How to Master Social Media for Cost-Effective Engagement

Social media marketing for Financial Institutions can feel like a puzzle. How do you balance brand awareness with measurable results like clicks and conversions?

Discover how Allegiance Credit Union transformed their social media strategy with creative, employee-driven content, resulting in a 50% decrease in the cost per website visit. These tips will help you engage more authentically with your audience while driving real results.

Define Your Social Media Goals

For Allegiance Credit Union, social media is a brand awareness tool. This may not be the case for everyone, but managing your expectations and setting realistic goals is the first step to improving your results. 

Social media is a great way to humanize your brand by featuring your internal culture and personality through the faces behind your business. Christin Vaughn, CMO at Allegiance Credit Union says, “We don’t think Facebook will ever be the number one driver of finished loan applications, but it’s a great way to build awareness and show who we are.”

Be Authentic

Stock images and generic messaging is not authentic or impactful on social media. If you want to maximize engagement or drive significant traffic, you need to be authentic. By putting real faces out there, and jumping on fun trends, your content becomes more authentic and more engaging. 

When Allegiance Credit Union started repurposing organic, employee-focused content for their paid ads, their cost per website visit dropped from $1.45 to $0.70. By focusing on engaging with their audience in an authentic way, they drove higher quality traffic to their website at a lower cost.

DOWNLOAD NOW: Definitive Guide to Social Media Marketing for Financial Institutions

Dedicate Resources

It’s easy to place social media low on the priority list, but with the right people putting time into your content, it can drive real results. Social media plays a significant role in reaching younger audiences, humanizing your brand, building internal culture, and even hiring. Allegiance Credit Union has employees mention their fun, engaging content as a reason for applying. Vaughn said, “We’ve had countless employees say they chose to work here because of what they saw on our Facebook or Instagram.”

Lean on the Right People

Not everyone is tuned into the current social media platforms or trends, and those who are may not be the same person with the expertise to run your ads. That’s why getting the right people engaged in the right ways is key to your social media success.

If your marketing team doesn’t have the capacity or doesn’t have the right people to create engaging content, consider leaning on your front line. Tellers and other branch staff are the faces your members see everyday, and frequently include a few younger team members who might be more in tune with emerging trends. 

When it comes to the paid ads side, if your internal team doesn’t have that expertise, consider partnering with an agency. FI GROW Solutions works exclusively with banks and credit unions, and our expertise could be just the piece you're missing. 

Set Your Expectations

Social media will most likely not be your top channel for driving loans, but that doesn't mean the value isn't there. By leaning into your brand and featuring the faces behind your institution, social media can be a powerful tool to craft deeper connections with your audience. When you use social media to feature and enhance your internal culture, not just push products, you'll drive engagement, deepen relationships, and even attract the right job applicants.

Put Money Behind Your Posts

The days of organic only posts going viral are behind us. You have to put money behind your posts if you want them to see a larger audience. And this doesn’t mean just having paid ads on social media, you need to put money behind your actual posts. By boosting your content that isn't all about products and services, you'll attract more people to interact with your brand, and that engagement will drive your costs down and your results up.

Contact us today for more information about how we can help you master social media, and start driving real results with your digital ads.