Episode 78 - Reaching Younger and Underserved Audiences for Your Bank or Credit Union

In this episode, Meredith Olmstead, CEO of FI GROW Solutions, and Sophie Bawany, the company's in-house social media guru, explore how social media is transforming financial inclusion for younger and underserved audiences. They discuss how banks and credit unions can leverage platforms like Instagram and TikTok to provide financial education, improve accessibility, and build trust with their communities. Their insights highlight the power of social media to reach new audiences and support financial empowerment in a fast-evolving digital landscape.

Key Takeaways:

• Social Media Drives Financial Education: Platforms like TikTok and Instagram are increasingly becoming search engines for younger generations, offering a great opportunity for financial institutions to share educational content.

• Accessibility Is Key: Simplifying account access through social media, such as using direct links in stories, can make it easier for audiences to open accounts and build trust with your institution.

• Humanizing and Building Community: Fun, personalized content on social media humanizes your brand, while initiatives like local contests help financial institutions foster stronger community connections.

Transcription:

Meredith Olmstead:
Hi there. I'm Meredith Olmstead, CEO and founder of FI GROW Solutions. We are a digital marketing and sales consulting agency, and we work exclusively with banks and credit unions. I am here today with Sophie Bawany. Say hi, Sophie.

Sophie Bawany:
Hi.

Meredith Olmstead:
Sophie is one of our inbound marketing specialists, but she is also our social media guru. She's one of our younger team members, and she really knows her stuff. She works with lots of clients who are working to try to build their brand with younger audiences, and on a variety of social media platforms. Everything from Instagram to TikTok.

We were just having this really interesting conversation about what Sophie called it was financial inclusion. I was like, "What do you mean by financial inclusion?" Really, what she was trying to get at was how she's seeing clients, bank and credit union clients, use social media to reach younger, and even sometimes underserved audiences, and provide them with financially empowering content. That's what she meant by financial inclusion. Because really, when you're giving people this information that we're going to talk about, it helps bring them up, lift them up, reach them and open up your institution, your bank or credit union, to a whole new audience potentially.

What do you mean, when you're talking about financial inclusion and increase awareness with some of these audiences, specifically younger and underserved audiences, Sophie? Tell us a little bit more about what you mean by that.

Sophie Bawany:
Well, we like to use social media for a lot of different tools and reasons, and we have longterm goals in mind. One of them is definitely raising awareness about financial products and giving education. A lot of times, the younger generation is actually using social media now as their search engine. They're replacing Google with Instagram or TikTok. If you have a question, that's the first place that people are searching. It's a really great platform for financial institutions to get on to educate the masses.

Meredith Olmstead:
It's so funny that you would say that because my oldest daughter is 19. She'll send me little snippets or things from the news. I'm like, "Where did you find out about this?" She's like, "Oh, TikTok." That's where she gets all of her news now. They actually go in, and will actually start ... I know they will actually search a question on TikTok, and hopefully get the answer. That is funny.

Even just awareness, so actually finding out about financial products, services, know-how, advice, it can be really important to be there and not just on Google anymore. Once they find you, what are some of the benefits that you're seeing with social media with the younger and underserved audiences?

Sophie Bawany:
I think the core value and the core benefit is providing education. A lot of people don't have access or they're not searching for it. Nobody's going to open a book or a pamphlet. It's not the day of reading a brochure anymore. People want fast, easy to consume content. If you can find a way to educate someone on TikTok or on Instagram, not only will you have a captive audience, they're going to re-share that with their friends and family.

But it's a great way to start off that conversation about education for certain financial aspects. Like budgeting. For many of our clients, when we look at their content that's doing the best, it always surprises me how much budgeting is doing well. Whether it's holidays, back to school, vacationing, people are always looking for ways to budget.

Meredith Olmstead:
Yeah. It's so funny that you say that, because I was thinking about, I know this one client of ours up in the Boston area. A pretty small community financial institution, a credit union, actually. Their blog is constantly going "viral." Not viral in the millions and millions of people, but for their institution's size, they have tremendously consistent traffic. They have lots of traffic to their blog. A lot of it is around holidays, or traveling with a family in the summer, and things you can do on a budget in the Boston area, and that kind of content. It's financially-minded, but it's not salesy or product focused. But it is really important, when it comes to actually reaching those audiences that might not otherwise be finding out that information. That's awesome.

What about accessibility? We think of accessibility, sometimes we think of ADA for people with disabilities, and that can definitely be a part of financial accessibility. But then, just getting access to your accounts, to the option to open an account. What are you seeing with social media and how that is helping?

Sophie Bawany:
Yes. It's definitely a hot topic right now. People want simplified, easy ways. User experience is a very hot buzzword right now, and this is part of a user experience. If somebody can be on TikTok or Instagram, and they like your content, and they're like, "I really want to open a savings account with this credit union." How do they do it? They're more likely to open an account, you're more likely to see that conversion if you have the accessibility. If you have that link right in your story, somebody can click on it, it's a live link. They go in and they're able to open the account, or they're able to get more information. That accessibility and facilitating that access really does go a long way in building your trust, and empowering the people that you and, your target audience.

Meredith Olmstead:
Yeah. Besides being able to find you and find your digital assets, your app, your online banking, your website, all those things, building trust is huge. I know that social media is really big about building trust because it humanizes a brand.

We have lots of clients that are out there making behind the scenes content, silly content. Fun little memes, or boomerangs, or videos, or testimonials, all of those kinds of things. That's content that is short-form, easy to make, it doesn't have to be perfect. The best place for it, obviously, is social media. You're not going to want to load up your website with little, tiny blurbs, and things like that, that aren't going to have a lot of meaningful impact on your website. People aren't coming to your website every day, but they are on Instagram every day. They are on TikTok, or they are on Facebook. That's a great place to be showcasing some of that personalized content that helps make you into a human, rather than just a name on a sign.

The last thing, I know we see a lot of this on Facebook especially, but in lots of places on social is reaching out and building community. I know that's a big part of community financial institutions. How do you see social media helping with that?

Sophie Bawany:
It's a great way to reach, again, a large number of people. When you do something like a contest, you're encouraging local community members to reach out to local businesses. We've had fantastic success with some of our clients who do seasonal contests. They partner with local businesses, and they encourage members, or even followers who may not be direct members, to go out and engage with these local businesses. You're promoting the local community, the local businesses, and it's this really warm feeling of everyone's in it together. I think that goes a very long way.

To piggyback on the humanizing aspect, what we've seen is a lot of the younger generation, and also people that may be underserved, they're always naturally a little hesitant when they see people in suits, and people that are a little stiff and upright. So, banking and financial institutions always come with a little bit of weariness. Social media is a great way to break those barriers. Like I said, when you humanize, people are more likely to come and ask questions, or listen to you and, again, resonate with your messaging.

Meredith Olmstead:
Yeah. I remember, during COVID, we had a number of clients that were actually doing staff contests with staff members who were at home, working from home. They were giving out gift cards that they could then go and use to spend at local businesses or restaurants, to try to help lift up some of that local economy when a lot of those businesses were closed for in-person experiences, like going into a restaurant.

But the cool thing is that's not lost just because COVID is kind of behind us. You could do something very similar to that, say Small Business Saturday. Or, around the holidays and really trying to promote giving business for holiday shopping to some of your local small businesses. There's lots of great ways and creative ways that you could then showcase those interactions, or you could have staff members going out and partnering with a local business to promote them, and also show how you were going to use some kind of small, little spending incentive for staff to go some place like that. Lots of great ways to build community, absolutely. Awesome.

Well, thank you so much, because I really think it's important to also think about this. It's not just social media for fun, but it also can really reach populations, especially young populations, that you don't normally reach on other digital platforms. And you can get information and very valuable educational information in front of underserved populations, which is super important when it comes to the missions behind community finance.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Sophie. I really appreciate your time. If you all are interested in learning more about social media marketing, or just digital marketing in general for banks and credit unions, please visit us at figrow.com. We have lots of other great podcasts, blogs. We have case studies, and all kinds of good content on our website. We'd love to have you come and connect with us there. Otherwise, let's just all get out there and Make it Happen.