Social media is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma for many financial institution leaders. It’s elusive, slippery and vitally important to your success…like a skittish eel hoarding a treasure of pearls. The constant changes on social media platforms add an extra layer of difficulty.
But you don’t have to stay in the dark. It’s time to start uncovering the community bank and credit union social media treasure trove.
Start here with three trends to help guide your institution’s social media strategy.
1. SEO Isn’t Just About Your Website Anymore
Yes, SEO related to your website is still important. However, it’s not the only SEO player in the game. Social media SEO is becoming a more important way your members and customers discover relevant content.
Hootsuite points out targeting specific keywords supersedes hashtags when it comes to searchability. Especially good posts can appear on both Google and the social platform’s search function.
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said, “They [hashtags] do help us to understand what a post is about, which means it might be more likely to show up in a place like a hashtag page, for instance, but in general, no, I wouldn’t try to think of hashtags as a way to get more distribution.”
What does this mean for your community bank or credit union social media strategy?
It means you must remain conscious of how you construct your posts. Target the same relevant keywords people use to find your website. Thoughtfully incorporate them into your posts. As more people use social platforms as search engines, you need discovery there before someone heads to your website.
2. Video Usage Continues to Grow
Maybe this fact is unsurprising (it’s featured frequently in these blog posts). But what might surprise you is that it’s not all about TikTok. Increasingly, it’s about YouTube.
Pew Research reports 95% of teens use YouTube, far more than any other social media platform. Shorts on YouTube receive 50 billion daily views.
YouTube pages are becoming akin to second websites, and more people go to YouTube as a search engine to find answers to their questions. So, utilizing YouTube is an important consideration for your community bank or credit union social media strategy. It can become a wellspring of educational content for your members or customers as well as another driver to your website.
But even if you don’t do YouTube, do something! All the research points to using some form of short form video on social media. Don’t put it off anymore.
3. Social Media is Ubiquitous
Most of the world uses social media. That’s right – 4.95 billion people (61.4% of the global population) uses some type of platform.
In other words, too many people use social media to neglect it as an arm of your marketing strategy. That doesn’t mean making an account on every platform, but it does mean having a strategic discussion about where your target demographics reside. Then, make an account on the most strategically advantageous platforms.
Other tenets of proper community bank and credit union social media use include:
- Consistent posting (three times a week, every week is an ideal start)
- Authenticity (feature member and customer stories)
- Variation (don’t only post promos; engage with people)
Now, it’s time for you to open the floodgates of social media!
It might sound intimidating, but there’s no need to do it alone. On The Mark Strategies helps with your community bank or credit union social media strategy, whether that means simple recommendations or posting every week on your behalf. Book a free consultation today to get started.
