Social media has seemed to garner a lot of negative connotations recently as studies claim it to be addictive for the younger generation. However, when it comes to using social media marketing for your community bank, the positive benefits of marketing on social media are virtually endless.
Increasing brand awareness
Not only is social media a great place to advertise the specific products and services your bank offers, but it’s also an incredible tool for creating brand awareness. All it takes to help your bank’s brand recognition and reputation grow is interacting with your users on your social media platform. Plus, encouraging employees, partners, and friends to share your bank’s posts will boost your growth by increasing your bank’s social audience and hopefully converting more people into customers. In fact, 91% of marketers who invested just a few hours a week into their social media marketing efforts reported that it greatly increased the exposure of their business.
Low cost
One of the best benefits of marketing on social media is that creating your profile and posting content on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook is free. Not all aspects of social media marketing are free, but getting up and running and being active won’t cost you a single dollar — and it’s a great way to start gaining brand recognition. Remember: something is always better than nothing. However, if you have the budget, sponsored posts are a great way to get your content seen by more people while still being cost effective. Social media allows you to promote your profile and posts on virtually any budget. Facebook will even automatically direct your ads to users that are interested in what you’re advertising.
SEO
Being active on social media can indirectly lead to increases in your bank’s rankings in search engine searches. Social Media Examiner found that 58% of marketers who had been active on social media for over a year had increases in their search engine rankings. So, why does this matter? The majority of people who use Google as their default search engine rarely look past the first page of results when searching. Ranking higher for searches gets your website seen by more people. This, coupled with using targeted keywords, is a surefire way to increase traffic to your website and social media channels, which in turn equals more customer conversions for your bank.
Customer satisfaction
Social media gives your bank the opportunity to feel a little more human. When clients deal with typical customer service hotlines or emails, they often get a pregenerated, automated responses. However, on social media, if someone makes a comment on a post, it gives your bank an opportunity to give a personalized message as a response. This isn’t just beneficial to the one customer you’re interacting with, but also to those who see those personalized responses. Responding to followers drives home the idea that your bank truly cares for each and every customer.
Marketplace insights
Being able to personally interact with customers isn’t only great for them; it’s also great for your bank. It will help you gain insight into what your market is looking for. Monitoring your bank’s profiles and talking directly with customers gives you the opportunity to see their thoughts and needs. Once you gain a large enough following you’ll have the chance to analyze the demographics of your audience and identify which type of content generates that most impressions.
As you can see, although social media may not have the best reputation at the moment, it’s a priceless tool that can help you and your customers connect on a level that was previously unattainable. If your bank has yet to dive into the social media world, there has never been a better time to start than now.
