Five steps to social media success

A popular New Year’s resolution is to lose weight. Gym memberships spike and boot camps are crowded with new, dedicated contenders. The excitement and dedication is sustained for the first few weeks, but slowly old habits return. A previous trainer once told me, “The toughest part of the workout was just showing up.”

Just getting started is often overwhelming even when deciding where to start your social media presence. Gurus of all platforms share tips, tricks, and best practices, but before you jump ahead, let’s figure out what will work for your bank.

1. Choose the right platform:

  1. Facebook captures 71% of adults who are online
  2. Twitter captures 18%
  3. Instagram captures 17%
  4. Pinterest captures 21%
  5. LinkedIn captures 22%

*PewResearch Social Networking, Sept. 2013

Specialists recommend choosing one platform that fits your business best before you start integrating multiple social tools. Maintaining one tool allows for good habits to form and response time to increase. Choose the right platform for your bank and master the tool.

2.  
Set goals that effect the bottom line:

Social media is not just a free advertising medium. This tool can be used to impact your ROI, and is a great way to promote products and services like loans, checking accounts, and other investment products. Social media activity can directly affect the growth of your bank and should measure engagement, changes in awareness, and increases in sales.

3.     Commit:

After you’ve chosen your platform and you know your key performance indicators (KPIs), don’t stop posting. While your posts may not seem to be getting all the attention they deserve, know that it takes time to start generating traffic. Accompanying your posts with images helps, surveys can engage fans, or contests can boost activity. Using tools like Short Stack can assist with execution. As you get started, try new things to find what works best.

4.     Manage your content:

When posting content to your Facebook page, Twitter account, or blog make sure your content is interesting and relevant. A tiered approach is an easy way to gauge your contents worth.

Here’s how it works:

Your baseline content should focus on what impacts your members directly. Holiday hours, ATM or branch locations, or community events are great posts to keep your account holders informed about your bank. From here, create content that would separate you from a competitor. For example, educational materials are great to feed customers advice and information about your products. And finally, make sure to bring it all home. Content showcasing employees, community activities, or customer testimonials make for great lifestyle stories.

5.     Social doesn’t sleep

Hiring a Social Media manager doesn’t fit into everyone’s budget, so leverage tools such as Hootsuite, SocialOomph, or Buffer to help you schedule posts and keep your engagement running during off-hours.  Spending 15 – 30 minutes every other day with these tools will keep your content flowing at all hours of the day. Make sure to keep your content relevant and interesting while keeping your brand at the top of your followers’ feed.

While getting started is the toughest part, a good plan with actionable steps slowly turns into profitable habits. Buzz Points, a rewards program for cardholders, will partner with your bank to encourage debit card use. Cardholders earn points wherever they shop and bonus points for shopping locally. Buzz Points uses emails, blog posts, web sites, and social media tools to engage cardholders and promote the rewards program and your bank.

With Buzz Points, everyone wins. Visit buzzpoints.com or email support@buzzpoints.com  to learn more. 

Holly Watson

Holly Watson

Holly Watson brings 5 years of experience to the small business marketing and online communication field. Prior to Buzz Points Holly managed the marketing communication and events for a local ... Web: buzzpoints.com Details