. Digitization has also been a major catalyst. Namely, the strong digital products and experiences that some banks offer—and others do not.
Bank marketers who can jump onboard the digitization train to meet customers where they are with engaging, valuable messaging will be much more likely to keep customers coming back again and again for each of their financial needs. The following strategies can help:
1. Put the human element front and center
Traditional banks have an innate advantage over digital direct banks: The human touch. Leveraging this benefit, especially when it comes to increasingly digital customer interactions, can lead to measurable improvements in customer retention.
One way to ensure the human touch remains part of every customer touchpoint is to focus on personalization. A February Insurance Thought Leadership piece revealed that 72 percent of people ignore marketing that’s not highly personalized. So targeting relevant content to the right recipients is essential, especially when digitization can easily strip the human element out of an interaction. Personalizing messaging and services to be relevant and valuable to the specific needs of each customer can bring the human element into focus even in a digital world.
One way to create more relevant, personalized outreach is to practice social selling, or leveraging a bank’s employees on social media. People can relate more to other people than they can to big brand names. When your employees are the ones getting in front of customers virtually, it humanizes the digital customer experience and sets the stage for trusting and loyal relationships to come. What’s more, employees also tend to have further reach and engagement on brand-related social posts than brand pages alone, so they can expand the impact of your messaging exponentially.
2. Create digital pathways to human interactions
When considering how to anchor all digital marketing for financial services around the human element, keep in mind that every pathway should connect prospects and customers directly to a human.
For example, a social media post from an employee could include a link to a landing page on your website where visitors can learn more valuable information on the topic of the post. On that landing page, you can include valuable content, such as a guidebook, behind an information request form. When users submit their names and email addresses, they will receive the content and your sales team members can reach out to them directly with a human-centric, personalized outreach approach.
When prospects and customers know they’re just an email or phone call away from a real person at your organization, they’re likely to turn to you instead of an impersonal digital direct bank for their next financial need.
3. Focus on customer retention just as much as acquisition
Bringing in new prospects gets a lot of attention from financial services marketers, sometimes at the expense of retaining current ones. But focusing on customer retention and continuously improving the digital customer experience will help secure more revenue when it comes to additional services such as loans and credit cards.
Listen to the needs of customers and keep refining your personalization tactics to meet their needs. Every time you get in front of a current customer with relevant, valuable messaging or content, you help build trust in that relationship and increase the chances of that customer coming to you for whatever service they need next.
It’s true that people will always be drawn to brands that offer more affordable products and services. But money isn’t the only reason people look outside of their primary bank to fulfill their financial needs. Banks that differentiate by focusing on digitization alongside the human element will find that it’s easier to keep current customers from looking for greener pastures.
This was originally published on ABA Bank Marketing.
Financial services customers were leaning heavily into digital experiences long before COVID-19. In fact, 80% of all customer touchpoints already occurred through digital channels in 2017. The past year has placed an even bolder emphasis on the growing importance of digital transformation for financial services. The pandemic accelerated customers’ already quick-moving adoption of digital tools as they sought new ways to connect outside of face-to-face interactions.
The year 2020 turned the need for digitization from a push to a shove, and the shift has fundamentally changed the very nature of financial services marketing. Consumer preferences won’t revert to pre-COVID ways even as vaccinations continue to roll out and the end of this crisis is in sight. In fact, up to 20% of bank customers expect their use of digital channels to increase after the pandemic.
Financial services was once a business driven largely by face-to-face relationship-building, but it has been tasked with shifting rapidly to digitize and align with consumer preferences. To make these changes sustainable for the long haul, you must build strong connections in today’s virtual world. Start by covering these digital channels where your customers are looking to connect:
1. Mobile banking apps
Mobile banking has become table stakes for financial services marketing, so if you don’t already have an easily accessible, user-friendly mobile application, the time to get one is now. A study from Insider Intelligence revealed that 89% of survey respondents are using mobile banking apps. And it’s not just younger consumers: Though 97% of Millennials did say they used mobile banking, so did 91% of Gen Xers and 79% of Baby Boomers. Financial institutions today simply can’t compete without offering customers convenient ways to do their banking from anywhere.
So we know that mobile apps are already a requirement. What financial institutions might not have considered, however, is how to elevate the experience of mobile banking apps with a human touch. Even as financial services go digital, it’s still an industry based primarily in relationships, and you need to foster real connections no matter how your customers are doing business with you. To maintain a high level of personal connection as digitization continues to accelerate, look to social media, direct messaging, and your employees.
2. Social media
In the digital age, think of social media as your brand’s welcome mat. For prospects looking to learn more about what you do and current customers with questions or concerns, social media is often the first place they’ll go. You need to have an active and engaging social media presence to meet them where they are.
A company profile on its own, however, is no longer enough. Social media platforms have updated their algorithms to decrease visibility on branded content. Financial institutions today have a tough time breaking through with their owned channels alone. Instead, they should lean into their employees as the key to unlocking reach and engagement. According to one LinkedIn study, an employee social post can garner twice the engagement of the same post from a brand account.
The bottom line is that consumers don’t want to hear from brands on social media. They don’t want to see advertisements, and they don’t trust big company names and promotional content. What they will trust, however, is an individual employee who shares an article that provides a lot of value.
3. Direct messaging
You can take that trust-building strategy up another level by leaning into the power of one-on-one communication. Direct message marketing is all about listening to customers and communicating with them on their own terms.
Direct messaging was already on the rise before the pandemic. This has only accelerated over the past year as consumers have been relying even more on messaging platforms to interact as COVID-19 has hindered their ability to connect with others in person. If your customers and prospects are already hearing from friends and family through direct messaging platforms, it’s only convenient for them to hear from your employees that way, too.
It is important to consider, however, that a direct message marketing strategy requires more compliance oversight than other digital channels. It falls under the umbrella of electronic communications, which FINRA regulates closely. But ensuring compliance doesn’t have to be a hassle: Digital tools exist to help streamline approval processes and make oversight easier. With the right tools and proper steps to keep direct message marketing within regulatory bounds, the effort will be well worth the reward.
Finding the digital channels where your customers already are and figuring out how to meet them there is the foundation of any successful digital marketing strategy for financial services. These channels are also quick to activate and flexible, so marketers can be agile and shift their approach just as fast as consumers change their preferences.
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.
Before a customer makes a purchase, they go through a decision process called the buying journey. They initially become aware of a brand, learn more about it, evaluate whether it’s an appropriate option for their needs, and finally, make the choice to buy in or not. For marketers in the financial industry, this customer buying journey presents an opportunity to utilize a full-funnel marketing strategy. This approach involves getting the right content and messaging in front of the right customer at the right time, strategically engaging them at each stage of the funnel in the lead up to purchase.
This full-funnel marketing approach is important to the customer buying journey; at each stage, it allows marketers to pique interest, build trust, and encourage action. With customers expecting brands to meet their needs online, this gives financial marketers a unique opportunity to connect with audiences by creating touchpoints along the way. Ultimately, a full-funnel strategy helps financial institutions align marketing efforts with business ROI. Let’s take a look at each stage of the buying process using a full-funnel approach and how social media can help move customers down the funnel.
Create Brand Awareness With Organic Social
The first step of the full-funnel marketing approach is awareness – a customer needs to know a business exists before they can do anything else. Here, customers learn about the brand and what value it provides. Through organic publishing with curated social media content, brands can share targeted messages with wide-reaching audiences. Creating a robust and interesting content mix that informs, educates, and entertains is the first step in giving a brand a place in a customer’s mind.
Engage Audiences With Paid Advertising
While establishing a consistent organic content routine is the foundation of the full-funnel process, moving customers along the buying journey requires engagement. The best way to make sure that the right customers are viewing content is to target them through paid advertising. Social advertising campaigns allow marketers to multiply their efforts through the power of intelligent targeting and better manage audience behavior. This way, the people that see a paid ad will be the most likely to be interested in it and engage.
Encourage Consideration With Relevant Landing Pages
Any social media post, organic or paid, should lead a customer to a landing page, where they will visit a brand’s website to learn more. For example, a brand can link to a personalized landing page that includes a form to collect customer information in exchange for access to content. It’s mutually beneficial – a customer receives content and a business now has a lead to continue nurturing.
Convert and Retain Customers With Retargeting
Finally, conversion is where the magic happens. At this stage, a customer has the information they need to make a purchase decision. With retargeting, marketers can continue to lead the customer along the buying journey by connecting based on previous engagement. While converting a lead to a customer is an excellent way to track success, the journey doesn’t end there. Conversion is simply another step in the circular journey, as the next step is to grow them into a loyal customer that can then become a valuable resource and reference for the brand.
The overall key to successfully adopting a full-funnel marketing approach is to meet customers where they are, and encourage them to move along the buying process. And that involves addressing them at every stage of the funnel to raise brand awareness, answer questions about the brand, and nurture people through final decision-making. The customer journey and full-funnel approach is ongoing, and can be a great way to better understand how you are meeting business goals and expectations through social media efforts.
Want to be empowered to embrace marketing opportunities at each stage of the customer buying journey? Having the right social media management tools for financial services at your disposal is the first step. Get started with a demo today.
How Denim Social Works With Agency Partners to Create Consistent,Compliant Digital Marketing for Financial Services
Many financial institutions partner with outside agencies to create digital marketing experiences. They hire agencies to do what they do best: build connections to customers in creative ways. Even with this support, however, financial services marketers still have to ensure every piece of digital marketing stays compliant and distribute those pieces to their brand, branch, and employee feeds.
That’s where Denim Social fits into the picture — not as a replacement for agencies you’re already working with, but as a tool to boost their efforts. Financial institutions can turn to Denim Social to work with agency partners to activate more effective, efficient, and compliant social media marketing strategies. When agencies can rely on our compliance and management platform to cover the logistics behind social media marketing, they can focus all of their energy on crafting impactful campaigns. And financial institutions can get more out of their marketing dollars.
Here’s how we can work with agency partners to support financial institutions’ social media strategies and digital marketing efforts:
1. Curated Content for Social Media
So you’ve hired an agency to craft your social media marketing strategy and write attention-grabbing, interest-piquing posts. But not all of your social media posts should be new content. Your brand and employees should also share relevant news or helpful guides from other reliable sources.
You don’t need to task your agency partners with curating existing material Denim Social can free up their time to focus on creating new campaigns with our curated content support. Our integration with content curation industry leader UpContent brings relevant, curated articles directly to the Denim Social platform, so marketers or agencies don’t have to be responsible for sourcing every post. That means a lot, especially for financial institutions running social selling campaigns where hundreds or even thousands of employees post brand-related content.
2. Social Media Compliance Tools
The last thing any digital marketing agency wants is to create content that will land your brand in regulatory trouble. But financial institution marketers understand that even one noncompliant post could be a big problem. Denim Social can serve as the compliance checkpoint between the content an agency creates and the public, ensuring no posts go live that shouldn’t.
Our platform offers keyword and phrase filtering to bring any creative copy with potentially noncompliant messaging to your attention — before it goes live. What’s more, automated approval workflows can streamline agencies’ communication with financial institution marketers, compliance teams, and other stakeholders to get the proper sign-off on every post with ease. Marketers also know they must record every social post and interaction in case they get audited by regulatory agencies, but agency partners shouldn’t have to focus their efforts on administrative tasks and record-keeping. That’s where Denim Social can help with automatic archiving tools to get tedious tasks out of the way and let agencies do what they do best.
3. Paid Social Media Management
Denim Social can work with agencies to deliver the best possible results for paid social media advertising. Our proprietary social media ads manager automatically optimizes ads’ performance and consolidates all social media platforms into one easily accessible dashboard for a one-stop shop.
When agencies can efficiently manage and optimize ads, they can easily scale campaigns at the brand, location, and advisor level. And when agencies can scale further and deliver more results, financial institutions get more bang for their agency buck.
4. Accurate, Data-Driven Results
Financial institution leaders need data to inform the smartest and most impactful decisions when determining where to allocate their marketing budgets. So agencies must provide that data to prove their worth beyond vanity metrics alone. Denim Social can help by clearly connecting social media campaigns to real business results.
For example, agency partners can easily create landing pages for each campaign using our Landing Page Builder. From there, they can incorporate landing page links into the social media marketing strategy and track analytics to see how many prospects followed the digital journey from social post to landing page to getting in touch to learn more. Essentially, social media can drive conversions — which translates to more profit for your institution. And Denim Social can help provide the analytics agencies need to prove it.
Successful digital marketing for financial services has to cover a lot of bases. It must be relevant, consistent, and compliant. Few financial institutions can do all of that on their own — and even their agency partners can use a hand to create more efficient and effective campaigns. That’s whereDenim Social fits into the mix. We don’t replace agencies: We support them in creating the strongest possible social media marketing strategies for financial institutions.
Connect & Convert on Social
How to Launch Unique Paid Ad Campaigns as a Financial Institution
For financial institutions, digital marketing for their financial services is a must, but organic posts are not enough on their own to build and nurture audiences. Organic content only reach an average of 2.2% of followers of social media platforms, so how can financial institutions stand out in busy social media newsfeeds and reach more people in their natural environments? The answer lies in paid social media advertising.
A third of internet users find new products and brands through paid ads, so it’s no surprise to see a rise in digital ad spend over the years. While organic posts are also an important part of a social media strategy, paid ads are where financial institutions can grow their audience and reach their marketing goal metrics.
You’re not doing ads for the sake of ads. Know your goals. Do you want to convert, get people to consider you, or build brand awareness? The platforms are going to ask you these questions, but you should know before you ever start building the ad sets. Once you have your ad campaign, budget, and targeting ready — the red tape needed before breaking ground — you can begin implementing your digital marketing strategy. This process can be repeated on multiple campaigns for maximum impact, increasing your ROI with each successful campaign.
Creating Paid Ad Campaigns for More Effective Marketing Efforts
When optimizing digital marketing for banking or any other financial institution, you’ll always hit these four key pillars:
1. Choose a Platform
Determining which platform is right for your financial institution depends on your objectives and target audience. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s about whom you want your ads to reach and for what purpose. For example, if you’re looking to build trust with professionals, LinkedIn is consistently rated as the most trustworthy platform. Featuring your ads there will have a higher impact than posting on platforms such as Instagram.
Speaking of, Instagram is often used by Gen Z, and the most popular platform for following brands — almost 90% of people say they have followed, visited a brand site, or made a purchase because of Instagram ads. This would be a great place to post investment tips and personal finance advice because, according to FINRA data, Gen Z users are looking specifically for that subject. Tailoring your content to a specific platform requires thoughtful planning, but it’s a step you won’t regret.
2. Create and Test Content
Even a single social media post is made up of a lot of moving parts — from the images, to the copy, to the call to action — and each part can be optimized. Look at what pieces of your ads work, and change what doesn’t. Don’t follow trend articles; rather, pay attention to what works for your audience and your institution.
This could mean using paid ads to A/B test different audiences or trying out different CTAs. The options are nearly endless. Track the performance of individual content decisions and use these insights to make improvements. And remember, all these content decisions — especially the placement of links — should be made with your customers’ purchase decision journeys in mind. Consumers want brands to be practical, authentic, and engaging. Test your content to ensure you’re delighting your audiences at every touchpoint.
3. Monitor Analytics
Every platform has analytics — but they all handle them differently. That’s why Denim Social gives you access to real-time, easy-to-understand engagement metrics across the board. Monitoring your analytics helps you track engagement metrics and benchmark your success against forecasts and competitors. By tracking which posts your audience engages with the most, you can also give your team a place to start when creating new content: Our platform lets you share local insights with your teammates in just two clicks. Taking high-performing topics and adapting them further will help you provide customers with the knowledge they find most valuable and cultivate trust. Almost a third of internet users say they find new products and brands through paid social ads, so monitor who you’re reaching and how it’s boosting your institution.
4. Optimize Budget
We’ve mentioned the need to set a budget, but let us emphasize that budgeting is crucial in your digital marketing strategy. With so many ad options available and so many potential target audiences to reach, it can be confusing to know where to invest your marketing dollars. Thankfully, Denim Social uses a proprietary social media ads manager to automatically optimize ad performance across multiple platforms. This allows you to run an omnichannel marketing strategy with ease.
Digital marketing for financial services can seem daunting at first. Financial services marketers have a lot of details to pay attention to, and each platform has its unique way of serving ads. But a singular platform like Denim Social can help you run and monitor social media ad campaigns across all networks and ensure you’re standing out among the competition — to get started, reach out for a demo of the Denim Social platform today.
How to Launch Unique Paid Ad Campaigns as a Financial Institution
For financial institutions, digital marketing for their financial services is a must, but organic posts are not enough on their own to build and nurture audiences. Organic content only reach an average of 2.2% of followers of social media platforms, so how can financial institutions stand out in busy social media newsfeeds and reach more people in their natural environments? The answer lies in paid social media advertising.
A third of internet users find new products and brands through paid ads, so it’s no surprise to see a rise in digital ad spend over the years. While organic posts are also an important part of a social media strategy, paid ads are where financial institutions can grow their audience and reach their marketing goal metrics.
You’re not doing ads for the sake of ads. Know your goals. Do you want to convert, get people to consider you, or build brand awareness? The platforms are going to ask you these questions, but you should know before you ever start building the ad sets. Once you have your ad campaign, budget, and targeting ready — the red tape needed before breaking ground — you can begin implementing your digital marketing strategy. This process can be repeated on multiple campaigns for maximum impact, increasing your ROI with each successful campaign.
Creating Paid Ad Campaigns for More Effective Marketing Efforts
When optimizing digital marketing for banking or any other financial institution, you’ll always hit these four key pillars:
1. Choose a Platform
Determining which platform is right for your financial institution depends on your objectives and target audience. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s about whom you want your ads to reach and for what purpose. For example, if you’re looking to build trust with professionals, LinkedIn is consistently rated as the most trustworthy platform. Featuring your ads there will have a higher impact than posting on platforms such as Instagram.
Speaking of, Instagram is often used by Gen Z, and the most popular platform for following brands — almost 90% of people say they have followed, visited a brand site, or made a purchase because of Instagram ads. This would be a great place to post investment tips and personal finance advice because, according to FINRA data, Gen Z users are looking specifically for that subject. Tailoring your content to a specific platform requires thoughtful planning, but it’s a step you won’t regret.
2. Create and Test Content
Even a single social media post is made up of a lot of moving parts — from the images, to the copy, to the call to action — and each part can be optimized. Look at what pieces of your ads work, and change what doesn’t. Don’t follow trend articles; rather, pay attention to what works for your audience and your institution.
This could mean using paid ads to A/B test different audiences or trying out different CTAs. The options are nearly endless. Track the performance of individual content decisions and use these insights to make improvements. And remember, all these content decisions — especially the placement of links — should be made with your customers’ purchase decision journeys in mind. Consumers want brands to be practical, authentic, and engaging. Test your content to ensure you’re delighting your audiences at every touchpoint.
3. Monitor Analytics
Every platform has analytics — but they all handle them differently. That’s why Denim Social gives you access to real-time, easy-to-understand engagement metrics across the board. Monitoring your analytics helps you track engagement metrics and benchmark your success against forecasts and competitors. By tracking which posts your audience engages with the most, you can also give your team a place to start when creating new content: Our platform lets you share local insights with your teammates in just two clicks. Taking high-performing topics and adapting them further will help you provide customers with the knowledge they find most valuable and cultivate trust. Almost a third of internet users say they find new products and brands through paid social ads, so monitor who you’re reaching and how it’s boosting your institution.
4. Optimize Budget
We’ve mentioned the need to set a budget, but let us emphasize that budgeting is crucial in your digital marketing strategy. With so many ad options available and so many potential target audiences to reach, it can be confusing to know where to invest your marketing dollars. Thankfully, Denim Social uses a proprietary social media ads manager to automatically optimize ad performance across multiple platforms. This allows you to run an omnichannel marketing strategy with ease.
Digital marketing for financial services can seem daunting at first. Financial services marketers have a lot of details to pay attention to, and each platform has its unique way of serving ads. But a singular platform like Denim Social can help you run and monitor social media ad campaigns across all networks and ensure you’re standing out among the competition — to get started, reach out for a demo of the Denim Social platform today.
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.
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!
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
Like many community banks, Dart Bank wanted to keep customer relationships a top priority. This meant being more available to customers and meeting them where they are. In modern terms, that means on social media.
When Dart Bank learned about how Denim Social supports social selling for loan officers, they knew it was the perfect fit to keep their team engaged at every step of the journey. They wanted to empower their loan officers to create and grow authentic relationships online, never missing an opportunity to connect.
Shelter Insurance® sought to launch a social selling program that would not only create posting efficiency, but also make it easy for agents to establish subject matter expertise via high quality social media content. They also saw an opportunity to empower digitally savvy agents to cultivate leads online to drive business results in a compliant social selling program.
Before launching the program, it was essential that agents understood the pillars of social selling. Together with the Denim Social team, Shelter Insurance® developed a best-in-class program communication, onboarding and training process for agents.
Social selling is just what it sounds like: using social media to sell a product or service. It’s leveraging social to build personal relationships, showcase thought leadership, engage with prospects, interact with existing customers, and ultimately build trust and rapport that will eventually lead to sales.
It enables intermediaries – like insurance agents – to add value to the customer journey where there wouldn’t otherwise be an opportunity.
This guide will help financial services marketers understand why social media should be a core component of their marketing strategy and showcase how the collective reach of their intermediaries’ social media presence can be harnessed to more deeply connect with prospective clients, position producers as thought leaders in their communities, and, ultimately, build trust with clients that translates to positive business results.
It’s called social selling and it works.
The spring 2023 buying season has arrived and with it – you guessed – uncertainty. Spring has long been make-it or break-it season for lenders and loan officers, and despite present conditions, the same holds true this year. But 2023 holds unique challenges and opportunities.
As the season opens, there are a few key considerations the Denim Social team sees as critical for mortgage marketers.
Paid social is one of the most effective ways to introduce people who aren’t yet following your producers, agents, loan officers, or advisors to your financial institution at the right place and the right time.
Paid social is complementary to organic. While organic social builds first-degree connections and facilitates awareness, engagement, and branding, paid social allows you to reach larger, more tailored audiences.
BOK Financial is a financial services partner for consumers, businesses and wealth clients with more than 150 users on the Denim Social platform.
In addition to building brand credibility and establishing loan officer expertise, Denim Social enables their mortgage loan officers to cultivate relationships in social media and organically source leads.
As financial marketers look to the coming year, most are wondering, “what’s next?” While no one can say for sure, our team of experts here at Denim Social are keeping a pulse on what’s new in digital marketing for financial institutions on social media. This guide will not only educate you on the latest trends, but help you make the case for increased investment in social selling and digital marketing strategies at your institution.
Evolve Bank & Trust (“Evolve”) is an $700M+ asset institution with nearly 40 Home Loan Centers (HLC) and nearly 500 employees nationwide. See how Denim Social helped Evolve activate Home Loan Center Facebook pages over the course of just a few months.
Whether you’re in banking, wealth management, insurance or mortgage, relationships are the bedrock of your business.
Considering clients in these industries are handing over the keys to their personal kingdoms, it’s no surprise that trust and connection matter. That’s why successful sales strategies for these industries are focused on building long-term, trusted relationships.
To truly unleash the potential of social, financial institutions need to use social media as a sales tool. It’s called social selling and it works.
The power of social media is undeniable. The ability of banks to engage with and influence customers and prospects via interactive digital channels is an essential tool and a cornerstone of marketing. Gone are the days when it was “nice to have” a presence on platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Today, these pathways are helping banks to build relationships that were historically cultivated by tirelessly walking up and down Main Street, shaking hands and leaving behind business cards.
In this case study by Denim Social and American Bankers Association, we take a look at how banks are using social media to ramp up digital engagement and build sales.
As any marketer worth their salt will tell you, analytics should drive your social strategy. The key to success is understanding how to link social media efforts to ROI metrics. Read this guide to learn how to gain insights that matter, optimize your strategy and prove your social success.
AnnieMac is one of the fastest-growing mortgage loan providers in the U.S., serving clients in 42 states. Learn how Denim Social helped their team to streamline its brand’s social media strategy and activate social selling for hundreds of loan officers in just four months.
As mortgage demand surges to historic highs, home purchase and refinance markets remain hot. This is excellent news for loan officers, but it also means the environment is more competitive than ever.
So how can marketers ensure that their loan officers stand out? The answer is social media.
Read this guidebook from Denim Social to learn how you can help your loan officers build strong relationships, stand out from the crowd and win more business using social media.
Every Mortgage Marketer Should Ask Themselves
Compliance is complicated, but don’t let it stop your lending team from making the most of social media. Think you’re ready to start social selling? Ask yourself these five questions!
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
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.
How to Launch Unique Paid Ad Campaigns as a Financial Institution
For financial institutions, digital marketing for their financial services is a must, but organic posts are not enough on their own to build and nurture audiences. Organic content only reach an average of 2.2% of followers of social media platforms, so how can financial institutions stand out in busy social media newsfeeds and reach more people in their natural environments? The answer lies in paid social media advertising.
A third of internet users find new products and brands through paid ads, so it’s no surprise to see a rise in digital ad spend over the years. While organic posts are also an important part of a social media strategy, paid ads are where financial institutions can grow their audience and reach their marketing goal metrics.
You’re not doing ads for the sake of ads. Know your goals. Do you want to convert, get people to consider you, or build brand awareness? The platforms are going to ask you these questions, but you should know before you ever start building the ad sets. Once you have your ad campaign, budget, and targeting ready — the red tape needed before breaking ground — you can begin implementing your digital marketing strategy. This process can be repeated on multiple campaigns for maximum impact, increasing your ROI with each successful campaign.
Creating Paid Ad Campaigns for More Effective Marketing Efforts
When optimizing digital marketing for banking or any other financial institution, you’ll always hit these four key pillars:
1. Choose a Platform
Determining which platform is right for your financial institution depends on your objectives and target audience. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s about whom you want your ads to reach and for what purpose. For example, if you’re looking to build trust with professionals, LinkedIn is consistently rated as the most trustworthy platform. Featuring your ads there will have a higher impact than posting on platforms such as Instagram.
Speaking of, Instagram is often used by Gen Z, and the most popular platform for following brands — almost 90% of people say they have followed, visited a brand site, or made a purchase because of Instagram ads. This would be a great place to post investment tips and personal finance advice because, according to FINRA data, Gen Z users are looking specifically for that subject. Tailoring your content to a specific platform requires thoughtful planning, but it’s a step you won’t regret.
2. Create and Test Content
Even a single social media post is made up of a lot of moving parts — from the images, to the copy, to the call to action — and each part can be optimized. Look at what pieces of your ads work, and change what doesn’t. Don’t follow trend articles; rather, pay attention to what works for your audience and your institution.
This could mean using paid ads to A/B test different audiences or trying out different CTAs. The options are nearly endless. Track the performance of individual content decisions and use these insights to make improvements. And remember, all these content decisions — especially the placement of links — should be made with your customers’ purchase decision journeys in mind. Consumers want brands to be practical, authentic, and engaging. Test your content to ensure you’re delighting your audiences at every touchpoint.
3. Monitor Analytics
Every platform has analytics — but they all handle them differently. That’s why Denim Social gives you access to real-time, easy-to-understand engagement metrics across the board. Monitoring your analytics helps you track engagement metrics and benchmark your success against forecasts and competitors. By tracking which posts your audience engages with the most, you can also give your team a place to start when creating new content: Our platform lets you share local insights with your teammates in just two clicks. Taking high-performing topics and adapting them further will help you provide customers with the knowledge they find most valuable and cultivate trust. Almost a third of internet users say they find new products and brands through paid social ads, so monitor who you’re reaching and how it’s boosting your institution.
4. Optimize Budget
We’ve mentioned the need to set a budget, but let us emphasize that budgeting is crucial in your digital marketing strategy. With so many ad options available and so many potential target audiences to reach, it can be confusing to know where to invest your marketing dollars. Thankfully, Denim Social uses a proprietary social media ads manager to automatically optimize ad performance across multiple platforms. This allows you to run an omnichannel marketing strategy with ease.
Digital marketing for financial services can seem daunting at first. Financial services marketers have a lot of details to pay attention to, and each platform has its unique way of serving ads. But a singular platform like Denim Social can help you run and monitor social media ad campaigns across all networks and ensure you’re standing out among the competition — to get started, reach out for a demo of the Denim Social platform today.
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.
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!
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
Like many community banks, Dart Bank wanted to keep customer relationships a top priority. This meant being more available to customers and meeting them where they are. In modern terms, that means on social media.
When Dart Bank learned about how Denim Social supports social selling for loan officers, they knew it was the perfect fit to keep their team engaged at every step of the journey. They wanted to empower their loan officers to create and grow authentic relationships online, never missing an opportunity to connect.
Shelter Insurance® sought to launch a social selling program that would not only create posting efficiency, but also make it easy for agents to establish subject matter expertise via high quality social media content. They also saw an opportunity to empower digitally savvy agents to cultivate leads online to drive business results in a compliant social selling program.
Before launching the program, it was essential that agents understood the pillars of social selling. Together with the Denim Social team, Shelter Insurance® developed a best-in-class program communication, onboarding and training process for agents.
Social selling is just what it sounds like: using social media to sell a product or service. It’s leveraging social to build personal relationships, showcase thought leadership, engage with prospects, interact with existing customers, and ultimately build trust and rapport that will eventually lead to sales.
It enables intermediaries – like insurance agents – to add value to the customer journey where there wouldn’t otherwise be an opportunity.
This guide will help financial services marketers understand why social media should be a core component of their marketing strategy and showcase how the collective reach of their intermediaries’ social media presence can be harnessed to more deeply connect with prospective clients, position producers as thought leaders in their communities, and, ultimately, build trust with clients that translates to positive business results.
It’s called social selling and it works.
The spring 2023 buying season has arrived and with it – you guessed – uncertainty. Spring has long been make-it or break-it season for lenders and loan officers, and despite present conditions, the same holds true this year. But 2023 holds unique challenges and opportunities.
As the season opens, there are a few key considerations the Denim Social team sees as critical for mortgage marketers.
Paid social is one of the most effective ways to introduce people who aren’t yet following your producers, agents, loan officers, or advisors to your financial institution at the right place and the right time.
Paid social is complementary to organic. While organic social builds first-degree connections and facilitates awareness, engagement, and branding, paid social allows you to reach larger, more tailored audiences.
BOK Financial is a financial services partner for consumers, businesses and wealth clients with more than 150 users on the Denim Social platform.
In addition to building brand credibility and establishing loan officer expertise, Denim Social enables their mortgage loan officers to cultivate relationships in social media and organically source leads.
As financial marketers look to the coming year, most are wondering, “what’s next?” While no one can say for sure, our team of experts here at Denim Social are keeping a pulse on what’s new in digital marketing for financial institutions on social media. This guide will not only educate you on the latest trends, but help you make the case for increased investment in social selling and digital marketing strategies at your institution.
Evolve Bank & Trust (“Evolve”) is an $700M+ asset institution with nearly 40 Home Loan Centers (HLC) and nearly 500 employees nationwide. See how Denim Social helped Evolve activate Home Loan Center Facebook pages over the course of just a few months.
Whether you’re in banking, wealth management, insurance or mortgage, relationships are the bedrock of your business.
Considering clients in these industries are handing over the keys to their personal kingdoms, it’s no surprise that trust and connection matter. That’s why successful sales strategies for these industries are focused on building long-term, trusted relationships.
To truly unleash the potential of social, financial institutions need to use social media as a sales tool. It’s called social selling and it works.
The power of social media is undeniable. The ability of banks to engage with and influence customers and prospects via interactive digital channels is an essential tool and a cornerstone of marketing. Gone are the days when it was “nice to have” a presence on platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Today, these pathways are helping banks to build relationships that were historically cultivated by tirelessly walking up and down Main Street, shaking hands and leaving behind business cards.
In this case study by Denim Social and American Bankers Association, we take a look at how banks are using social media to ramp up digital engagement and build sales.
As any marketer worth their salt will tell you, analytics should drive your social strategy. The key to success is understanding how to link social media efforts to ROI metrics. Read this guide to learn how to gain insights that matter, optimize your strategy and prove your social success.
AnnieMac is one of the fastest-growing mortgage loan providers in the U.S., serving clients in 42 states. Learn how Denim Social helped their team to streamline its brand’s social media strategy and activate social selling for hundreds of loan officers in just four months.
As mortgage demand surges to historic highs, home purchase and refinance markets remain hot. This is excellent news for loan officers, but it also means the environment is more competitive than ever.
So how can marketers ensure that their loan officers stand out? The answer is social media.
Read this guidebook from Denim Social to learn how you can help your loan officers build strong relationships, stand out from the crowd and win more business using social media.
Every Mortgage Marketer Should Ask Themselves
Compliance is complicated, but don’t let it stop your lending team from making the most of social media. Think you’re ready to start social selling? Ask yourself these five questions!
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
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.
How to Launch Unique Paid Ad Campaigns as a Financial Institution
For financial institutions, digital marketing for their financial services is a must, but organic posts are not enough on their own to build and nurture audiences. Organic content only reach an average of 2.2% of followers of social media platforms, so how can financial institutions stand out in busy social media newsfeeds and reach more people in their natural environments? The answer lies in paid social media advertising.
A third of internet users find new products and brands through paid ads, so it’s no surprise to see a rise in digital ad spend over the years. While organic posts are also an important part of a social media strategy, paid ads are where financial institutions can grow their audience and reach their marketing goal metrics.
You’re not doing ads for the sake of ads. Know your goals. Do you want to convert, get people to consider you, or build brand awareness? The platforms are going to ask you these questions, but you should know before you ever start building the ad sets. Once you have your ad campaign, budget, and targeting ready — the red tape needed before breaking ground — you can begin implementing your digital marketing strategy. This process can be repeated on multiple campaigns for maximum impact, increasing your ROI with each successful campaign.
Creating Paid Ad Campaigns for More Effective Marketing Efforts
When optimizing digital marketing for banking or any other financial institution, you’ll always hit these four key pillars:
1. Choose a Platform
Determining which platform is right for your financial institution depends on your objectives and target audience. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s about whom you want your ads to reach and for what purpose. For example, if you’re looking to build trust with professionals, LinkedIn is consistently rated as the most trustworthy platform. Featuring your ads there will have a higher impact than posting on platforms such as Instagram.
Speaking of, Instagram is often used by Gen Z, and the most popular platform for following brands — almost 90% of people say they have followed, visited a brand site, or made a purchase because of Instagram ads. This would be a great place to post investment tips and personal finance advice because, according to FINRA data, Gen Z users are looking specifically for that subject. Tailoring your content to a specific platform requires thoughtful planning, but it’s a step you won’t regret.
2. Create and Test Content
Even a single social media post is made up of a lot of moving parts — from the images, to the copy, to the call to action — and each part can be optimized. Look at what pieces of your ads work, and change what doesn’t. Don’t follow trend articles; rather, pay attention to what works for your audience and your institution.
This could mean using paid ads to A/B test different audiences or trying out different CTAs. The options are nearly endless. Track the performance of individual content decisions and use these insights to make improvements. And remember, all these content decisions — especially the placement of links — should be made with your customers’ purchase decision journeys in mind. Consumers want brands to be practical, authentic, and engaging. Test your content to ensure you’re delighting your audiences at every touchpoint.
3. Monitor Analytics
Every platform has analytics — but they all handle them differently. That’s why Denim Social gives you access to real-time, easy-to-understand engagement metrics across the board. Monitoring your analytics helps you track engagement metrics and benchmark your success against forecasts and competitors. By tracking which posts your audience engages with the most, you can also give your team a place to start when creating new content: Our platform lets you share local insights with your teammates in just two clicks. Taking high-performing topics and adapting them further will help you provide customers with the knowledge they find most valuable and cultivate trust. Almost a third of internet users say they find new products and brands through paid social ads, so monitor who you’re reaching and how it’s boosting your institution.
4. Optimize Budget
We’ve mentioned the need to set a budget, but let us emphasize that budgeting is crucial in your digital marketing strategy. With so many ad options available and so many potential target audiences to reach, it can be confusing to know where to invest your marketing dollars. Thankfully, Denim Social uses a proprietary social media ads manager to automatically optimize ad performance across multiple platforms. This allows you to run an omnichannel marketing strategy with ease.
Digital marketing for financial services can seem daunting at first. Financial services marketers have a lot of details to pay attention to, and each platform has its unique way of serving ads. But a singular platform like Denim Social can help you run and monitor social media ad campaigns across all networks and ensure you’re standing out among the competition — to get started, reach out for a demo of the Denim Social platform today.
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.
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!
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
Like many community banks, Dart Bank wanted to keep customer relationships a top priority. This meant being more available to customers and meeting them where they are. In modern terms, that means on social media.
When Dart Bank learned about how Denim Social supports social selling for loan officers, they knew it was the perfect fit to keep their team engaged at every step of the journey. They wanted to empower their loan officers to create and grow authentic relationships online, never missing an opportunity to connect.
Shelter Insurance® sought to launch a social selling program that would not only create posting efficiency, but also make it easy for agents to establish subject matter expertise via high quality social media content. They also saw an opportunity to empower digitally savvy agents to cultivate leads online to drive business results in a compliant social selling program.
Before launching the program, it was essential that agents understood the pillars of social selling. Together with the Denim Social team, Shelter Insurance® developed a best-in-class program communication, onboarding and training process for agents.
Social selling is just what it sounds like: using social media to sell a product or service. It’s leveraging social to build personal relationships, showcase thought leadership, engage with prospects, interact with existing customers, and ultimately build trust and rapport that will eventually lead to sales.
It enables intermediaries – like insurance agents – to add value to the customer journey where there wouldn’t otherwise be an opportunity.
This guide will help financial services marketers understand why social media should be a core component of their marketing strategy and showcase how the collective reach of their intermediaries’ social media presence can be harnessed to more deeply connect with prospective clients, position producers as thought leaders in their communities, and, ultimately, build trust with clients that translates to positive business results.
It’s called social selling and it works.
The spring 2023 buying season has arrived and with it – you guessed – uncertainty. Spring has long been make-it or break-it season for lenders and loan officers, and despite present conditions, the same holds true this year. But 2023 holds unique challenges and opportunities.
As the season opens, there are a few key considerations the Denim Social team sees as critical for mortgage marketers.
Paid social is one of the most effective ways to introduce people who aren’t yet following your producers, agents, loan officers, or advisors to your financial institution at the right place and the right time.
Paid social is complementary to organic. While organic social builds first-degree connections and facilitates awareness, engagement, and branding, paid social allows you to reach larger, more tailored audiences.
BOK Financial is a financial services partner for consumers, businesses and wealth clients with more than 150 users on the Denim Social platform.
In addition to building brand credibility and establishing loan officer expertise, Denim Social enables their mortgage loan officers to cultivate relationships in social media and organically source leads.
As financial marketers look to the coming year, most are wondering, “what’s next?” While no one can say for sure, our team of experts here at Denim Social are keeping a pulse on what’s new in digital marketing for financial institutions on social media. This guide will not only educate you on the latest trends, but help you make the case for increased investment in social selling and digital marketing strategies at your institution.
Evolve Bank & Trust (“Evolve”) is an $700M+ asset institution with nearly 40 Home Loan Centers (HLC) and nearly 500 employees nationwide. See how Denim Social helped Evolve activate Home Loan Center Facebook pages over the course of just a few months.
Whether you’re in banking, wealth management, insurance or mortgage, relationships are the bedrock of your business.
Considering clients in these industries are handing over the keys to their personal kingdoms, it’s no surprise that trust and connection matter. That’s why successful sales strategies for these industries are focused on building long-term, trusted relationships.
To truly unleash the potential of social, financial institutions need to use social media as a sales tool. It’s called social selling and it works.
The power of social media is undeniable. The ability of banks to engage with and influence customers and prospects via interactive digital channels is an essential tool and a cornerstone of marketing. Gone are the days when it was “nice to have” a presence on platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Today, these pathways are helping banks to build relationships that were historically cultivated by tirelessly walking up and down Main Street, shaking hands and leaving behind business cards.
In this case study by Denim Social and American Bankers Association, we take a look at how banks are using social media to ramp up digital engagement and build sales.
As any marketer worth their salt will tell you, analytics should drive your social strategy. The key to success is understanding how to link social media efforts to ROI metrics. Read this guide to learn how to gain insights that matter, optimize your strategy and prove your social success.
AnnieMac is one of the fastest-growing mortgage loan providers in the U.S., serving clients in 42 states. Learn how Denim Social helped their team to streamline its brand’s social media strategy and activate social selling for hundreds of loan officers in just four months.
As mortgage demand surges to historic highs, home purchase and refinance markets remain hot. This is excellent news for loan officers, but it also means the environment is more competitive than ever.
So how can marketers ensure that their loan officers stand out? The answer is social media.
Read this guidebook from Denim Social to learn how you can help your loan officers build strong relationships, stand out from the crowd and win more business using social media.
Every Mortgage Marketer Should Ask Themselves
Compliance is complicated, but don’t let it stop your lending team from making the most of social media. Think you’re ready to start social selling? Ask yourself these five questions!
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
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.
How to Launch Unique Paid Ad Campaigns as a Financial Institution
For financial institutions, digital marketing for their financial services is a must, but organic posts are not enough on their own to build and nurture audiences. Organic content only reach an average of 2.2% of followers of social media platforms, so how can financial institutions stand out in busy social media newsfeeds and reach more people in their natural environments? The answer lies in paid social media advertising.
A third of internet users find new products and brands through paid ads, so it’s no surprise to see a rise in digital ad spend over the years. While organic posts are also an important part of a social media strategy, paid ads are where financial institutions can grow their audience and reach their marketing goal metrics.
You’re not doing ads for the sake of ads. Know your goals. Do you want to convert, get people to consider you, or build brand awareness? The platforms are going to ask you these questions, but you should know before you ever start building the ad sets. Once you have your ad campaign, budget, and targeting ready — the red tape needed before breaking ground — you can begin implementing your digital marketing strategy. This process can be repeated on multiple campaigns for maximum impact, increasing your ROI with each successful campaign.
Creating Paid Ad Campaigns for More Effective Marketing Efforts
When optimizing digital marketing for banking or any other financial institution, you’ll always hit these four key pillars:
1. Choose a Platform
Determining which platform is right for your financial institution depends on your objectives and target audience. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s about whom you want your ads to reach and for what purpose. For example, if you’re looking to build trust with professionals, LinkedIn is consistently rated as the most trustworthy platform. Featuring your ads there will have a higher impact than posting on platforms such as Instagram.
Speaking of, Instagram is often used by Gen Z, and the most popular platform for following brands — almost 90% of people say they have followed, visited a brand site, or made a purchase because of Instagram ads. This would be a great place to post investment tips and personal finance advice because, according to FINRA data, Gen Z users are looking specifically for that subject. Tailoring your content to a specific platform requires thoughtful planning, but it’s a step you won’t regret.
2. Create and Test Content
Even a single social media post is made up of a lot of moving parts — from the images, to the copy, to the call to action — and each part can be optimized. Look at what pieces of your ads work, and change what doesn’t. Don’t follow trend articles; rather, pay attention to what works for your audience and your institution.
This could mean using paid ads to A/B test different audiences or trying out different CTAs. The options are nearly endless. Track the performance of individual content decisions and use these insights to make improvements. And remember, all these content decisions — especially the placement of links — should be made with your customers’ purchase decision journeys in mind. Consumers want brands to be practical, authentic, and engaging. Test your content to ensure you’re delighting your audiences at every touchpoint.
3. Monitor Analytics
Every platform has analytics — but they all handle them differently. That’s why Denim Social gives you access to real-time, easy-to-understand engagement metrics across the board. Monitoring your analytics helps you track engagement metrics and benchmark your success against forecasts and competitors. By tracking which posts your audience engages with the most, you can also give your team a place to start when creating new content: Our platform lets you share local insights with your teammates in just two clicks. Taking high-performing topics and adapting them further will help you provide customers with the knowledge they find most valuable and cultivate trust. Almost a third of internet users say they find new products and brands through paid social ads, so monitor who you’re reaching and how it’s boosting your institution.
4. Optimize Budget
We’ve mentioned the need to set a budget, but let us emphasize that budgeting is crucial in your digital marketing strategy. With so many ad options available and so many potential target audiences to reach, it can be confusing to know where to invest your marketing dollars. Thankfully, Denim Social uses a proprietary social media ads manager to automatically optimize ad performance across multiple platforms. This allows you to run an omnichannel marketing strategy with ease.
Digital marketing for financial services can seem daunting at first. Financial services marketers have a lot of details to pay attention to, and each platform has its unique way of serving ads. But a singular platform like Denim Social can help you run and monitor social media ad campaigns across all networks and ensure you’re standing out among the competition — to get started, reach out for a demo of the Denim Social platform today.
In today's digital age, social media platforms have become essential tools for professionals in various industries to connect with clients, share valuable insights, and build their brand. Instagram, with its visual appeal and highly-engaged user base, is no exception. For financial professionals, leveraging Instagram can be a powerful way to showcase expertise, establish credibility, and build stronger relationships. In this blog post, we will discuss the best practices for building your Instagram business profile as a financial professional that will give your social selling a boost.
Choose a Professional Username and Profile Picture
Start by selecting a username that reflects your name or your financial business's name. Keep it simple and easy to remember. Use a high-quality profile picture, such as a professional headshot or your company logo. This picture will be the first impression potential followers have of you.
Optimize Your Bio
Craft a concise and informative bio that clearly defines your role and expertise. Use relevant keywords, such as "Financial Advisor," "Mortgage Loan Officer,” or "Insurance Agent." Include a brief but captivating description of the value you provide to your customers. Highlight any unique selling points or specializations.
Content Strategy
Determine your content niche. Share content that aligns with your expertise, such as investment tips, financial planning advice, or market insights. Develop a content calendar to ensure consistency. Aim for a mix of educational, inspirational, and personal posts. Use high-quality images and graphics to enhance your posts. Visual appeal is essential on Instagram!
Engage Your Audience
Respond promptly to comments and direct messages. Engaging with your followers builds a sense of trust and connection. You want your followers to engage with your posts, so do the same for them! Like, comment, and share to help increase visibility.
Use Hashtags Wisely
Research and use relevant hashtags to increase the discoverability of your posts. Utilize both industry-specific and popular hashtags. Best practice is to use 5-10 hashtags per post as they relate to the content.
Collaborate and Network
Collaborate with influencers or other professionals in your industry. Guest posts or shoutouts can expand your reach. Attend industry events and share your experiences on Instagram. It’s all about taking those in-person relationships online, too.
Educate and Inform
Share informative and educational content that empowers your audience. Explainer videos, infographics, and step-by-step guides can be especially valuable. Stay up-to-date with the latest financial news and trends, and share your unique insights with your followers. Always provide value!
Analytics and Optimization
Regularly analyze your Instagram Insights to understand which content performs best and when your audience is most active. Use this data to refine your content strategy and posting schedule for optimal engagement.
Promote Your Services
While Instagram is a platform for sharing valuable content, don't forget to promote your services subtly. Share client success stories or case studies to showcase your expertise in action.
Stay Compliant
Ensure that your posts comply with industry regulations and guidelines. Be transparent about any potential conflicts of interest. Luckily, platforms like Denim Social that are built for the financial services industry can help with that!
In conclusion, Instagram can be a valuable tool for financial professionals to connect with clients and prospects. By following these best practices, you can build a strong and trustworthy online presence that sets you apart in the competitive world of finance. Remember that consistency and authenticity are key to establishing a successful Instagram business profile for financial professionals. See our Denim Social guide to building stronger customer relationships on Instagram here!
Instagram stands out as the shining star of social media platforms. While Facebook still reigns supreme and TikTok grows, Instagram is quickly catching up fast with more than 2 billion users worldwide.
With users under age 34 making up nearly 60 percent of this user population, financial services marketers looking to reach younger generations should take note. And with an estimated sum of $68 trillion in wealth expected to transfer from Baby Boomers to Millennials in the next couple of decades, Millennials are a worthwhile target.
Studies predict that, after inheriting wealth, 80% or more young heirs will seek out a new financial advisor. Considering that 9 in 10 accounts follow at least one business on Instagram and 8 in 10 users find new products and services in the app, it’s a safe bet that Instagram will be a place to influence many Millennials. Wise financial services marketers will meet them where they are with strong Instagram marketing strategies, and the following tips can help:
1. Focus on paid ads
Instagram is a visual platform for sharing photos and videos, so it’s important for brand pages to populate their profiles with organic posts. While this presence is important, organic content isn’t what will move the needle on business goals. Financial services aren’t exactly visually interesting, and organic posts tend to have low reach as they only show up in the feeds of a brand’s current followers. Without the ability to include hyperlinks in captions, they also won’t drive any traffic back to your site. If you want to build the type of following needed to generate new business, including paid advertising in your Instagram marketing strategy is your ticket.
With Instagram advertising, institutions and advisors can target ads to land with exactly the right audience — even outside their follower base — and include links in posts to drive more traffic to the brand. With a specific call to action that directs consumers to learn more about a topic, Instagram ads offer a straight-line path to giving customers the valuable information they desire — in their own time and at their own place. What’s more, Instagram advertising is seamlessly integrated directly into Instagram feeds and stories, creating a smoother user experience all around.
2. Connect with consumers on a local level
Instagram marketing on the corporate brand level is a great starting point, but advertising on behalf of your individual advisors can take your strategy to the next level. Think of it this way: If a consumer sees a well-known brand on social media, they might recognize the name, but they won’t feel an intrinsic connection beyond initial familiarity. In contrast, they’ll feel familiarity and an immediate connection when they see a post from an advisor in their own community. Consumers want to build relationships with brands, and a shared community is a great starting point.
Of course, most advisors and other financial services employees are not experts on how to market the business on Instagram. And marketers know they must keep all social media marketing for their financial institutions compliant to avoid heavy regulatory reprimands. To keep posts compliant, save employees time, and help them build relationships with consumers in their physical communities, financial services marketers can set up and run ads on their behalf.
3. Micro-target content to your audience
As big-name brands like Amazon continue to elevate the digital customer experience with seamless customer service, purchasing, and delivery, customer expectations are higher than ever before. When customers evaluate a financial institution, they compare it not only to other organizations in the industry, but also to tech giants in any industry that give them exactly what they need when they need it.
They expect a high level of personalization and convenience, and Instagram marketing with paid advertising can help you give it to them. Match basic behavioral and geographic data to potential customers on Instagram to target ads, and then track clicks, engagements, and post-click actions. These data points don’t indicate much on their own, but together they offer a rich story about what consumers want. Continually refine your strategy with these data points in mind to deliver the kind of highly personalized experiences your audiences want on Instagram.
With a large Millennial user base that engages actively with brands online and the ability to target highly personalized ads to exactly the right audiences, Instagram is a must-have in any financial services marketing strategy. To learn more about how Instagram marketing can work to drive your business forward, download our guide to building stronger customer relationships on Instagram for free today.
Make the most of your social media pages and posts by optimizing your images and including essential information about your business on each platform. By giving customers an optimal digital experience, you can broaden reach and provide better customer service through your digital platforms.
IMAGE SIZING:
Profile picture: 176 x 176px (desktop), 196x 196px (smartphones)
Cover photo: 820 x 312px (desktop), 640 x 360px (smartphones)
Keep the main content of your image centered. On a desktop the photo will display as 840x312px, but on mobile will size down to 640x360px.
Facebook post image: 1200 x 630px
The ideal width for a Facebook post image is 1200px, but height can vary based on what type of device the image display is optimized for. We recommend keeping it at the recommended size to keep consistency on all devices.
When creating a Facebook Ad graphic, any text should not take up more than 20% of the photo. You can find a cheat sheet here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay.
Facebook Video: 1280 x 720px
The optimal length for a short-form video on Facebook is 15 seconds to 1 minute; for a long-form video, it is 3 minutes. The maximum file size is 10GB.
Facebook Link Image: 1200 x 630px
Make sure to claim ownership of your links for the ability to change the link preview photo. You can find more info on that here: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/528858287471922?id=708699556338610.
Carousel Post: 1080 x 1080px
Carousel posts are a great way to display multiple services or features that you offer to your customers. When placing a Facebook ad you can link each carousel photo to a different link, making it easy for people to navigate to your specific products.
Facebook Story: 1080 x 1920px
Make the most of your stories by using all of your space and creating a fullscreen experience.
IMPORTANT PAGE INFORMATION:
Page name:
This is where you can name your Facebook Page, but be sure to keep it shorter than 75 characters.
Page username:
Customize your page URL by adding a username, making it easier for people to locate and navigate people from other digital platforms. Your Facebook URL can include up to 50 characters.
Page call to action:
Facebook gives you a variety of choices on calls to action. For example, if you’d like customers to contact you by email, you can set up a “Send Email” button with your email address connected and ready to go.
IMAGE SIZING:
Profile picture: 400 x 400px
Upload your business logo here to personalize your profile. If this page is for an individual, this is where you will upload their headshot.
Cover Photo: 1584 x 396px
Having a personalized business cover photo will make your profile look more professional and give you the opportunity to provide page visitors with more of the look and feel of your business. This can include an image related to your business or a graphic with information on services you provide or your business slogan.
LinkedIn post photo: 1200 x 628px (mobile), 1200 x 1200px (desktop)
When targeting an audience on both desktop and mobile, make sure that you optimize for mobile to give people the best experience.
LinkedIn Link Photo: 1200 x 628px (mobile), 1200 x 1200px (desktop)
Providing an image with your link preview can help give viewers a better idea of article content and improve your click thru rates.
LinkedIn Link Video: 4096 x 2304px maximum, 256 x 144 pixels minimum
The optimal video length for LinkedIn is 30-90 seconds and the maximum file size is 5GB.
IMPORTANT PAGE INFORMATION
Page name:
This is where your business name is located, as well as your company industry, location, and number of followers.
Page description:
Add your business slogan, mission, or a short description that tells people what your company, products, and services can do for them.
X (Formerly Known as Twitter)
IMAGE SIZING
Profile picture: 400 x 400px
Upload your business logo or headshot to personalize your profile.
Cover photo: 1500 x 500px
Be sure to center your content to give your followers an optimized experience on mobile.
Twitter post photo: 1600 x 900px
Allow your followers to see the entirety of the photo in their feed by adhering to this sizing guideline. The maximum file size is 5MB.
X video: 1280 x 720px (desktop, recommended), 720 x 720px (mobile)
The optimal video length for Twitter is 20-45 seconds and the maximum file size is 512MB.
IMPORTANT PAGE INFORMATION
Underneath your profile photo, your company name and username will be displayed.
Write a short bio to tell people more about your business.
IMAGE SIZING
Profile photo: 110 x 110px
Your profile picture will be small, so be sure your image is sized correctly and centered. This is a great place for your company logo.
Profile thumbnail: Displays as 161 x 161px
This is a preview of your large image post, but looks best when the photo posted is square.
Highlight Cover: 1080 x 1920px
Your cover photos should have centered images to give your highlight reel a balanced look. You can also name your highlights, but be concise as they can only be 15 characters long.
Instagram Feed Photo: 1080 x 1080px (square), 1080 x 1350 (portrait), 1080 x 566 (landscape)
The recommended width for all Instagram feed photos is 1080px, but the height can vary. To optimize for your feed display within your profile, we recommend using the sizing listed above to keep your image square.
Instagram Feed Video: 1080 x 1080px (square), 1080 x 1350 (portrait), 1080 x 566 (landscape)
The optimal length for an Instagram video is 30-60 seconds and the max file size is 650MB.
Instagram Feed Ad Photo: 1080 x 1080px
Your ad photo will display the same as a normal feed photo, but with a link attached. When creating an ad in Ads Manager, you’ll be able to upload a separate photo for Instagram to keep your photos optimized for the user experience.
Instagram Story: 1080 x 1920px (portrait), 1080 x 601 (landscape)
Make the most of your stories by using all of your space and creating a fullscreen experience. The maximum length of the story is 60 seconds.
Instagram Reels & Live: 1080 x 1920px
Reels can be used to offer tutorials, demos, or service features. These will be saved under your profile page for viewers to go back and watch at their leisure. The maximum length for Reels is 90 seconds. For Live, this can be used for announcements, events, or other Q&A sessions. These can also be saved for later viewing, and can last up to 4 hours.
Known as the professional social networking platform, LinkedIn is a powerful tool for social selling, allowing your team to foster strategic customer relationships and build credibility. An important part of your online brand, your LinkedIn profile is a key source of information for people looking to learn more about you.
A strong LinkedIn profile creates opportunities for meaningful connections and interactions with other professionals. But how do you make LinkedIn a successful part of your marketing strategy? Well, for starters, you need to build trust. Use the following best practices to do just that.
1.) Add professional profile and cover photos. According to LinkedIn, a professional headshot makes your profile 21x more likely to be viewed, and profiles with photos get a 40% better message response rate. For best results, upload JPEG or PNG images sized as follows:
- Profile photo: 400x400 pixels
- Cover photo: 1584x396 pixels
Pro Tip: Bookmark our Up-to-Date Social Media Sizing & Resource Guide to optimize your images on every social media platform.
2. Write a compelling headline and summary. Your headline and summary should clearly and succinctly state who you are and why someone should connect with you.
- Headline: More than simply your job title, your headline should answer these two questions:
- Who do you help?
- How do you help?
- Summary: Use the following framework to write a compelling professional summary:
- Paragraph 1: In three sentences or less, what is your value prop to your prospective customers? Reiterate your purpose from your headline.
- Paragraph 2: In three sentences or less, how do you help customers achieve results?
- Paragraph 3: In three sentences or less, what is your call-to-action for the prospective customer?
Pro Tip: In your headline and summary, be sure to include keywords prospective customers might search for.
3. Engage frequently and consistently. Every week, apply consistent effort to LinkedIn to build credibility and keep content relevant and valuable for customers. Below is checklist of activities we recommend performing on a weekly basis:
- Post relevant content: Check your content library or search for trending topics in the LinkedIn search bar. You can find some great recent inspiration from others in your field.
- Post/schedule content at the right time: Generally, the best time to post on LinkedIn is Tuesday through Thursday between 10 and 11 a.m. Content posted in the evenings and on weekends tends to get less engagement. Check out this guide in our Help Center for more information on when to post on various social media channels.
- Seek recommendations from customers and share success stories: What’s better than telling your networks how great you are? Someone else saying it for you! Positive testimonials, endorsements and reviews go a long way in building your credibility.
- Check likes, follows, shares, hashtags and comments. Be sure to engage and respond as appropriate. Set weekly or monthly goals for growth and track progress.
- Grow your network: Join relevant groups in your industry to gain customer insights about needs and interests, follow influencers and connect with others.
Pro tip: Add a 30-minute weekly recurring event on your calendar to go through the above checklist.
LinkedIn should be an essential part of your team’s social selling strategy. Stay visible and build trust with consistency and an optimized profile.
Looking for a quick reference for all of this information? Check out this infographic.
“If you build it, they will come.”
While this advice may work in fictional baseball movies, it’s a bad strategy for building your Facebook business page following.
Successfully growing your page likes and follows requires ongoing attention, but it pays off.
More followers indicates greater popularity and trust in your brand and also means more eyeballs on your content.
Follow these tips to start growing your following today.
1. Share meaningful content. Before posting anything on your page, make sure it provides value to your audience. When you do this consistently, your existing followers will share it with their friends, attracting more followers. As you plan your content strategy, think about the topics you can speak to with authority. Then look for gaps in the content already being shared with your audience. Where these two intersect is a great place to focus your thought leadership efforts.
2. Be consistent. It goes without saying that consistency in voice, tone and style should be inherent in any marketing message. As you work to grow your Facebook page following, it’s also important to aim for consistency in when and how often you post content. When your content quality, quantity or schedule isn’t consistent, it can confuse your audience. Staying on a schedule will improve the experience you deliver and build your business’s credibility and reputation. Use a tool like Denim Social’s Analytics to test and monitor when engagement is at its highest, and design your content schedule accordingly.
3. Invite friends. One of the quickest, most efficient ways to start driving awareness and growing your audience is to invite your friends to follow your page. Remember, your friends have friends, and they might be interested in following your business and your new page.
4. Run ads. A surefire way to grow your following is to run Facebook ads. Ads are an effective tool for promoting your page, boosting your posts, getting more leads, increasing conversions and performing a number of other actions. Keep in mind, however, that it may not always be in your best interest to grow your following just for the sake of a bigger number. You want to attract people who are interested in your products and services (and, in turn, more likely to engage with your content). Using audience targeting strategies will help you reach the right consumer with the right message.
A Facebook business page is an easy and effective way to grow your brand awareness and credibility. Although it’s not as simple as set-it-and-forget-it, if you follow the tips outlined above, you will be well on your way to growing your Facebook fan base. If you need help engaging your audience on social media, get in touch with us today.
Where Are the Biggest Opportunities to Use Social Media in Financial Services?
Denim Social's Guide To Social Selling For Financial Services shows that most financial professionals — 83% of those surveyed — have a social media presence. It’s a great place to start, but having a profile is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what benefits financial institutions can enjoy from social media. Smart financial marketers and their teams should be optimizing their social selling efforts on every network to get the most out of what social media has to offer.
Customers are active in many other places online, so why not meet them there? After all, 79% of people look to social media for financial advice. By meeting customers where they are on the main 4 networks, financial institutions can stay top of mind and grow real, authentic connections. Let’s dive into what Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook have to offer and how financial services marketers can best use each platform.
1. Instagram
As far as major social media platforms in financial services go, Instagram tops the list. While many financial professionals might not at first think of the photographic and visual network as prime business territory, its popularity makes it an excellent place to strengthen real relationships.
Instagram is one of the best ways to get in front of younger audiences, which is a worthwhile goal, considering that many Millennial customers will likely be on the search for new financial services providers as Baby Boomers pass their wealth on to the next generations. What's more, 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business account and 80% use the platform to discover new products.
Even better, getting started on Instagram is a breeze. Instagram ads also allow hyperlinks, so you can lead readers right from their feeds to your website with specific calls to action to learn more. Lead them to a personalized and well-designed landing page on your site, for instance, and you'll be drawing each follower who clicks through one big step closer to conversion.
2. LinkedIn
The majority of financial services providers already use LinkedIn, and there are many ways to make it perhaps the most successful social selling platform out of all the networks. Employees at institutions of all sizes and financial industries can use this professional network to cultivate thought leadership and educate their customers.
For financial services marketers, a brand profile is a necessary starting point. Getting the most out of the platform, however, requires activating your employees in a social selling strategy. They can share relevant content, such as videos and published articles from trusted media outlets, as well as engage with customers and prospects one-on-one via direct messaging to establish themselves as experts and build trusting relationships. People want to engage with other people, not with general brand pages. It’s no wonder that employees on social media can garner 10x the engagement of brand pages alone.
3. Twitter
Like LinkedIn, Twitter is also a great place for agents, loan officers, and advisors to share their expertise. Understandably, financial services marketers might be intimidated by the fast-paced nature of the platform and fear they don’t have enough resources to keep up. However, with the proper social media management tools, maintaining compliant engagement on Twitter is totally possible — and worth it.
One of the greatest benefits of social media marketing for financial services is the ability to provide more value to customers. Twitter makes this incredibly easy to do. Marketers can follow all relevant news media outlets and keep an eye out for any articles that might benefit their clients or prospects. For example, an explainer piece on recent changes in tax legislation may be helpful come tax season. Retweeting such helpful resources educates followers on financial topics and builds trust in the brand and its employees.
There’s no single best social media platform for marketing. Each one has a unique opportunity to reach and engage current and future customers. If you’re already on social media, it’s time to level up your social media marketing strategy by diving into Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook in more depth. No matter the size of your financial institution, extending your social media strategy to encompass these platforms can help grow your audience, build trust, and maintain solid customer relationships.
Connect & Convert on Social
How to Launch Unique Paid Ad Campaigns as a Financial Institution
For financial institutions, digital marketing for their financial services is a must, but organic posts are not enough on their own to build and nurture audiences. Organic content only reach an average of 2.2% of followers of social media platforms, so how can financial institutions stand out in busy social media newsfeeds and reach more people in their natural environments? The answer lies in paid social media advertising.
A third of internet users find new products and brands through paid ads, so it’s no surprise to see a rise in digital ad spend over the years. While organic posts are also an important part of a social media strategy, paid ads are where financial institutions can grow their audience and reach their marketing goal metrics.
You’re not doing ads for the sake of ads. Know your goals. Do you want to convert, get people to consider you, or build brand awareness? The platforms are going to ask you these questions, but you should know before you ever start building the ad sets. Once you have your ad campaign, budget, and targeting ready — the red tape needed before breaking ground — you can begin implementing your digital marketing strategy. This process can be repeated on multiple campaigns for maximum impact, increasing your ROI with each successful campaign.
Creating Paid Ad Campaigns for More Effective Marketing Efforts
When optimizing digital marketing for banking or any other financial institution, you’ll always hit these four key pillars:
1. Choose a Platform
Determining which platform is right for your financial institution depends on your objectives and target audience. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s about whom you want your ads to reach and for what purpose. For example, if you’re looking to build trust with professionals, LinkedIn is consistently rated as the most trustworthy platform. Featuring your ads there will have a higher impact than posting on platforms such as Instagram.
Speaking of, Instagram is often used by Gen Z, and the most popular platform for following brands — almost 90% of people say they have followed, visited a brand site, or made a purchase because of Instagram ads. This would be a great place to post investment tips and personal finance advice because, according to FINRA data, Gen Z users are looking specifically for that subject. Tailoring your content to a specific platform requires thoughtful planning, but it’s a step you won’t regret.
2. Create and Test Content
Even a single social media post is made up of a lot of moving parts — from the images, to the copy, to the call to action — and each part can be optimized. Look at what pieces of your ads work, and change what doesn’t. Don’t follow trend articles; rather, pay attention to what works for your audience and your institution.
This could mean using paid ads to A/B test different audiences or trying out different CTAs. The options are nearly endless. Track the performance of individual content decisions and use these insights to make improvements. And remember, all these content decisions — especially the placement of links — should be made with your customers’ purchase decision journeys in mind. Consumers want brands to be practical, authentic, and engaging. Test your content to ensure you’re delighting your audiences at every touchpoint.
3. Monitor Analytics
Every platform has analytics — but they all handle them differently. That’s why Denim Social gives you access to real-time, easy-to-understand engagement metrics across the board. Monitoring your analytics helps you track engagement metrics and benchmark your success against forecasts and competitors. By tracking which posts your audience engages with the most, you can also give your team a place to start when creating new content: Our platform lets you share local insights with your teammates in just two clicks. Taking high-performing topics and adapting them further will help you provide customers with the knowledge they find most valuable and cultivate trust. Almost a third of internet users say they find new products and brands through paid social ads, so monitor who you’re reaching and how it’s boosting your institution.
4. Optimize Budget
We’ve mentioned the need to set a budget, but let us emphasize that budgeting is crucial in your digital marketing strategy. With so many ad options available and so many potential target audiences to reach, it can be confusing to know where to invest your marketing dollars. Thankfully, Denim Social uses a proprietary social media ads manager to automatically optimize ad performance across multiple platforms. This allows you to run an omnichannel marketing strategy with ease.
Digital marketing for financial services can seem daunting at first. Financial services marketers have a lot of details to pay attention to, and each platform has its unique way of serving ads. But a singular platform like Denim Social can help you run and monitor social media ad campaigns across all networks and ensure you’re standing out among the competition — to get started, reach out for a demo of the Denim Social platform today.
Retail banks in the U.S. are facing a major customer attrition challenges. According to a recent Bain report, customers make as many as 55 percent of financial-related purchases from their primary bank’s competitors. While primary banks may be able to retain customers’ savings and checking accounts, the report suggests that they’re likely losing out on lucrative sales when it comes to loans, credit cards and investments.
Considering that almost one-third of those who defected from their primary bank did so in response to a direct offer from a competitor, wise marketers will up their customer engagement and outreach efforts to retain more customers. Affordability of products is the top reason for customer defection, which marketers may not have much say in, but it isn’t the only contributing factor. Digitization has also been a major catalyst. Namely, the strong digital products and experiences that some banks offer—and others do not.
Bank marketers who can jump onboard the digitization train to meet customers where they are with engaging, valuable messaging will be much more likely to keep customers coming back again and again for each of their financial needs. The following strategies can help:
1. Put the human element front and center
Traditional banks have an innate advantage over digital direct banks: The human touch. Leveraging this benefit, especially when it comes to increasingly digital customer interactions, can lead to measurable improvements in customer retention.
One way to ensure the human touch remains part of every customer touchpoint is to focus on personalization. A February Insurance Thought Leadership piece revealed that 72 percent of people ignore marketing that’s not highly personalized. So targeting relevant content to the right recipients is essential, especially when digitization can easily strip the human element out of an interaction. Personalizing messaging and services to be relevant and valuable to the specific needs of each customer can bring the human element into focus even in a digital world.
One way to create more relevant, personalized outreach is to practice social selling, or leveraging a bank’s employees on social media. People can relate more to other people than they can to big brand names. When your employees are the ones getting in front of customers virtually, it humanizes the digital customer experience and sets the stage for trusting and loyal relationships to come. What’s more, employees also tend to have further reach and engagement on brand-related social posts than brand pages alone, so they can expand the impact of your messaging exponentially.
2. Create digital pathways to human interactions
When considering how to anchor all digital marketing for financial services around the human element, keep in mind that every pathway should connect prospects and customers directly to a human.
For example, a social media post from an employee could include a link to a landing page on your website where visitors can learn more valuable information on the topic of the post. On that landing page, you can include valuable content, such as a guidebook, behind an information request form. When users submit their names and email addresses, they will receive the content and your sales team members can reach out to them directly with a human-centric, personalized outreach approach.
When prospects and customers know they’re just an email or phone call away from a real person at your organization, they’re likely to turn to you instead of an impersonal digital direct bank for their next financial need.
3. Focus on customer retention just as much as acquisition
Bringing in new prospects gets a lot of attention from financial services marketers, sometimes at the expense of retaining current ones. But focusing on customer retention and continuously improving the digital customer experience will help secure more revenue when it comes to additional services such as loans and credit cards.
Listen to the needs of customers and keep refining your personalization tactics to meet their needs. Every time you get in front of a current customer with relevant, valuable messaging or content, you help build trust in that relationship and increase the chances of that customer coming to you for whatever service they need next.
It’s true that people will always be drawn to brands that offer more affordable products and services. But money isn’t the only reason people look outside of their primary bank to fulfill their financial needs. Banks that differentiate by focusing on digitization alongside the human element will find that it’s easier to keep current customers from looking for greener pastures.
This was originally published on ABA Bank Marketing.
In today's digital age, social media platforms have become essential tools for professionals in various industries to connect with clients, share valuable insights, and build their brand. Instagram, with its visual appeal and highly-engaged user base, is no exception. For financial professionals, leveraging Instagram can be a powerful way to showcase expertise, establish credibility, and build stronger relationships. In this blog post, we will discuss the best practices for building your Instagram business profile as a financial professional that will give your social selling a boost.
Choose a Professional Username and Profile Picture
Start by selecting a username that reflects your name or your financial business's name. Keep it simple and easy to remember. Use a high-quality profile picture, such as a professional headshot or your company logo. This picture will be the first impression potential followers have of you.
Optimize Your Bio
Craft a concise and informative bio that clearly defines your role and expertise. Use relevant keywords, such as "Financial Advisor," "Mortgage Loan Officer,” or "Insurance Agent." Include a brief but captivating description of the value you provide to your customers. Highlight any unique selling points or specializations.
Content Strategy
Determine your content niche. Share content that aligns with your expertise, such as investment tips, financial planning advice, or market insights. Develop a content calendar to ensure consistency. Aim for a mix of educational, inspirational, and personal posts. Use high-quality images and graphics to enhance your posts. Visual appeal is essential on Instagram!
Engage Your Audience
Respond promptly to comments and direct messages. Engaging with your followers builds a sense of trust and connection. You want your followers to engage with your posts, so do the same for them! Like, comment, and share to help increase visibility.
Use Hashtags Wisely
Research and use relevant hashtags to increase the discoverability of your posts. Utilize both industry-specific and popular hashtags. Best practice is to use 5-10 hashtags per post as they relate to the content.
Collaborate and Network
Collaborate with influencers or other professionals in your industry. Guest posts or shoutouts can expand your reach. Attend industry events and share your experiences on Instagram. It’s all about taking those in-person relationships online, too.
Educate and Inform
Share informative and educational content that empowers your audience. Explainer videos, infographics, and step-by-step guides can be especially valuable. Stay up-to-date with the latest financial news and trends, and share your unique insights with your followers. Always provide value!
Analytics and Optimization
Regularly analyze your Instagram Insights to understand which content performs best and when your audience is most active. Use this data to refine your content strategy and posting schedule for optimal engagement.
Promote Your Services
While Instagram is a platform for sharing valuable content, don't forget to promote your services subtly. Share client success stories or case studies to showcase your expertise in action.
Stay Compliant
Ensure that your posts comply with industry regulations and guidelines. Be transparent about any potential conflicts of interest. Luckily, platforms like Denim Social that are built for the financial services industry can help with that!
In conclusion, Instagram can be a valuable tool for financial professionals to connect with clients and prospects. By following these best practices, you can build a strong and trustworthy online presence that sets you apart in the competitive world of finance. Remember that consistency and authenticity are key to establishing a successful Instagram business profile for financial professionals. See our Denim Social guide to building stronger customer relationships on Instagram here!
Connecting with customers and prospects on social media is a natural extension of the financial services industry becoming more digital. Consumers expect the businesses they patronize to be on the same social platforms they use — and they expect those brands to be ready to interact with them. Case in point: A survey of over 500 social media users found that nearly three-quarters follow organizations on social platforms, and the vast majority of them interact with those brands on social.
Social media is the perfect tool for financial institutions to build brand awareness, meet the demand for greater digital engagement, recruit prospective customers, and drive referrals.
While social media is a great way to connect with customers and prospects, it’s not without its risk. It’s essential to use social media tools that will keep your team in compliance.
1. START WITH A SOCIAL SELLING STRATEGY.
There are few limits to how you can connect with customers and prospects on social media, but it needs to be about more than posts from a brand page. Direct messaging is always an option for private communication, but to reach more people at scale, social sellers (i.e., agents, loan officers, financial advisors, intermediaries, etc.) should also be posting original content, resharing educational articles, responding to comments and questions, and liking others’ posts. With so many options, it’s important for marketers to craft a social selling strategy that guides social sellers in their social interactions on behalf of the institution.
A well-thought-out strategy can ensure effective social selling. For instance, rather than posting on channels at random and hoping for the best, social sellers can determine which social media platforms suit them best based on audience engagement and follower counts; then they can focus their efforts there. Consider also equipping intermediaries with a library of branded content they can mix in with their personal posts. This strategy will inform your all-important social media policy moving forward.
2. TURN YOUR STRATEGY INTO A DETAILED POLICY.
In a heavily regulated industry, it’s essential for firms to have a comprehensive social media policy. This is a package of brand messaging in a detailed policy to help ensure consistency when social sellers post on your behalf.
Take the plan you mapped out in your strategy and turn it into a documented policy that intermediaries can access easily. Social media and the way people use it continues to evolve, which is why your social media policy should always be a work in progress. Make updates periodically to account for shifts in your approval workflow, changes in messaging, and general social media best practices. As social sellers become savvier, your policy will grow more detailed.
3. MAKE TRAINING AN ONGOING EFFORT.
Intermediaries who are new to social media will require initial training — but it shouldn’t be a one-and-done initiative. Hold regular social selling workshops to keep all social sellers up to date on your social media policy and messaging.
You can also use workshop time to walk your team through any tools you invest in to fuel social media efforts. Denim Social, for example, offers live product demos you can share to show them how to use the technology and get the most benefit.
Demonstrate how the software streamlines the approval process for posts and automatically archives them for future reference. The more they know, the more comfortable they’ll be using such tools to facilitate social selling efforts. The great news is, our customer success team is here to help get your team trained and ready.
Social media opens up a world of opportunity for financial institutions to reach and engage customers and prospects, but that doesn’t mean you should set your team free to do as they please. The right strategy and social media management software can make it a lot easier to avoid mistakes and create a successful social selling strategy. Want to see how Denim Social can help your team up their social media game? Schedule a demo today!
Instagram stands out as the shining star of social media platforms. While Facebook still reigns supreme and TikTok grows, Instagram is quickly catching up fast with more than 2 billion users worldwide.
With users under age 34 making up nearly 60 percent of this user population, financial services marketers looking to reach younger generations should take note. And with an estimated sum of $68 trillion in wealth expected to transfer from Baby Boomers to Millennials in the next couple of decades, Millennials are a worthwhile target.
Studies predict that, after inheriting wealth, 80% or more young heirs will seek out a new financial advisor. Considering that 9 in 10 accounts follow at least one business on Instagram and 8 in 10 users find new products and services in the app, it’s a safe bet that Instagram will be a place to influence many Millennials. Wise financial services marketers will meet them where they are with strong Instagram marketing strategies, and the following tips can help:
1. Focus on paid ads
Instagram is a visual platform for sharing photos and videos, so it’s important for brand pages to populate their profiles with organic posts. While this presence is important, organic content isn’t what will move the needle on business goals. Financial services aren’t exactly visually interesting, and organic posts tend to have low reach as they only show up in the feeds of a brand’s current followers. Without the ability to include hyperlinks in captions, they also won’t drive any traffic back to your site. If you want to build the type of following needed to generate new business, including paid advertising in your Instagram marketing strategy is your ticket.
With Instagram advertising, institutions and advisors can target ads to land with exactly the right audience — even outside their follower base — and include links in posts to drive more traffic to the brand. With a specific call to action that directs consumers to learn more about a topic, Instagram ads offer a straight-line path to giving customers the valuable information they desire — in their own time and at their own place. What’s more, Instagram advertising is seamlessly integrated directly into Instagram feeds and stories, creating a smoother user experience all around.
2. Connect with consumers on a local level
Instagram marketing on the corporate brand level is a great starting point, but advertising on behalf of your individual advisors can take your strategy to the next level. Think of it this way: If a consumer sees a well-known brand on social media, they might recognize the name, but they won’t feel an intrinsic connection beyond initial familiarity. In contrast, they’ll feel familiarity and an immediate connection when they see a post from an advisor in their own community. Consumers want to build relationships with brands, and a shared community is a great starting point.
Of course, most advisors and other financial services employees are not experts on how to market the business on Instagram. And marketers know they must keep all social media marketing for their financial institutions compliant to avoid heavy regulatory reprimands. To keep posts compliant, save employees time, and help them build relationships with consumers in their physical communities, financial services marketers can set up and run ads on their behalf.
3. Micro-target content to your audience
As big-name brands like Amazon continue to elevate the digital customer experience with seamless customer service, purchasing, and delivery, customer expectations are higher than ever before. When customers evaluate a financial institution, they compare it not only to other organizations in the industry, but also to tech giants in any industry that give them exactly what they need when they need it.
They expect a high level of personalization and convenience, and Instagram marketing with paid advertising can help you give it to them. Match basic behavioral and geographic data to potential customers on Instagram to target ads, and then track clicks, engagements, and post-click actions. These data points don’t indicate much on their own, but together they offer a rich story about what consumers want. Continually refine your strategy with these data points in mind to deliver the kind of highly personalized experiences your audiences want on Instagram.
With a large Millennial user base that engages actively with brands online and the ability to target highly personalized ads to exactly the right audiences, Instagram is a must-have in any financial services marketing strategy. To learn more about how Instagram marketing can work to drive your business forward, download our guide to building stronger customer relationships on Instagram for free today.
Make the most of your social media pages and posts by optimizing your images and including essential information about your business on each platform. By giving customers an optimal digital experience, you can broaden reach and provide better customer service through your digital platforms.
IMAGE SIZING:
Profile picture: 176 x 176px (desktop), 196x 196px (smartphones)
Cover photo: 820 x 312px (desktop), 640 x 360px (smartphones)
Keep the main content of your image centered. On a desktop the photo will display as 840x312px, but on mobile will size down to 640x360px.
Facebook post image: 1200 x 630px
The ideal width for a Facebook post image is 1200px, but height can vary based on what type of device the image display is optimized for. We recommend keeping it at the recommended size to keep consistency on all devices.
When creating a Facebook Ad graphic, any text should not take up more than 20% of the photo. You can find a cheat sheet here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay.
Facebook Video: 1280 x 720px
The optimal length for a short-form video on Facebook is 15 seconds to 1 minute; for a long-form video, it is 3 minutes. The maximum file size is 10GB.
Facebook Link Image: 1200 x 630px
Make sure to claim ownership of your links for the ability to change the link preview photo. You can find more info on that here: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/528858287471922?id=708699556338610.
Carousel Post: 1080 x 1080px
Carousel posts are a great way to display multiple services or features that you offer to your customers. When placing a Facebook ad you can link each carousel photo to a different link, making it easy for people to navigate to your specific products.
Facebook Story: 1080 x 1920px
Make the most of your stories by using all of your space and creating a fullscreen experience.
IMPORTANT PAGE INFORMATION:
Page name:
This is where you can name your Facebook Page, but be sure to keep it shorter than 75 characters.
Page username:
Customize your page URL by adding a username, making it easier for people to locate and navigate people from other digital platforms. Your Facebook URL can include up to 50 characters.
Page call to action:
Facebook gives you a variety of choices on calls to action. For example, if you’d like customers to contact you by email, you can set up a “Send Email” button with your email address connected and ready to go.
IMAGE SIZING:
Profile picture: 400 x 400px
Upload your business logo here to personalize your profile. If this page is for an individual, this is where you will upload their headshot.
Cover Photo: 1584 x 396px
Having a personalized business cover photo will make your profile look more professional and give you the opportunity to provide page visitors with more of the look and feel of your business. This can include an image related to your business or a graphic with information on services you provide or your business slogan.
LinkedIn post photo: 1200 x 628px (mobile), 1200 x 1200px (desktop)
When targeting an audience on both desktop and mobile, make sure that you optimize for mobile to give people the best experience.
LinkedIn Link Photo: 1200 x 628px (mobile), 1200 x 1200px (desktop)
Providing an image with your link preview can help give viewers a better idea of article content and improve your click thru rates.
LinkedIn Link Video: 4096 x 2304px maximum, 256 x 144 pixels minimum
The optimal video length for LinkedIn is 30-90 seconds and the maximum file size is 5GB.
IMPORTANT PAGE INFORMATION
Page name:
This is where your business name is located, as well as your company industry, location, and number of followers.
Page description:
Add your business slogan, mission, or a short description that tells people what your company, products, and services can do for them.
X (Formerly Known as Twitter)
IMAGE SIZING
Profile picture: 400 x 400px
Upload your business logo or headshot to personalize your profile.
Cover photo: 1500 x 500px
Be sure to center your content to give your followers an optimized experience on mobile.
Twitter post photo: 1600 x 900px
Allow your followers to see the entirety of the photo in their feed by adhering to this sizing guideline. The maximum file size is 5MB.
X video: 1280 x 720px (desktop, recommended), 720 x 720px (mobile)
The optimal video length for Twitter is 20-45 seconds and the maximum file size is 512MB.
IMPORTANT PAGE INFORMATION
Underneath your profile photo, your company name and username will be displayed.
Write a short bio to tell people more about your business.
IMAGE SIZING
Profile photo: 110 x 110px
Your profile picture will be small, so be sure your image is sized correctly and centered. This is a great place for your company logo.
Profile thumbnail: Displays as 161 x 161px
This is a preview of your large image post, but looks best when the photo posted is square.
Highlight Cover: 1080 x 1920px
Your cover photos should have centered images to give your highlight reel a balanced look. You can also name your highlights, but be concise as they can only be 15 characters long.
Instagram Feed Photo: 1080 x 1080px (square), 1080 x 1350 (portrait), 1080 x 566 (landscape)
The recommended width for all Instagram feed photos is 1080px, but the height can vary. To optimize for your feed display within your profile, we recommend using the sizing listed above to keep your image square.
Instagram Feed Video: 1080 x 1080px (square), 1080 x 1350 (portrait), 1080 x 566 (landscape)
The optimal length for an Instagram video is 30-60 seconds and the max file size is 650MB.
Instagram Feed Ad Photo: 1080 x 1080px
Your ad photo will display the same as a normal feed photo, but with a link attached. When creating an ad in Ads Manager, you’ll be able to upload a separate photo for Instagram to keep your photos optimized for the user experience.
Instagram Story: 1080 x 1920px (portrait), 1080 x 601 (landscape)
Make the most of your stories by using all of your space and creating a fullscreen experience. The maximum length of the story is 60 seconds.
Instagram Reels & Live: 1080 x 1920px
Reels can be used to offer tutorials, demos, or service features. These will be saved under your profile page for viewers to go back and watch at their leisure. The maximum length for Reels is 90 seconds. For Live, this can be used for announcements, events, or other Q&A sessions. These can also be saved for later viewing, and can last up to 4 hours.
So you've invested the time, energy, and money into building a website that details all of your financial products and services, and you have a solid social media strategy in place — but do you have any means of connecting the two? A full digital marketing strategy requires a connection point to lead prospects along the digital journey and toward conversion. Landing pages can serve as the bridges you need.
These pages live on your website and hold information geared toward specific audience segments. For example, if an insurance agent is interested in helping first-time homebuyers with homeowners insurance, a social media post on the subject could include a link to a landing page on your website with even more resources for new buyers.
Landing pages are important because no matter how well-built your website homepage is, it simply can’t serve the needs of every consumer — not conveniently, at least. Without landing pages, site visitors arrive on the homepage and are left to dig through the site for specific information on their own. Landing pages, on the other hand, allow visitors to arrive at your site in the exact place they want to be. It’s the best way for financial institution marketers to quickly and easily offer content that meets the specific needs of various target audiences.
Customers want this level of personalization, and they're open to the idea of trading their information for it. In fact, more than three-quarters of consumers in one study said they would be willing to give more personal data in return for more tailored services. When customers submit their contact information through a form to download the content on your landing page, not only are they getting tailored content, but you're getting data that can fuel more personalized outreach directly to primed prospects. And that leads to higher conversion rates.
Start creating landing pages by planning a page for each promotion in your overall marketing campaign or for each of your target audiences. Then, we recommend the following steps to drive conversion:
1. Keep it simple and direct.
Ultimately, the goal of a landing page for financial institutions is to learn more about prospects by gathering their information in the form field. For visitors, the clearer the path to the field, the likelier they will be to share their data. Don’t fill a page with too many images, multiple offers, and other clutter — you’ll just increase the chances of visitors bouncing off the page before taking action. Instead, stick with concise, clear messaging, easy-to-follow directives, strong calls to action, and impactful design elements.
2. Leverage pre-built, fully customizable templates.
Few marketing professionals have the bandwidth or experience to build a whole webpage on their own. Fortunately, software like Denim Social with landing page functionality will offer pre-built, customizable templates that allow you to start with a page already optimized for conversion.
From there, you can easily customize the content, form fields, colors, images, and video on each page to fit your campaign goals. The key here is to keep a consistent style across pages so each one fits under your overall brand umbrella.
3. Scale, scale, scale!
The real beauty of using pre-built, customizable templates is the ability to design, build, and launch landing pages at scale. Denim Social’s code-free interface makes it easy for anyone to populate many templates with customized elements — no web design expertise required. Just personalize, publish, then easily iterate and adjust based on conversion data.
In practice, this looks like building hundreds or even thousands of highly professional landing pages in just minutes. That’s a lot more opportunity for targeted messaging than one broad website homepage on its own.
Landing pages are one of the most effective tools at your disposal to create tailored experiences, capture valuable information, and generate high-quality leads. With the right platform, any marketer can build landing pages at scale and propel more prospects toward conversion.