Edge ahead with Social Media

There’s no denying that social media is one of the most powerful and influential business tools of the 21st century. The question is beyond just using LinkedIn, have you embraced fully Social Media to enhance the way you engage with new and existing customers?

Broker Marketing

UK consumers are increasing using various social media channels to make or verify their decisions.

According to We are Social and Meltwater recent study, WhatsApp was named the nation’s favourite social media platform, followed by Facebook and Instagram, with TikTok and Twitter in fourth and fifth place respectively. WhatsApp is also the UK’s most used social media platform, with 73% of internet users aged 16-64 messaging each month, followed by Facebook (71%) and Instagram (56%).

As a mortgage broker, it can be invaluable to harness the power of social media to stand out from your competitors and attract new customers.
We understand with so many platforms and potential audiences, it can be challenging to know where to start. Hopefully, we’ll be able to provide you with an overview of social media and your potential audiences, as well as some top tips to help you grow and sustain your business in the long term.

Why is social media marketing essential?

Social media is your chance to meet your potential and current customers and speak to them in a place they feel comfortable.

According to Hootsuite’s Digital Global Overview report internet users aged 16-64 spent 1hr 48mins each day on social media your chance to showcase your expertise and build trust. If used effectively, it can help you build a more friendly dialogue that engages with your customers on a more personal level. Showing them the benefits of your offering in a more down-to-earth manner.

Our six top tips

1. Know your audience

If you want to reach people on social media, as in life, you must get to know them. The key to an effective social media strategy is understanding your audience.

Take the time to research who they are and what they want. That way you can identify their needs, pain points, and interests. By understanding them in depth, you can then create content that resonates with them and builds trust.

To help you get started, we’ve identified six audience segments (INSERT link to customer segments on website) for you to target and the platforms we feel are most likely to reach them:

Hopeful Homeowners

These are successful young adults with higher-than-average incomes. They can be singles or couples, may have children and are likely to currently be privately renting – Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Twitter

Recent Recoverers

Aged 25-44 generally below social media use apart from TikTok. These users are likely to engage and upload original content. These are people with younger families, who come from modest means and already own smaller homes. Perhaps they’re recently adverse

Almost Primers

Aged 35-64, they like to shop and research days out online. However, they love the ease of using chatbots to get answers. These are middle-aged home-owning families. They’re likely to have jobs in middle management and while they might have previously had stretched finances, they’re now living comfortably

Affluent Borrowers

Aged 45-64 they feel comfortable to purchasing a financial product online. These are successful, older families with high incomes and currently own larger homes. They’re likely to explore second-charge mortgages for property investments and holiday homes

Comfortable Consolidators

Aged 35-64, with young families who use the internet and social media for research, entertainment and holidays. These are settled families, homeowners with average-value houses, with the potential for higher-value mortgages. They often have unconsolidated but managed debt

2. Get to grips with the platforms

Getting to know the differences between the various social media platforms is key. Each social media platform has its own unique features, audience, and tone. Understanding what they are and how best to use them will help you reach your audience.

Our research has shown that the most popular social platforms for brokers to reach their potential customers are Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Below is a quick rundown of the platforms and their strengths for reaching your potential and current customers:

Facebook

Good for building relationships and connecting with your customers.

Instagram

Ideal for showcasing your business visually and engaging younger audiences.

Twitter

Perfect for sharing news and insights in real-time.

Youtube

Maximize your brand’s reach with engaging content and a vast audience.

TikTok

Brilliant for short-form video content to reach the under-40s.

LinkedIn

Great for building professional relationships and connecting with business customers.

3. Think strategically

Social media is a chance to build a visible brand for yourself. It’s vital you’re consistent with that brand. So start by outlining what your overall goals are, who your target audience is, and how you want to theme your content.

Remember, no one likes a hard sell. The aim of your content should be to provide value to your audience instead of overtly promoting your business. Focus instead on creating engaging, informative content that your audience will find useful and relate to. Once this is done, build in some realistic metrics for your content. Setting yourself reachable targets for metrics such as engagement, likes and more, will help you to measure the success of your social media efforts later on.

4. Plan ahead

Don’t wait until the last minute. Planning your posts well in advance, ideally, a month ahead, will help you make sure that you have a steady flow of high-quality content.

So build out a content calendar for each month. Meta Business Suite is a free tool that allows you to schedule posts on Instagram and Facebook weeks in advance. The calendar should include the date, platform, content theme, and any relevant hashtags or links you plan to use. Take into account key dates in the financial year as well as awareness days that might be relevant to your business or your audience. You can then piggyback on the trends of the day with the right hashtag, expanding the reach of your posts.

5. Consistency is key

It’s important to set expectations and keep them. Post regularly and make sure your content is always high in quality. Platform algorithms are set up to reward you for consistent posting by boosting your reach, so it’s well worth being on top of this and not posting sporadically.

You want to ensure your branding is consistent. This builds trust and will help your audience recognise you from your competitors. If you have particular colours/fonts in your logo or on your website make sure you use them when creating assets. You can also research what are the optimal days and times to post. In general and across all industries, the best times to post on social media are:

Weekdays: 1 pm-3 pm and 5 pm-6 pm
Weekends: 9 am-2 pm and 8 pm-11 pm

However, it’s well worth researching what are the best times to reach your audience in the mortgage market specifically.

6. Track and refine

Be sure to keep track of your metrics and measure them against past performance.

Metrics such as engagement rates, follower growth, and website traffic all might seem confusing but they’re worth getting to grips with. Thanks to these metrics, you can better gauge the effectiveness of your social media posts, identify the types of posts that performed well and then adjust your posts for the next month to be as effective as possible.

Social media isn’t a quick fix

As you can see, using social media to market your business requires time and effort. It’s not an overnight quick fix. You have to think of social media as a crucial tool in your arsenal designed to help you reach potential and existing customers, but you have to be dedicated to reap its rewards. If you do so effectively, you’ll find your business grows and thrives thanks to the power of social media.

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