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It may sound like an outdated joke, but it’s true nonetheless — if your business isn’t on social media, it’s almost as if it doesn’t exist. Over 40% of Internet users look up companies on social networks, and the reasoning behind this is simple. Social networks allow them to get to know a business, establish a relationship with it, and start trusting it. So, start leveraging social media marketing to your financial business.
As a financial services provider, you’re aware of how important it is for your customers to trust you. So, if you’re to build a pool of loyal customers, you need to invest in establishing a strong social media presence.
It all starts with understanding social media networks themselves, specifically Facebook and LinkedIn. These are the most popular networks for businesses.
Let’s take a look at this cheat sheet that will allow you to enhance your presence on these social networks.
Image Sizes for Social Media Platforms
What’s the first thing that your leads will notice on your social media accounts? Dedication to your work? Your professionalism? Your time-management skills? No. The answer’s much simpler than that. It’s your images. Your profile picture, cover photo, the image of the last article that you’ve shared.
You have to make those images count.
Each social media network will have its guidelines for the best image quality and size. It’s best to adhere to those guidelines if you want to see the results.
To improve your social selling on Facebook, you have to make your entire profile page look professional and uniform. And you should start with the pictures.
You can share a variety of different images on this social network, and the purpose of the image will determine its ideal size and quality. Paying attention to this will ensure that all photos are perfect when viewed from different devices.
Here are the image guidelines that will ensure your Facebook profile is picture-perfect:
- Profile image: 180 x 180 pixels
- Cover image: 820 x 312 (and no less than 400 x 150)
- Timeline image: 1200 x 630 (no less than 600 x 315)
- Shared post image: 1200 x 630
- Preview image of a shared link: 1200 x 628
- Event cover photo: 1920 x 1080
- Highlighted image: 1200 x 717
If you don’t adhere to these guidelines, your images can easily be distorted. Smaller images will be stretched to fit, while larger images will be cropped. It will hurt the image quality and on your overall appearance on Facebook.
For best results, use a higher resolution for larger images and upload either in .JPG or .PNG format.
LinkedIn is among the most extensive professional networks out there, boasting over 610 million users. Since the competition here is harsh, you need to do everything in your power to enhance your LinkedIn profile.
Financial service providers can greatly benefit from following the LinkedIn picture guidelines:
- Profile image: 400 x 400 pixels or larger (photo files of up to 8MB are accepted)
- Cover image: 1584 x 396
- Company cover image: 1536 x 768
- Company logo image: 300 x 300
- Square logo: 60 x 60
- Company page banner image: 646 x 200
- Preview image of a shared link: 180 x 110
- Shared image: 350
- Blog post link image: 1200 x 628
LinkedIn crops photos differently on different devices. Check how everything looks on both mobile devices and computer screens before you finalize the changes.
Etiquette on Social Media
While every social network has some community guidelines, there are no written rules on social media etiquette. Even so, businesses should still pay attention to some do’s and don’ts of Facebook and LinkedIn.
To present yourself as the leader of your niche, you should follow the basic rules of Facebook etiquette:
- Don’t spam!
A few Facebook posts a day can work wonders for reaching wider audiences, but avoid spamming at all costs. No one wants their news feed filled with posts from a single company or person. Remember, quality over quantity.
As long as your content has value, your audience will take notice.
- Do have a posting schedule
Inactivity is always a sign of disinterest. If you don’t want to commit to your own Facebook page, why should others? Keep a posting schedule, and stick to it. You can always hire someone who can keep your page updated and provide meaningful content on a regularly.
- Don’t be over promotional
You will promote yourself and your financial services by engaging with your audience, answering questions, replying to comments, and more. There’s no need to update your status and promote your services regularly.
- Do keep it lighthearted
Facebook is a social network, after all, and its users primarily want to enjoy their time on it. Be a bit more casual on your Facebook business page, but stay true to your brand image.
LinkedIn tends to be a bit more professional network, and its tone is slightly more serious. These are some of the unwritten LinkedIn etiquette rules:
- Don’t lock your profile
The whole point of having a business social media account is connecting with others. You can easily remove the connections that you do not wish to have, but otherwise, keep everything public. Your posts, pictures, and business information should be available to everyone.
- Do personalize your messages
If you want your connection requests to be accepted, and your messages to be appreciated, personalize them. This will make your business stand out from all the other spammy requests and messages.
- Don’t send irrelevant information
Whenever you get in contact with your audience on LinkedIn, be sure to keep your messages as relevant to them as possible. Otherwise, the messages will appear spammy, and your account will be blocked.
- Do respond to comments
Promptly responding to comments (and messages) is the best way to build relationships with your connections. Be professional and polite, even if the comments are negative.
Paid Advertising Options
Paid advertising is an excellent way for a financial services provider to reach a wider audience. Even a small investment in paid ads can work wonders for enhancing your business performance.
Facebook has astonishing targeting options that allow you to reach exactly the type of people that you need. The following are your best choices for targeted Facebook ads:
- Image ads
- Video ads
- Slideshow ads
- Carousel ads
- Messenger ads
- Stories ads
- Dynamic ads
Don’t forget to track your ad performance and ensure that your marketing is effective.
LinkedIn paid advertisements come in a few different formats as well. The best types of paid ads for financial services providers include:
- Lead Generation forms
- Dynamic ads
- Sponsored content
- Sponsored InMail
- Direct sponsored content
The social network has surprisingly good targeting capabilities that can enhance your marketing strategy.
Useful Tools to Help Remain on Top of Things
There are many tools available at your disposal that can help you improve your social media presence. You don’t have to be an expert in social media marketing to take advantage of them.
Some of the best tools that you can use to improve your Facebook page are:
It’s a comprehensive tool that gives you an overview of your page activity and helps you schedule your posts and campaigns.
- Pagemodo
Ideal tool for developing customized tabs, designing cover photos, creating lead generation contests, and more.
Used for improving the visual aspect of your Facebook, Canva can help you perfect images for your Facebook ads, posts or banners.
There’s a wide variety of third-party LinkedIn tools that you can take advantage of as a financial services provider.
Used to collect and analyze data about your audience. You can use it to find out more about your audience’s preferences, likes, and dislikes. That information can help you enhance your marketing campaigns.
This tool allows you to gather information about the profiles you visit on LinkedIn. The collected contact information, email addresses, and more will be compiled into a .CSV file, which you can take advantage of later.
Nimble is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool. It will help you nurture the relationship with your contacts and ensure that your engagement levels are unmatched.
General Tools
If you’re more interested in finding general tools that will help you manage all of your social media, these can be of use to you:
Buffer is among the most popular tools for scheduling social media posts. It works with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.
An all-encompassing tool for analytics, scheduling, and monitoring. Hootsuite can be used with over 35 different social media networks, including Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube, among others.
Besides simplifying your scheduling, publishing, and monitoring on social media, MavSocial gives you access to thousands of stock images.
Don’t Work Hard, Work Smart
Enhancing your social media presence as a financial services provider doesn’t require much. Primarily you need to ensure that your images follow the network’s guidelines and that you follow the etiquette. Then, invest in paid advertising and make use of the variety of social media tools you have at your disposal.
Working smart on social media will boost your lead generation and conversion, your brand awareness, and eventually — your bottom line.
