Social Media Marketing for Financial Services

Around 61% of the world’s current population use social media. That’s a potential audience of billions. In today’s digital age, leveraging social media for digital marketing is critical for businesses across all industries, including financial services. Social media marketing provides a powerful platform to connect with potential clients, engage with your audience, and build brand awareness.

How can social media be used by financial services?

Social media offers financial services a number of tactical opportunities:

• Reach target audiences with organic and paid messaging that can include engaging content that portrays the organisation in a positive light
• Reinforce messaging through paid retargeting opportunities to people who’ve previously visited the website or completed an ‘offline’ action
• Promote the organisation as a positive place to work and highlight the company culture and working environment

With the financial sector being so heavily regulated, understanding rules from bodies like FINRA and the SEC is essential before using social media for marketing to stay compliant and avoid legal issues.

10 ways social media can benefit your organisation:

1. Enhanced Brand Visibility and Awareness

Social media platforms have billions of users. By 2027, the number of social media users is set to jump to 5.8 billion worldwide. Establishing a robust presence on popular social media platforms can provide financial services with significantly increased brand visibility, therefore, making the institution more recognisable and top-of-mind. Additionally, social media breaks geographical barriers giving organisations the opportunity to reach a global audience. 

2. Targeted Advertising

The average person uses social media for 2 hours and 24 minutes each day, giving asset management and insurance firms a huge opportunity to target their audience daily. Social media platforms offer advanced targeting options, allowing financial services to tailor their advertising to specific demographics, behaviours, and preferences. For example, Facebook (the most used platform) allows you to target a campaign with 1,500 data points. This precision ensures that marketing efforts reach the right audience, maximising the chances of converting leads into clients. 

For asset management firms, LinkedIn is the primary channel to connect with both current and potential clients. 96% of people turn to videos to learn more about service and LinkedIn posts with video get 5 times more engagement. This demonstrates a key Marketing strategy for asset management firms  to create informative engaging content to attract both current and potential investors.

3. Cost-Effective Marketing

Compared to traditional advertising methods, social media marketing often proves to be a more cost-effective option. It allows financial institutions to set precise budgets, control costs, and measure the return on investment (ROI) accurately. 81% of financial advisors who use social media say they’ve gained new business assets through their social efforts. In fact, advisors using social media successfully report an average of £1.6 million in assets gained through social media activities which shows this is a highly effective marketing method.

4. Engagement and Community Building

Trust is often one of the most important factors for financial services when getting customers to convert. Social media provides a platform for financial and insurance firms to engage directly with their audience. Regular interactions, responding to queries, and sharing informative content such as market data all build a sense of community and trust, ultimately leading to stronger relationships with both current and potential clients. 86% of financial publication readers say it’s important for firm leaders to use social media. Furthermore, research found people trust leaders who use social media more than those who don’t. Consequently, regular social media usage can be an easy and efficient way to begin building a rapport with potential clients and investors.

5. Establishing Thought Leadership

Sharing valuable and relevant content can help position financial service providers as thought leaders in the industry. By providing insights, advice, and market updates, institutions can showcase their expertise and gain credibility among their audience. This ultimately increases the amount of exposure a firm will receive and if done correctly, can increase website traffic. 

6. Insightful Analytics for Optimisation 

Social media platforms offer comprehensive analytics tools that provide valuable insights into campaign performance. Understanding audience behaviour, engagement patterns, and content preferences enables financial services to refine their strategies for better results.  91% of business leaders would agree, they say social media insights have helped them gain a better understanding of their clients. Moreover, 94% also said these insights have had a positive impact on building a brand and creating brand loyalty. Therefore, financial services should consider utilising social media data for increased ROI.

7. Improved Customer Service

It is now easier than ever to connect directly with clients because social media serves as an additional customer service channel. Clients can ask questions, seek assistance, or provide feedback directly through these platforms. Fostering a culture of open communication helps improve overall customer satisfaction. 17% of people take to social media channels to communicate and access support from organisations that they engage with. It is often a quicker way of communicating with clients compared to more traditional methods such as emails or phone calls. Social media offers financial firms an opportunity to answer their audience’s questions and protect their firm’s reputation.

8. Leveraging User-Generated Content

79% of people say user-generated content (UGC) highly impacts their purchasing decisions. Often UGC helps a brand to create authenticity which can help sway potential clients who are on the fence. Encouraging clients to share positive experiences and testimonials on social media can boost the credibility of financial service providers. UGC acts as social proof, influencing others and instilling confidence in potential new investors. 

9. Staying Ahead of Competitors

As previously mentioned, social media is an excellent tool for your digital strategy to gain quantitative statistics, however financial firms can also utilise it for qualitative gain. 

In the competitive financial industry, staying ahead is crucial. Utilising social media allows financial services to monitor competitor activities, identify trends, and adapt their strategies to stay relevant and innovative. Additionally, reading comments and seeing what customers interact with can help firms identify what their client base is looking for. 80% of surveyed individuals said they are more inclined to do business with an organisation that delivers tailored experience and monitoring social media activity can help financial firms create a highly tailored customer experience. 

10. Educational opportunities 

Social media offers a platform to educate clients about financial products, investments, and market trends. Providing valuable educational content establishes credibility and fosters a knowledgeable client base. 34% of people state it’s their preferred way to learn about products and services and 33% of people are using social media to discover new services. This shows that by creating educational asset management and insurance firms can generate valuable online communities to further engage and connect with clients. This also avoids the fake advertising effect which helps maintain brand image.

Digital Experience Platforms and creating a social media strategy  

Although social media marketing can be used for financial services to create a competitive advantage, it can be difficult managing multiple channels at once. Having a superior Digital Experience Platform, such as Optimizely (DXP) can assist with and ease social media marketing revolutionising how companies approach online engagement. In 2022 the Gartner CEO and Senior Business Executive Survey found 92% of CFOs indicated they plan to increase investment in technology, up from 70% in 2021. When using an industry leading DXP, firms can manage all their marketing in one place including content creation, email marketing and SEO capabilities.

It makes social media management easy with seamless integration of various social media platforms, streamlining content management and amplifying reach. It simplifies the scheduling of posts, tracking engagement metrics, and refining strategies based on data insights. By leveraging the platform’s capabilities, firms can optimise their social media presence, delivering a more personalised and engaging experience to their followers.

Build a new digital strategy today

Are you considering investing in a top-tier digital experience platform? Here at Ultimedia we have a team of experts who would love to help. We have over 10 years experience as an Optimizely partner. Incorporating Optimizely into your social media strategy can empower financial services to take their online engagement to the next level. It’s a powerful ally in the digital marketing realm, enabling firms to stay ahead of the curve and make a lasting impact on clients.

To learn more about how Optimizely can help your firm reach digital maturity, contact us and begin your digital transformation today.