Facebook

You’ve started your Facebook group – Now what?

Leave a Comment / Featured, Fun Stuff, Marketing, Must Read Blogs, Small Business, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , ,

You’ve set up your Facebook Business Page, and you are ready to create your Facebook Group – but: What should I call it? How do you get members? What do you post about? Should the group be public, closed, or secret? How do you prevent trolls? Should I set rules or questions to join the group? All great questions, and things you need to consider before you get your Group off the ground.

Before you launch your Facebook Group – you should determine what the primary goal of your group is. Yes, the ultimate goal is to increase sales for your business, but people won’t join your group if they think it’s just a continuous sales pitch. Many businesses create Facebook Groups as a place to share some free advice and tips and tricks. It’s a place where you can be seen as an expert so that eventually the group becomes a feeder for your sales pipeline. SO, choose a name that conveys what your group is about. No one will join a group that is the name of your business. Name it something that relates to the topic or theme of what you want your group to be. You can incorporate the company name if it makes sense, but it doesn’t have to be included. Once you determine what you want the look and feel to be, pick a cover photo, create your description, etc.[/cs_text][cs_text]You also want to determine if your group will be public and anyone can join, they need to request to join, or it’s by invite only. Public groups are great for certain things, but if you only want your ideal clients or target audience in the group – I’d suggest a private group where you must manually accept requestors. There are a few instances where secret groups make sense – but those are usually part of a paid membership offering.

Many private Facebook Groups require members to answer a few questions before they can join. This is a great way to learn more about your members. Some sample questions may be: How did you hear about this Group? Have you viewed our free training or downloaded our Free XXX workbook? This helps you weed our spammers or trolls as well. They typically won’t take the time to fill out questions. BUT it allows you to get some insight into how much your audience knows about you, if they’ve viewed any of your lead magnets (free downloads or trainings) or any other info you want to gather.
[/cs_text][cs_text]It’s important to set the stage from the launch on the Group expectations. Create a pinned post at the top of the page so that the first thing new members see are the rules and expectations of the group. A few good housekeeping rules to post are 1. Keep things courteous – be respectful to others in the group. 2. No spam or plugging your business. (You will get trolls who try to join every group and post about what they are selling.) 3. This is your group too, please engage, ask questions, etc. 4. Give value – post things relevant to the group and its members. 5. Be open and share your own personal experiences, struggles, suggestions, etc. If you come across a troll or all around rude person, it’s ok to delete them.

Gaining a following in your Group can take time. Don’t get discouraged and give up. It’s important to get the word out about your group. Some easy ways are inviting people you are already connected to who might find interest it in. You can also send out an email to your list of contacts to see if they have any interest in joining. Why not add a link in your email signature or on your website as well? If people don’t know about your group – they can’t join!

Lastly, and probably most importantly, is posting engaging content. Get the engagement started with some posts of your own related to the Group topic. Don’t post salesy stuff about your own business. Share some of your own wins or loses, ask questions around areas that you may have personally struggled with. Share some 3rd party articles you found interesting or infographics. Once you get the ball rolling, others should follow.

As your group grows you may want to enlist others that you know to help moderate the page by making them an admin. It’s important that someone is always watching the group, letting in the right people, and encouraging participation.

You’ve started your Facebook group – Now what? Read More »

Should you start a Facebook Group?

Leave a Comment / Entrepreneur, Fun Stuff, Marketing, Must Read Blogs, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , , , , ,

If you are on Facebook, the odds are that you are probably part of a Facebook Group. Facebook isn’t just about connecting with friends and family anymore (or people you went to high school with and haven’t seen in 20 years, lol), it’s a way to stay more connected with everything that matters in your life. Facebook Group and Facebook Pages make it possible to follow businesses you like, public figures and even common interests and hobbies. So why should you have a Facebook Group if you already have a Facebook Page for your business and a personal page – well, simply because it gives you more ways to interact.

Before you start a Facebook Group, it’s important to know the difference between a Group and a Page. Similar to a personal profile, a Facebook Page enables you to create a profile for your business. BUT, pages are visible to everyone on Facebook. Everyone on Facebook can connect to a Page by Liking it and new posts will show up in the News Feed. Facebook Groups on the other hand are a place for people to come together around a common cause, issue, activity, or interest. They allow the members to discuss issues, post photos or video, and share relevant content. You can also choose the privacy of the group: public (anyone can join), closed (requires admin approval to enter), and secret (can join by invitation only). Like Pages, new posts in the group will show up in the News Feed of it’s members.

So, the real question is, if I already have a Facebook Page, why do I need a Facebook Group? With all the changes to the Facebook algorithms, to really make a Page work, you need high engagement from your followers, so your posts keep showing in their New Feed. It sounds simple, but it’s tricky, so most businesses are forced to run paid ads that target their ideal client audience. Also, most consumers look at a Business Page on Facebook as an advertisement for the company – they are only seeing information that the company wants them to see. More and more companies are turning to Facebook Groups instead of abandoning Facebook as a whole.

Using Groups, you can create a community that isn’t based solely around your business, but a topic within your business that others will also find interesting. Say you own your own car repair business, but you love working on Corvette’s from the 1990’s – so you create a Facebook Group for 1990’s Corvette owners. With over a billion users already using Groups – it’s a win-win to keep potential clients engaged with you.

Here’s the top 5 reasons why your business needs a Facebook Group:

  1. You can engage with your followers. This is where you will get all the likes and comments vs your Facebook Page. If you are asking questions, providing good content, and encouraging others to contribute – this is where the magic will happen.
  2. You can teach and build trust. This is your group and you are the leader. After all, you started the group because you know about the topic and can explain, motivate, inspire, and teach the content that you love. This is where you can be seen as an expert and influence people’s lives. You aren’t pushing your business but are sharing your knowledge and encouraging people to share their questions, problems, and successes.
  3. Stay top of mind. With a Facebook Profile or Page, there is no guarantee that your content will be seen unless people go directly to your Profile or Page. With a group, anything that is posted in the group will 100% be seen in the members News Feed. So, the more you post, the more you are seen by potential clients.
  4. Get feedback. Within your group, you can create polls, ask for feedback, and determine what type of content is more relevant to your members and ideal clients. Your group can be a testing ground – if you get positive feedback – move forward. If you missed the mark, then you know you need to move on to the next idea.
  5. Announce special offers. If you’ve tried to announce a special offer on your Business Page, you’ve probably been met with very little engagement. Unless you put some advertising dollars behind it, the odds are most of your followers aren’t even seeing it. BUT when you post in your Group – 100% of your members will see your offer.

Building an online community is an important step for any growing business. It can help you get in touch with your key demographic, gather insights, promote your business, increase consumer loyalty and more. If you want to start building a community, look no further than the world’s most popular social network: Facebook. If you want to start your own Facebook Group from your Business Page: CLICK HERE.

Want to check our Red Barn\’s Facebook Group – Entrepreneur Masters? Click Here to Join!

Should you start a Facebook Group? Read More »

Social Media and Health Care: Improving the patient experience – digitally!

Leave a Comment / Healthcare, Marketing, Must Read Blogs, Sales, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Let’s face it, we live in a digital social world. Brands of all types have made their mark on Social Media – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram – but where are the health care providers?

  1. Oh, there are a few out there, but many are adverse to jumping on the social media wagon and here’s why avoidance is a mistake.
    Your patients are there and they WANT to engage. Using platforms such as Twitter or Facebook to brand your practice is a given, but are you posting content that is ABOUT them vs. about you? 80% of your content should have nothing to do with the services you offer. How much can you really write about Breast Exams or Colonoscopies or wait times in the ER? Ask questions! Ask for Feedback! Talk about preventative care, families and lifestyle. Patients also want to see the team from the doctors to the intake folks and everyone in between. Who are they? Why would I as a patient want to engage with them? Trust them with my care – my life? It’s all part of the customer experience.
  2. Improve Patient Communication. We all know that social media is not the place to talk about personal health care issues, but it is the PERFECT place to address broad questions. The key is to have a Social Media Manager and/or Patient Advocate managing social feeds. If indeed a personal health question arises, the Manager can direct the patient to a secure portal or have a health care provider call him/her to discuss concerns. As with any business, there will be Frequently Asked Questions that appear and best practice is to create an FAQ page on your website to direct patients or prospective patients to.
  3. More Satisfied Patients. It really all goes back to communication and transparency. Patients want to feel they are involved in their health care decisions AND they want providers who are willing to help them along the way. There is also the connectivity factor – connecting patients with other patients who share the same illnesses – almost like support groups but online. It’s perfectly OK to have a private MONITORED Facebook page for a variety of topics/groups such as Cancer Survivors, Sports Injuries, Heart Attack Survivors or those currently going through some life changing issue or chronic condition. When the Health Care Provider CARES and is involved, patient satisfaction will naturally rise. You are developing a community that your patients can be a part of.
  4. Education – Teach and Learn. It’s a given that social media is a great venue to educate your patients, and video is by far the #1 channel to do it. Not only is video engaging but it shows the true personalities of the presenters – doctors, PAs, NPs and other providers. Offering educational videos on everything from pre-op to post-op procedures to stretching exercises and healthy menu planning – the sky is the limit! Every physician is an “expert” and has a point of view. Social media allows physicians to easily share that expertise with the world and further engage current patients as well as attract new ones.

In the end, it’s all about putting you and your practice/group/hospital out there and allowing your patients to learn, teach, and engage.

Your patients are begging for this – where are you on the social spectrum?

Social Media and Health Care: Improving the patient experience – digitally! Read More »

Is Google Plus Dead?

Leave a Comment / Fun Stuff, Marketing, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , , ,

Originally launched in 2011 Google Plus (Google +) was set to be the next big thing in social media with the expectation of overshadowing Facebook. We’d seen it happen before when Facebook overtook MySpace in the social media popularity contest so it was possible it could happen again.

My first introduction to social media was MySpace. Whoa…I think I just aged myself a little bit there but I digress. Anyway, MySpace was the place where you could change your background settings and songs and make your page uniquely you anytime you felt like it. You could shuffle around your top 8 friends daily depending on your mood! How could it get any better? Introduce, Facebook.

Since the inception of Facebook in 2004 the platform has undergone huge changes. While some have been skeptical we all know the only thing constant in life is change and Facebook has never shied away from making changes good, bad or otherwise. So how did Facebook overtake MySpace in social media popularity? I’m glad you asked. According to former MySpace CEO Mike Jones, MySpace was just the introduction to social media while Facebook works to perfect the social media world. One of the biggest differences noted was that MySpace didn’t allow users to use their real name but rather a pseudonym while Facebook encouraged users to post their real names to better to connect with others.

When Google Plus was launched, Facebook had already been active for 6 years with millions of users worldwide making them a formidable social media opponent. There were now personal and business pages, sponsored ads and groups to join. So where would Google Plus fall into the mix? Initially Google Plus was designed to integrate all Google services to allow the users to be more transparent with the people they communicated with the most through a variety of ways including Hangouts and Circles which are currently still active. The idea was that you could arrange your circles to communicate with certain people through posts, videos or blogs etc.

Similar to Facebook, with Google Plus you can check into a location and let your followers know where you have been or what you have been up to. One of the most popular uses was Google photo’s which has since been separated from Google Plus and is its own program. So, in a nutshell, why is Google Plus still active and is it worth it to spend time and energy on?

In a word, yes. While Google Plus may not be the most active social media site the hidden perk is SEO. Search Engine Optimization. When you post on Google Plus you increase your SEO on Google and increased SEO is always a good idea. Key words, photos and tags will help direct traffic to your posts which if linked, will direct back to your website or whatever you are posting about. Talk about a win-win. Facebook may be the leader in being social, but Google Plus is the winner for SEO. According to a Stone Temple Consulting study, 90% of users with a Google+ profile have never posted to the network. So you may wonder, how can it work, how is it beneficial if people don’t post to it? From a study conducted by Statistic Brain 70% of brands have a presence on Google Plus proving that for business purposes it is a useful tool.

Is Google Plus Dead? Read More »

Managing Social Media — Why Can’t It Be A Little.. Easier?

Leave a Comment / Fun Stuff, Marketing, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , ,

Many businesses see social media as a “necessary evil” — Something you have to do because everyone else is doing it. After all, if you’re not using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest etc., you’re missing out. While that’s true, it gives us a sad face every time we think about businesses seeing social media as a chore, because, done right, it can be easy, and powerful.

It’s all about having a plan — Now, before you click away in disgust at having to plan something else, it’s not a big plan. We’re not talking a high-fallutin’ plan for a Rube Goldberg-esque style machine, just a simple, common sense approach to make things easy, and, perhaps, a little more joyful.

Don’t believe us? Read on…

Who’s going to have the responsibility for social media? First things first, who do you want to handle your social media accounts? Now, that could be one of your people who have a great understanding of the right approach, tools, and techniques to use — Or, you could outsource it to a creative marketing agency who has your brand\’s best interests at heart. Like… Us, for example? (we aren’t always subtle)

Anyway, you need to have someone who is going to have responsibility for your social media, who can review and post everything you need, and who can speak with your company’s voice. They need to understand and love your customers.

Where do you post? Different types of business will get the most advantage from different social platforms. You probably won’t find much of an audience for your recipes on LinkedIn, and folks on Pinterest probably aren’t going to be thrilled by your course on chartered accountancy. But, once you can match your message to your social media, that’s when things get real interesting.

  • Facebook — Pretty much everyone uses Facebook — Over 20% of all pages seen on the web are on Facebook. You need to be there, simple as that.
  • Twitter — With millions of people using Twitter, and the opportunity to easily go viral with the right message, Twitter is also pretty much essential.
  • Pinterest — Do you have a visually appealing product, service, or brand? If so, Pinterest is a great place to get traction.
    Instagram — Like Pinterest, Instagram is perfect for pretty products.
  • LinkedIn — Marketing more to professionals and business people? This is your natural choice.
  • YouTube — Although not seen as a “traditional” social network, YouTube gets billions of hits every month. Make an amazing video and watch your views skyrocket.
  • Google Plus — Yes, there are still people and businesses using Google Plus, don’t disregard it and ps. it could help with your Google ranking.

When should you post? You know where to post, but do you know when to post? Once you understand when your customers are likely to be using social media, you can take advantage of that, and share delicious bits of information, just when they need it. They’ll be wowed by your ideas, share them on themselves, and suddenly you’ve got a viral social media presence. Nice!

Get to scheduling. One of the main pains businesses have with social media is having to send out all their posts manually, to all the different platforms. Well, good news, friends. There are some great scheduling tools out there to make posting and sharing a breeze. Two that we love are Hootsuite and Buffer. Both are awesome at letting you queue up posts, then setting things off and letting them post on your behalf.

Be careful though, lots of social media is about reacting, responding, and posting in real time — That’s what gets you engagement. So, don’t just rely on scheduling tools, build them into your overall social media approach.

And there you have it, the basics you need to get in place for easier social media success — That wasn’t so bad now, was it?

Managing Social Media — Why Can’t It Be A Little.. Easier? Read More »

What You Need to Know About Facebook Advertising

Leave a Comment / Marketing, Sales, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , ,

Since 2010, Advertising on Facebook has grown more than 680%. More than a million advertisers have spent more than $8 billion.

Every day, more businesses are pouring advertising dollars into the social network. Currently, it’s one of the most powerful avenues for paid marketing.

If you’ve ever used Google’s AdWords, you know that program shows ads to users based on their searches. If they search “Chinese food Omaha,” anyone who bought that term will show up first. Those types of ads are effective because the searcher is already looking for that solution.

Interruption ads, like billboards and TV commercials, are usually just noise. They get in your way and often provide no value.

Interruption Marketing

Facebook ads are interruptive (because the user didn’t request them), but they are powerful because they’re powered by Facebook’s tremendous data sourcing machine. Facebook keeps data on everything you or I do on the social network. It builds profiles for each user that catalogs everything they can.

Facebook knows your religion, political party, favorite soft drink, preferred book genre, and where you live. From basic pieces of data, they can extrapolate bigger things, like how much money you make, where you work and in what field, and your opinions on Donald Trump.

With all that data available, marketers buy ads that carefully target their ideal customers. You can have your ad shown to people based on their location, hobbies, interests, behaviors, and several other factors.
So even though I’m not requesting anything through Facebook, the ads that are shown to me are highly relevant. Since I’m interested in that content, I’m likely to click.

Growing Your Brand

The benefit over AdWords, is that you aren’t bound to a certain demand. Through Google, ads can only be shown when a similar phrase is searched. If customers aren’t searching it, the ads won’t display.

On Facebook, however, you can put your ads in front of people who may not know a solution or product like yours exists. This ad format is a great way to expand your brand.

It’s also good for promotion products or services that people ordinarily wouldn’t buy off the Internet. You may sell an extraordinary line of premium jam and jellies, but most people get those at the grocery store. You have to interrupt a user to market to them.

Buying Facebook Ads

Since 2014, Facebook has been using an ad buying structure that’s suited for serious testing and experimentation. Their goal is to give users all the tools they need to create powerful ads with solid ROI.

\"facebook

If you use this structure properly, you can adjust audience segments and run different ads against one another to determine the most effective.

When you buy ads, you’ll first establish a budget. This prevents Facebook from charging you more than you expect (which would be very easy if you didn’t understand how to use the interface properly).
When an ad is to be shown, Facebook holds an auction. The auction considers three factors before displaying an ad:

  1. The advertiser bid – You can let Facebook choose this (recommended) or set the bids manually (for advanced users only).
  2. Ad quality and relevance – How much Facebook thinks people will like your ad.
  3. Estimated auction rates – How likely a person is to take your ad’s action.

Evaluating Your Campaigns

Once you set your ads, don’t forget about them! Even though they can be set to finish at any time, you’ll want to check back into the Ads Manager to see their performance. Facebook is great about showing you the data you need at a glance.

\"facebook

Evaluate the results of your ad, the cost, and the reach. Does anything seem out of place? Can you do anything better? How can you tweak your ads to get better results?

The answers to those questions are an entire industry of advertisers, but that doesn’t mean Facebook’s ad program is beyond you. With some careful study and data-minded thinking, you can use Facebook to sell products, build subscriber lists, and grow your business.

Have you seen some really cool Facebooks ads recently? We\’d love to hear about them.

What You Need to Know About Facebook Advertising Read More »

Ready to be an entrepreneur? Only if you can answer these questions

Leave a Comment / Featured, Marketing, Must Read Blogs, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , ,

You’re a wide-eyed entrepreneur, dreaming of the next big idea and how it’s going to change the world. And you could be right — Perhaps you’ve got the genesis of the next Facebook, Apple, or Tesla in the back of your mind. Don’t be fooled though, being an entrepreneur is tough — It’s not just about the ideas, it’s about the flawless execution, the product, the hustle, the market, and more than just a little bit of luck.

It’s also about asking, and answering the right questions. So much of being an entrepreneur is about making the right decisions, and that comes from asking deep, penetrating questions of yourself, your business, your industry, and your customers.

Here are some of those questions you should be asking — Think about each of these deeply, see how they spin off into other questions, and answer them as best you can. These questions will help you validate your ideas, understand if your products can survive in the market, and see if you’ve got the resilience to succeed.

Questions about your products and services, or “What is it that my business does best?”

A great business starts with products and services that meet a genuine need and offers them to your customers in the best possible way. These are the questions you’ll need to answer.

  • Do I understand who my ideal customer is, and what they need from my business?
  • Have I validated our products and services to check that they solve a genuine problem?
  • Have I tested, tweaked and refined our products and services so that they are as good as they can be?
  • Do I have a consistent brand and visual identity that builds trust?
  • Do I know the best channels to make my customers aware of what we offer?
  • Have I built a community of early users?

If you can answer these questions confidently, you will create products, services, and brands that meet a genuine need, create trust, and add value for your customers.

Questions on your knowledge and expertise, or “I don’t need to make every decision myself.”

As a startup, you will want to have access to knowledge, and experience from several different sources. Use this expertise to guide you when you’re making decisions.

  • Do I have investors that I can speak to that can share insight and knowledge?
  • What are my co-founders and employees good at and how can I best use that expertise?
  • Do I understand the results of my decisions and the impact they have on the business?
  • How should I react when growth slows or stalls?
  • What is the best way for me to delegate tasks to others?
  • Am I collecting the right metrics and feedback and using them to help decision making?

Remember that there are people that can help you, and they want to see your business succeed as much as you do.

Questions about the culture, tools and processes to let you scale, or “We’re doubling business every quarter, and we’re on top of it.”

If you want to be successful and grow rapidly, you need to put the right culture, tools, and processes in place now to help you scale up.

  • Do I have a simple business structure that can be easily expanded as needed?
  • Am I communicating regularly with my people to let them know what’s happening?
  • Have I built a culture of trust and am I listening to my employees?
  • Are our business processes and tools as simple as possible?
  • Am I tracking progress and do I have realistic targets in place?
  • Do I have the best employees, freelancers, or outside experts in the right roles, with the right amount of accountability and ownership.

Good hiring and communications practices, combined with a simple organizational structure, active feedback and the right processes and tools will help your business thrive.

This is only a taster of what you want to think about, and starting to answer these questions will help you firm up the right ideas and approaches in your own mind.

One of the first things you’ll need to think about is “How do I share my business, ideas, products, and services with the world? How do I get my message out there?” That’s something we just might be able to help with.

Ready to be an entrepreneur? Only if you can answer these questions Read More »

4 Ways to Use Social Media to Build Brand Awareness

Leave a Comment / Culture, Marketing, Sales, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , ,

You’ve heard that social media is a powerful tool for your brand. You’re ready to make content people love to share, but without those first fans, how do spread your message?

Choose the right social media networks

There are hundreds of social networks, but they aren’t all useful to you. Don’t spend your time putting yourself out there on a dozen networks. Find the ones that provide the best results and focus.

Facebook is the most common, but some brands fine it hard to get their content in front of fans if it’s not “sexy.” Instagram is designed for striking visual content and interaction, but there’s no real way to send traffic to another website. LinkedIn is designed for professionals who want to further their careers or find a job. Pinterest is best for visually pleasing subjects that need to be linked elsewhere, like crafts, recipes, and tutorials. Tumblr is for… Well, Tumblr is Tumblr.

Find influencers and exploit their fan base

When you don’t have much of a brand, you need to get your content front of eyeballs. The best way to do that is to leverage the fan base of someone who has already done the hard work.

First, find popular accounts with similar fan bases. Then, collaborate with those accounts so they share your content. You won’t have much to offer in return, so your content has to be stellar (something their fans would love to see) or pay for the privilege.

\"social

Don’t sell too hard

People aren’t using social media to buy products. As much as the social networks would like that to be an avenue for sales, they just aren’t effective. If you’re looking for a clear ROI from your social media marketing efforts, you’re gonna have a bad time.

Social media is about putting yourself in front of your fans with value. At least 80% of your content should be about the customer, not about you. What are their problems? How can you offer information, links, or images that solve those problems? You don’t have to get fancy here. Sometimes the user just wants to be entertained.

Use paid campaigns

Technically, you can build an audience on any social network without investing anything other than time. But who has time? Each social network has their own ad platform. You’ll have to decide which is right for you. In the case of Facebook, for instance, you can pay to have Facebook push your page on other people. On Twitter, you can buy a promoted tweet that forces your content into people’s feeds.

No matter which platform you use, always use their targeting options. Drill down as deep as you can to stretch your money as far as possible. You only want to show your content to people who care.

Post often

At first, it may seem like you’re publishing for no one. Once a few start trickling in, maintain a consistent publishing schedule. Many would-be fans check out your content before committing to make sure you’re worth their interest. If they see you post infrequently or irregularly, they won’t both.

\"brand

Be engaging and responsive

Social networks are just that: social. People expect to talk to brands. They want to interact with you because they love your content or product. If you don’t respond, they’ll stop engaging or unfollow from your page/account.

However, if you delight your fans by replying to their comments, liking their content, and making yourself a part of their lives, they’ll reward you by spreading your message to their fans.

Always remember: social media is a tool. And like all tools, it’s only as effective if you use it. Don’t sit around and wait for results. Be active. Be social.

Need some additional guidelines and tips – give us a call!

4 Ways to Use Social Media to Build Brand Awareness Read More »

Banks and the social media compliance debate

Leave a Comment / Finance, Marketing, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , ,

We work with several financial institutions, and we know that one of their main concerns is compliance – How do you make sure that what you’re saying in your Facebook or Twitter feeds meets all of the rules, regulations, and guidelines of the financial industry? Compliance can be a headache, but that shouldn’t stop you having a good social media presence.

We’ve got a solution we think you’ll love. Here’s why you should consider adding social media and social selling to your marketing.

The way to make sure your posts are compliant is to be proactive – You need to create and manage a proper editorial calendar and have a solid review process for your content. Run your content calendar, posts, blogs, and social media strategy by your compliance department.

They’ll likely provide some advice on how to phrase your posts, what to add, and what to remove. Make sure the person responsible for your social media profiles has regular conversations and check-ins with your compliance team. That way you can ensure everything your publishing has a seal of approval.

As a local bank or credit union, you’ve built up a great reputation in your area. Targeted marketing is a good way to get noticed and to encourage personal and business customers to come to you, but that’s only half the story. If you want more chances to sell your financial products and services, you need to seek out and act on opportunities — We’ll explore exactly how you can do that.

If you’re a commercial lender, your main purpose is lending money to expanding businesses. In addition to income from loans, you can upsell other products like financial protection, insurance, retirement planning, and more. The question is, how do you find those expanding businesses in the first place?

Fortunately, there’s some good technology, which, combined with some tips and tricks, can help you create some powerful leads for your banking services. In this article we’ll cover three main areas – LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Twitter, and other social media.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

As the largest social network for professionals, LinkedIn is already a strong resource for businesses. Hopefully you’re already making the most of your bank’s LinkedIn presence, but today we’re going to focus on one specific part of the platform, LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator lets you collect together prospects from across all of LinkedIn, whether you’re connected to them yet or not. It has built in algorithms to help you identify potential clients and businesses who might be in need of your bank’s financial products. It helps you understand where people are changing roles, when organizations are launching new initiatives, and how a business posts about any changes.

You can bring all of this information together in one place so you can start having informed, relevant conversations with the people that matter — The decision makers in your target businesses. It helps you put context around these conversations too, building trust with your potential clients. Combine this with insights into your professional network, other’s profiles, and lead recommendations, and it becomes a very powerful tool for finding commercial banking prospects.

Twitter

You might not think of Twitter as a way to find business banking opportunities, but used correctly it can be a great way to connect with potential customers. Here’s a quick step-by-step guide:

  1. Follow the Twitter profiles of any businesses and professionals in your target geographical area.
  2. Review your Twitter feed to see what people are sharing — Are they discussing new opportunities, products, services or research?
  3. If they are, engage with them — But here’s the trick — Don’t try to sell them anything. Provide useful financial advice, professional banking support, and insight. The idea is to build up trust.
  4. Once you’ve built up that trust, you can suggest products and services to help them achieve their business goals.

It’s vital that you don’t just promote your banking products and services — That can turn people off very quickly. Instead, you want to spend time building up a good reputation and strengthening your expertise and authority.

Other social media

Finding leads isn’t just limited to Twitter either. Facebook, Instagram, even Pinterest can be good places to find new banking customers, if you know how to look. As with Twitter, start by identifying the people and businesses in your local area and connect with them.

Then, spend some time cultivating relationships — Share genuinely useful financial information and links to your Facebook page or Pinterest board. You’re looking to build a brand focused on financial trust. As you add to that content, you’ll get more visibility and potential customers will start to see you as the “go to people” for advice on their money.

As you can see, these tools can help you rapidly expand your banking market. When you start out actively seeking leads, and engaging with them in the right way, you’ll be able to build trust which will lead to more sales of your financial products and services.

Still feeling a little hesitant on tackling social media? Give us a call – we can set up a training session with you and your banking team.

Banks and the social media compliance debate Read More »