With the advancement of technology, more people are now doing internet searches instead of driving to banks and financial institutions to apply for mortgage loans. This digital transformation allows mortgage lenders to reach more customers. Thanks to the power of websites and social media, their business is just a few clicks away.
Loan officers who implement social media marketing outperform their competitors by a huge margin. When done effectively, social media can boost online presence and drive leads and sales. For those mortgage companies that do not include social media as part of their marketing strategy, they are missing out on big opportunities to grow their business.
Below are the key reasons why mortgage companies need to utilize social media:
1. It Increases Brand Awareness
As of 2022, the United States has reached over 302 million social media users. Your target customers spend 2-3 hours a day on social media. If your business is not present on different channels where your customers hang out, they will not know that your business exists. Social media helps mortgage businesses to be found and allow potential customers to find relevant information and resources.
Taking advantage of social media’s large database, mortgage companies can appeal to their target audience and present their product and service offerings effectively. Not all users browse websites to find business information. This is why it is crucial for loan officers to create social media pages to stay searchable and accessible. Social media improves brand visibility and leaves a lasting impression on the minds of consumers. This boosts your credibility and increases your customers’ trust.
2. It is a Great Source of Referrals
Though word-of-mouth marketing is commonly used for in-person events, organizations, and networking, it can be leveraged online. Compared to the traditional method where you have to ask your colleagues and friends personally to recommend a customer, social media simplifies the marketing effort in the form of online reviews and user-generated content.
Word of mouth is more powerful than other advertising tactics because you do not have to convince or force people to purchase your products or services. With social media, you and your loyal customers do not need to hard sell. By posting quality content that educates and entertains your audience, you are activating word-of-mouth marketing. Happy customers can share your content on their social media feeds, leave positive reviews on your pages, and even tag people they know who might need your services.
3. It Improves Thought Leadership
People trust businesses that do not just entirely advertise their products but provide helpful content. For example, if you are in the mortgage industry, posting financial-related content and loan tips can make you more likable. This will separate you from your competitors. When consumers and social media followers see value in your posts, they are more likely to trust your business.
Social media is a great way to position your brand. Your followers will look up to you and interact with your posts. By creating insightful content that answers the possible questions of your audience and communicating in their language, you are establishing yourself as an expert. Being a leader in your field creates a strong impression and enables you to connect with your audience directly and convincingly.
4. It Generates a Higher Conversion Rate
Higher brand visibility equates to higher chances of generating leads and sales. Every content you share on social media has the potential to drive traffic to your website, sales funnels, and landing pages. Blogs, images, and instructional videos help mortgage businesses gain more clicks, views, and impressions. By posting quality content consistently, social media can organically attract more visitors and develop strong relationships with consumers.
Social networking has a higher lead-to-conversion rate compared to other marketing methods. With the right content strategy combined with humanization factor, you can generate more sales and positive results. Personifying your brand boosts your company’s authority and makes people prefer to choose your business over your competition. Interacting with your audience by liking, sharing, and replying to their comments supports your lead generation efforts. People love social proof and the bigger credibility you have, the higher chances of converting leads into customers.
5. It Boosts Customer Satisfaction
There are many things that you can do with social media. It is more than just a lead generation channel but also a great way to improve customer service. With an active social media presence and the capacity to handle customers’ messages, you can make your audience stay with you longer. Responding to customers’ inquiries, answering questions, replying to comments, and sparking conversations with your audience enhance customer experience.
When customers feel that they are valued and they are getting the attention they deserve, they can become more loyal to your brand. Your brand voice is one of the key factors that affect the happiness and satisfaction of your customers. With social media, mortgage companies can show their unique identity, improve communication, and expand their customer service.
6. It is Cost-effective
When implemented correctly, social media can be one of the most cost-effective advertising strategies. Traditional advertising such as print ads, newspapers, and billboards is expensive. Aside from huge costs, they also have limited reach. With social media, mortgage companies can target a specific audience and reach a larger demographic.
Signing up and creating social media profiles does not cost anything. All you need to do is invest time and effort in creating content and interacting with the audience. If you decide to use paid social media ads, you can always start small and test your advertising campaigns to avoid risks. Then, you can increase your ad budget depending on its performance. Social media marketing is flexible and inexpensive. Combining both organic and paid social strategies, you can expect a good ROI and higher conversion rates.
7. It Increases Inbound Traffic
The content you share on social media can organically drive traffic to your website and sales pages. If you are only using a website to market your business online, you will only get limited reach. Not all users have time to surf websites and don’t want to leave the platform they are currently browsing. These days, users can just enter a particular keyword on Facebook Search and start finding products and services.
It is important to post content that targets specific keywords that you aim to rank for. This will help your business to appear in search results and widens your opportunity to acquire a new customer. Social media is a search engine, which is why it is vital to establish a strong presence on major channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. You can drive a lot of inbound traffic by sharing blog links, promotions, infographics, and other types of content.
8. It Boosts Content Marketing
It may sound cliche, but in the world of marketing, content is king. Social media can support your content marketing efforts and spread your brand message to an unlimited audience. By planning your social media content strategy, you will be able to determine how to engage with your users properly and understand the factors that drive them to stick to your brand.
You can integrate social media into all of your content marketing efforts. If you are sending email newsletters to your audience, you can include links to your social media pages and encourage your recipients to follow them. When users see your content consistently, it will grab their attention and interest. Ensure that the content you are sharing on social media resonates with your audience and is aligned with your brand voice.
9. It Helps you get Marketplace Insights
Social media has built-in analytics and tools that can provide you with meaningful data and insights about the performance of your advertising campaigns. By monitoring your social media activities, you will learn about your customer’s interests and needs better. Social media can work as an effective research tool to identify the gaps in your marketing efforts. For example, you can determine what type of content is working well if you look at post engagements and metrics.
Using social media gives businesses a lot of advantages. You can also integrate digital tools to analyze and optimize your social media efforts. With this, you can gain more information on how to reach your target demographic effectively and increase your conversion rates. You can understand your customers deeply, helping you create better and more tailored content that drives positive impressions and revenue.
10. It Keeps an Eye on the Competition
Around 90% of businesses today are using social media to connect with their customers. Using social media, you will be able to monitor your competitors and learn about their marketing strategies. What are the things they do but you don’t? How do they connect to their audience? What tactics are they using to generate leads and close more sales? Being present on social media allows you to see what your competitors are doing and gain insights on how to win new customers.
You can also track mentions of your competitors and even look at their audience. This will help you see how they communicate with their audience. By keeping an eye on your competitors’ social media activities, you can plan strategically and ensure that you will not miss any opportunity to generate more customers.
Social Media Mistakes that Mortgage Companies Should Avoid
To be successful in social media marketing, it is important to learn the bad practices that drive followers away. Social media marketing is more than just about posting content on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. In this age of the internet, we are living in a customer-centric marketing era. This means that companies should not focus on talking about their brand but on providing valuable content and creating a good user experience.
If you are a loan officer or mortgage broker who has created social media pages but has seen only a few engagements, it is time to look at the quality of your content and rethink your social media tactics.
1. Only posting self-serving content
Self-serving content is one of the major reasons for customer frustration. Social media pages are meant to communicate and engage with your audience and not just to talk and talk about your company. Loan officers who do nothing but promote themselves just annoy and bombard visitors. Instead of developing content that pushes your customers to buy your products and services, mortgage companies should focus their message on the user.
Before creating and publishing content, the first step is to analyze your audience. What are their pain points? What are the problems your company is trying to solve? Valuable messaging is extremely essential in content marketing. When people see that your only intention is to sell, they will likely not interact with your content and leave your page.
2. Lack of Content Types
Your messaging on social media should not rely on one-trick magic. People can easily get bored seeing the same type of content being posted every day. Most mortgage companies do not have enough time to develop unique and interesting content, hence, the lack of content variety.
Using different types of content entices customers to pay attention to your posts. This will help you get more clicks and traffic. Content variety provides direction to your social media strategy. This will help you determine what type of content the audience like the most and what are your least-performing contents. Content ideas that you can add to the mix are blogs, infographics, videos, testimonials, user-generated content, and industry news. The more creative you are in producing content, the more likely you can pique the interest of your target audience.
3. Not Listening to your Customers
If you think that the work ends after posting content, you are wrong. It is just a small part of social media strategy. Social media is a great listening tool where you can learn more about your audiences’ needs and expectations. Mortgage companies that post content but do not track engagements are wasting valuable effort.
It is important to listen to conversations, answer questions, and keep your audience informed. Asking questions or conducting surveys work wonders, allowing you to identify your strengths and weaknesses. How do consumers really feel about your brand? What are their common questions and concerns? Getting customer insights will enable you to nurture your audience effectively.
4. Treating All Social Media Platforms as the Same
Using a one-size-fits-all approach is a common social media mistake that loan officers make. We get it. Creating content for social media takes a lot of time and effort, especially if you do not have a dedicated marketing person to do the work. It is vital to understand that different social media channels have different demographics and algorithms. What works on Facebook might not work on LinkedIn. What’s effective on Instagram might not work on Twitter, and so on.
It is not ideal to post the same content across all social media platforms. They differ in character count, image sizes, and other regulations. This is why it is beneficial to tailor the content for each channel. For example, it is awkward to use a funny and conversational tone on LinkedIn because its audience is business professionals. However, you can use that tone on Facebook and Instagram to spark interaction with your audience. Taking shortcuts in content creation and not delivering channel-specific content will not work in the long run.
5. Making Spelling and Grammar Mistakes
If you are in the mortgage industry, you need to look and sound professional. Even if your content is good and accompanied by compelling images, it will appear sloppy if you have spelling and grammar mistakes. Spelling errors will make customers think twice about your brand and consider you as unprofessional.
Even large brands can commit these mistakes. One small mistake can mess up the whole message and instead of your customers focusing on digesting your content, they will focus more on correcting the mistake. This affects your brand reputation and credibility. This is why before posting any content on social media, ensure that you have double-checked it. To avoid missing grammatical and spelling errors, you can use spelling checker tools such as Grammarly and Hemingway, or tap into the expertise of a copywriting professional.
6. Poor Branding
People are quick to judge brands based on design. This is why popular brands like Coca-cola and McDonald’s create a strong recognizable image. With the growing competition online, leaving a lasting impression on the audiences’ eyes and minds can give you an edge.
Companies that use low-quality and blurred photos get low engagement and views. Poor branding can make your potential customers assume that your product and services are unreliable. Just like impressing a girl on a date, you need to suit up and be aesthetically pleasing to your audience. Good branding signifies professionalism, quality, and reliability. Images, graphics, videos, and other marketing materials should be aligned with your brand message. You can use the help of a professional graphic designer to improve your branding and leverage your content.
7. Ignoring the Comment Section
Social media can spread messages fast. One content can go viral in just a matter of hours. Content can be easily shared and thus, affect brand reputation. Successful brands spend at least 2-3 hours a day on social media to monitor messages, reviews, inquiries, and comments. If you are not actively monitoring audience engagements, you may lose potential customers or tarnish your brand credibility.
One way to strengthen a brand’s reputation is by dealing with positive and negative comments. When customers leave good feedback about their experience, take a moment to appreciate them. If you receive negative feedback, attend to it as soon as possible before it escalates and gets read by more people. If the customers’ claims are true, admit it and send a polite apology.
Be patient and learn how to deal with negative feedback professionally. Whenever appropriate, hide or delete the bad comments and move the conversation to the social media inbox. This way, you can solve the issue privately and without the public interfering.
8. Using Too Many Hashtags
Hashtags help categorize posts and get your content to be seen by a larger audience. However, using too many hashtags in your posts can be annoying to the audience. Too many hashtags look spammy and cause clutter. This distracts the audience from the key message of your content. It will also affect the ranking algorithm and lower your brand exposure instead of increasing it. As much as possible, keep hashtags to a minimum so that customers will not assume that you are hungry for engagement.
9. Focusing on Quantity over Quality
It can be tempting to post 3x a day on social media to get your name out but it will do more harm than good. If you have produced a lot of content, try to distribute it in moderation. Though the posts are well-designed and the copy is amazing, bombarding the audience with multiple posts a day can be a huge turn-off. This can lead to unfollows and unsubscribes.
Businesses that post more than 3 times a day are getting low engagement and reach while businesses that post only twice a day are getting more interaction and views. Simply put, the social media algorithm favors quality content and not your number of posts. Another advantage of focusing on quality content is you and your team will be forced to share only the best content that resonates with your audience.
10. Relying Entirely on Organic Social Media
Social media marketing is categorized into two: organic and paid advertising. Organic social media is any social media activity that does not involve spending money on ads. This includes posting images, videos, stories, and infographics. Paid social media is when brands pay money on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. to promote their business to a specific and targeted audience. This can be in the form of boosting posts or creating an ad campaign and allocating ad budget.
To maximize the benefits that social media can bring to your business, it is best to combine organic with paid ads. One major disadvantage of organic marketing is it takes time to build your audience while paying for ads instantly puts your business in front of your target customers. With paid advertising, you can start low to avoid potential loss. You can be flexible in your budget and you can test different ad sets before deciding to put more money into ads.
11. Not Hiring an Expert Social Media Manager
You may assume that doing social media management by yourself can save time and money, but it’s actually the opposite. Managing and growing social media channels takes a ton of effort, time, and dedication. If you want to do it yourself, ensure that you are well-equipped with knowledge and awareness of the good and bad practices in social media marketing. If you feel that you do not have the time and capacity to do it, it is ideal to hire a social media expert.
Experienced social media managers can supervise your overall social media strategy and help you boost your online presence. This will help you save time and avoid potential mistakes that cost valuable time and money. Some of the tasks of a social media manager include understanding your brand proposition, researching your competitors, creating content, launching ad campaigns, engaging with your audience, and more.
12. Not tracking Analytics and KPIs
You will not be able to determine the success of your social media strategy if you are not looking at the metrics. Some loan officers think that social media is a set-and-forget strategy where they leave the page after posting content. It does not work that way. To reap the benefits of social media, it is crucial to check the analytics. Facebook and Instagram have built-in tools that allow you to see content performance and other specific KPIs.
If you see a sudden drop in engagement and views, you can adjust your strategy and try a new marketing approach. Checking the number of clicks, impressions, traffic, and conversions allows you to know what social media effort brings the most impact to your business.
13. Giving Unsound Financial Advice
It can be tempting to share an opinion about a certain topic but ensure that it is within your expertise and scope of the job. Though loan officers and mortgage brokers are financially literate, it is not ideal to share something not loan-related. Giving real estate advice such as, ”Now is the right time to buy a home” may sound okay but being a real estate advisor is beyond your job or expertise.
Instead of acting in roles you are not licensed to perform, focus on sharing content about your work. Some interesting ideas include educating the audience about different types of loans, loan application processes, credit scores, and other relevant topics. Sharing more things about your nature of work helps establish yourself as an expert in the industry.
14. Sharing Inaccurate Content
Sharing others’ content is a good tactic to generate more engagement and exposure. However, not because certain content is engaging, you will share it instantly. Mortgage companies that repost, share, or retweet others’ content without verifying the source can lose reputation and trust. Spreading misinformation can harm the public and when people see an inaccuracy in your posts, they will have doubts about trusting your products and services.
15. Jumping into Social Media without any Strategy
Effective social media campaigns start with a clear and detailed strategy. For busy loan officers, they take social media marketing lightly. Randomly throwing ideas here and there and not having a consistent plan is a recipe for failure. After you created social media pages for your business, do not rush into posting content immediately. Instead, take time to brainstorm with your team about the type of content you are going to post and what objectives the company is trying to achieve.
A sound social media strategy includes researching the competition, collecting content ideas, understanding customers’ pain points, and preparing marketing assets. Once all are set, you can start launching your social media efforts.
How Mortgage Lenders can Generate Leads through Social Media
Now that you know the benefits of social media and what social media mistakes to avoid, let us jump to creative ideas to attract more customers and close more sales. We have gathered the best content tips that you can add to your marketing campaigns.
Happy Client Testimonials
What is more convincing than real clients testifying how good your products and customer service are? No matter how good you talk about your brand, nothing beats a client testimonial. People look at online reviews and testimonials and use them as a basis for their purchasing decision. Happy client testimonials boost your brand and build trust with potential clients.
Ask your satisfied clients for their honest reviews and feedback. It can be in written form or much better, video. When sharing their feedback, do not forget to tag them on social media. This will help you reach their followers and create a buzz. Happy customers who are singing songs for you can be a great source of referrals and recommendations.
Client Closing
This is probably one of the best content to post. Closing is the time when the client will sign all documents including the mortgage loan document. There is no happier client than one who just closed on their home! Make sure to ask your realtor partner or escrow officer to send you a few pictures of the closing process. Sharing this photo on social media increases your credibility and provides strong social proof to your target audience.
Partner with Realtors
Networking can bring a lot of value and revenue to your business. Successful mortgage lenders have a strong connection with realtors. As real estate agents connect buyers to sellers, mortgage brokers connect buyers to lenders to find financing for their property. Connect with real estate agents in your neighborhood and build relationships with them. You can do this by networking with them in person or virtually. Follow them on social media and share their listings to show support and leverage influence. They can also do the same for you. Growing your connections and supporting each other puts you in a win-win situation. Real estate agents sell more houses and you finance more mortgage loans.
Share Company News
Share how hard your team is working. Take a few snapshots of you and your team and give your audience a great sneak peek of what it is like working in the mortgage industry. Showing behind the scene photos connects your customers to your company.
Snapshot ideas include pictures of your staff meeting, doing paperwork, working hard in front of the computer, showing the office setup, talking over the phone, and more. This humanizes your brand and creates a good impression on your potential customers. It also makes them feel that you are genuine with your intent and you will be able to meet their needs.
Use Quotes
Adding quotes to your social media strategy can enhance your brand personality. Quotes can be a great post to warm up the day. Although it is a great idea to post mortgage-related quotes, it does not mean that you are limited to that. You can share quotes not related to mortgages but something inspiring and motivating.
Quotes are highly shareable, especially if someone can relate to them. You can share any quote that reflects your brand’s mission and goals. It does not have to be about home ownership or loans but rather, something that appeals to the majority of your audience.
Provide Answers to FAQs
You probably get the same mortgage questions repeatedly. As much as you want to attend to every customer’s message, answering the common question again and again can be troublesome. To combat this scenario and save more time, you can gather the most frequently asked questions and answer them. You can share Q & A posts on social media that provide information that the audience is searching for.
You can post FAQs in an infographic format or shoot a video responding to customers’ questions and showing off your mortgage expertise.
Utilize Infographic Content
People easily get bored reading lengthy sentences and paragraphs. Infographics make it easier for customers to visualize and get the message you want to convey. For example, instead of discussing different types of loans in text format, you can use charts and illustrations. Social media users have a short attention span, so your content should be easily readable and visually appealing.
Visual aids such as diagrams, charts, and graphs can turn complex concepts into skimmable and easy-to-understand content. Interesting ideas include creating infographics about comparing different types of loans, sharing mortgage tips, or presenting numerical data.
Employee Spotlight
It is a great thing to show appreciation for employees’ hard work and dedication. Every once in a while, you can give your employee a special shout-out on social media. Share their photo and their job description. This encourages the audience to learn more about your brand, including the people who are behind it.
If you take on a new member or staff, create a post introducing them to your team and target audience. Highlighting a current employee and welcoming a new member shows good company culture.
Awareness Days
Ever heard of International Dog Day? How about National Parents Day? Riding on these events can drive engagements on your social media. Most mortgage companies forget to share holiday messages. To avoid missing engagement opportunities, you can create a list of holidays, plan your content, and schedule them in advance using social media management tools. Be sensitive about religious holidays because people have different perceptions and beliefs.
Mortgage Videos
Video is the new king of content. More and more people prefer watching instructional and informational videos to reading long paragraphs. Videos generate higher engagement and conversion than written content.
You can create videos discussing the mortgage application and approval process, home buying process, and other relevant topics. Collaborating with other professionals such as local realtors, home stagers, etc., and producing a video together will attract more quality leads.
New Loan Program Announcements
Got a new loan program? Don’t let your audience miss it. You can film a quick video about it or share any updates about your new mortgage products. Make sure that your audience is informed of the new rules, rates, and various changes. Posting announcements can pique your audience’s interest and educate them about your latest offerings.
Mortgage Myths
If you are a loan officer or mortgage broker, you probably encountered a lot of misconceptions about some aspects of the mortgage application process. It is time to clear all the false information by debunking the common mortgage myths. Educating your audience about the myths and exposing the truth will showcase your expertise in the industry. The more you educate your audience, the more likely they will choose you over your competitors.
Mortgage Glossary
Mortgage loans have tiny details which can be confusing, especially for a new homeowner. It would be an amazing idea to create a series of posts where you explain mortgage terms, principles, and jargon. This can guide your audience to deepen their understanding of mortgage loans.
Level up Your Mortgage Lending Business with Social Media
We hope that all of the ideas presented above will be beneficial for your current and future social media campaigns. If you want to build your social media presence but don’t have time to implement the strategies we shared, we can do the work for you.
Book Your FREE Strategy Call to get in touch with our team of social media experts. We offer complete social media marketing services to manage all aspects of your social media and ensure positive results in terms of engagement, clicks, traffic, inquiries, leads, conversions, sales, and business growth.
