Social media marketing should be a crucial aspect of all businesses’ overall marketing strategy.
With 80% of business executives stating that it is essential to invest in social media marketing, boosting a fintech’s social media presence should be at the forefront of a marketeer’s mind.
Social media marketing comes with huge benefits such as an increase in brand awareness and insights into customer data. But like all marketing efforts, it comes with its disadvantages.
Read on to unveil the benefits of social media marketing, as well as the potential downfalls of the strategy.
What is social media marketing?
“Social media marketing is the process of creating content for social media platforms to promote a brand’s products and/or services, build community with a given target audience, and drive traffic to the business.” - HubSpot
The ultimate goals of social media marketing are to connect with the set target audience, help them understand the brand, and build a relationship with them.
Social media plays an early and important role in brand awareness, attracting customers to the top of the sales funnel.
This marketing tactic is highly valued by marketers across the globe – with 89.3% saying that is a crucial part of their overall marketing strategy.
Monzo is an example of fintech social media marketing done right. Through ‘radical transparency’ their social media channels have seen significant growth and have achieved customer satisfaction.
Through their platforms, they take responsibility for their mistakes and share internal communications. By taking this approach, they acquire over 100,000 new customers each month – leveraging word-of-mouth and building trust.
The advantages of social media marketing
The importance of social media marketing cannot be overstated. The benefits extend far beyond just increasing a fintech’s sales.
1. Increase in brand awareness
It is predicted that by 2027, 5.85 billion people will be using social media in one form or another.
Social media marketing allows businesses to reach a large pool of people that might be interested in the brand’s products and/or services.
The ability to reach a large group of people is one of the biggest advantages of social media marketing as it opens the door to more leads, helping your potential prospects to move down the sales funnel.
2. Cost effective
Social media marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies.
Using organic social media channels is free, and can be an important part of a successful social media marketing strategy.
If budget allows, companies can consider launching paid social media campaigns. 49% of users are likely to convert from brands that they see advertised on social media – making it a very effective marketing tool.
3. Gain customer insights
Social media analytics allow marketers to gain crucial insights into customers’ demographics and behaviours.
Using data gathered from social media campaigns, brands can improve their overall fintech marketing strategy and enhance their social media efforts in the future.
This will allow the development of later campaigns by tailoring them to customers’ likes, dislikes, and pain points.
The disadvantages of social media marketing
Social media marketing, like all marketing activities, can come with some pitfalls.
1. Competitor exposure
Everything your brand shares on social media adds to its digital footprint (a record of all things you do online).
Meaning competitors can see all of your brand’s social media activity at their disposal.
Competitors are likely to use this to their advantage and analyse a company’s marketing, they may even attempt to create copycat campaigns.
On the other hand, this allows fintechs to do the same thing to their competitors. By conducting a competitor SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis, businesses can stay one step ahead of and catch low-hanging fruit by doing what they aren’t doing.
2. Vulnerability
Sharing anything online puts a business in a vulnerable position. It leaves them open to negative feedback and potential ‘hate’ comments.
Due to the very public nature of social media, other followers and/or customers will be able to see these negative comments. The result of which may be detrimental to their business.
To combat this, it is recommended that the company respond sincerely to negative comments. Showing their audience that they truly care about their customers.
3. Time-consuming
Creating social media campaigns can be extremely time-consuming. From campaigns, copywriting, and creating graphics, each element of a social media post can take up a lot of time.
As well as creating the content itself, brands need to spend time monitoring and listening across all their targeted social channels, as well as reporting every month.
By taking the time to monitor and analyse your social media activity, you can see what your audience likes and dislikes, and what is received well. This can help benefit your overall social media marketing strategy.
Overall, gaining a large following on social media can be timely. It also takes time to gain a return on investment through social media marketing.
Although the above can be a timely process, investing this time is crucial in creating long-lasting and successful relationships with your customers.
Conclusion
To achieve success, a fintech should include social media marketing in its overall marketing strategy.
Social media marketing efforts are key in building long-lasting relationships with a brand’s target market, as well as converting customers down the sales funnel.
Being active on social media comes with several benefits from brand awareness to important customer insights. These benefits help brands holistically develop their marketing strategy as a whole.
However, social media marketing can come with its obstacles – one being that it is a very timely process, but one that is worth it!
At Blue Train Marketing, we believe that social media is great for immediate reactions and feedback from potential customers.
It can help create brand awareness, engage prospects, and move them forward in the buying process. Work alongside our social media marketing experts to create social media content that is worth sharing and consuming.
Learn more about our fintech-specialist social media process today.
