- How to mine social media data for operational insights you can use to change the way you respond to customers to provide a more satisfying experience.
- What social listening tools you can use and how these tools can help you monitor conversations people are having about your brand.
- Why an employee dedicated to online community management is necessary.
- Why consistent, relevant, and authentic engagement is critical to your brand's reputation management.
- How to respond to bad reviews quickly and why these responses are essential.
Announcer: (
Please welcome to the stage Miriam Cross technology reporter at American banker.
Miriam Cross: (
Hi, welcome to the final session of American bankers digital banking conference 2022. Today, I am gonna be speaking about social media and how to attract generation Z online. My name is Miriam cross and I am a technology reporter at American banker today. I am speaking with Regina DeMars, the director of content marketing and social media strategy at first national bank of Omaha. I am also speaking with Haley Boyer, the product strategy manager of evolved bank and trust can trust. Thank you both so much for joining us. So I just introduced to you by name and title, but can you each tell us a bit about your institution and what your role is, especially in the realm of social media, Hailey, I'll start with you.
Hailey Boyer: (
Sure. So, hi, I am Hailey Boyer. I am a product strategy manager at evolve bank and trust. Evolve is based in Memphis, Tennessee, and we are full service bank, several different business lines, retail banking, we have got mortgage, small business trust and an open banking division. Open banking provides different banking as a service and payment solutions. And my role as product strategy is directly dedicated to that division. So I work very closely with marketing team product teams to create different product strategies and product positioning and go to market strategies.
Regina DeMars: (
Awesome. Hi, I am Regina DeMars. I am the director of content marketing and social media strategy at F B O. You may also know us as first national bank of Omaha. We just rebranded a couple years ago. We are an independent family owned bank. We have been around quite a while, 165 years, and we actually have branch presence in eight different states, including Texas, and we offer all of our core banking. So checking mortgage wealth, we refer to ourselves as the great big small bank because we do really feel like a community bank in our eight markets, but we also have national products that are available and we are a large credit card issuer as well. And in my role, I am focused on developing lots of different content to reach gen Z audiences, but really, you know it, any audience and really wanna figure out though what makes them tick, what engages them, what drives loyalty and advocacy and from a prospect perspective really wanna figure out, you know, what's gonna make them wanna have a relationship with us and choose us for all their financial needs.
Miriam Cross: (
And also, can you briefly describe what your social media strategy looks like for like Haley? What platforms do you use? How frequently do you post that kind of thing?
Hailey Boyer: (
Yeah, so I think kind of like a lot of different businesses, the pandemic really kind of shifted our strategy to be more digital first and really embrace social channels. So, we think of social media kind of as an extension of like our internal culture and our eternal brand and continuing that conversation online, especially when we really could not have those conversations face to face. So, we have embraced social media fully. We are active on many different social channels, kind of like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. But when we look at those different channels and look at our different business lines, we really identify which platform do we need to use to communicate to which audiences and which business lines. I think that's really important to understand that, when you are talking to consumers, maybe Facebook and Instagram are the best place to be, maybe when you are talking to businesses more LinkedIn and Twitter. So, we are definitely active on that. We have a full marketing team that's definitely growing all the time pushing our social strategy to the next level. And also throughout the bank, we have so many different subject matter experts that, we have guest speakers come join our social strategy and really share what their niche is like and what they do, on our different social channels. So kind of a variety of us all supporting the same goal.
Miriam Cross: (
How about you Regina? I'm an avid follower of FN V's Instagram account.
Regina DeMars: (
Love to hear that. We are active on all social media channels, all the big players Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, and very excited. We will be launching TikTok soon. That took a while from cold compliance and legal to get onboard with that. But we are excited that we are gonna be able to launch that next week. And in addition to that, we create a lot of advice and guidance content, and we push that out. What we call a ology podcast. We have a cash Facebook group, and then we took that content. We also have a blog on F and B o.com. Our insights blog probably have about a thousand blogs on there now. So it's definitely content marketing has grown a lot for us as a bank and we take that content and we also launched a YouTube series called the dollar bells and the dollar bills.
Regina DeMars: (
And we really try to take a little more serious topics and have fun with it. So we do a lot of bloopers and it is actually employees who, we were thankful, we were able to find inexpensive, efficient talent. We didn't have a budget to be able to do this. So we did a casting call and found some awesome talent to deliver all of our cash, financial advice and guidance. So it's budgeting savings, any just kind of financial tips overall, but that's been awesome to see how that really has helped us engage with the gen Z audience. We also have a private employee Facebook group. We actually launched that at the beginning of the pandemic as a way to keep everyone engaged across all of our markets. And we wanted to be able to, everyone could share a little more into their daily lives and stay connected. And we also have a brand ambassador employee group that has grown to about 50 people over the last couple years.
Miriam Cross: (
So much stuff. Well, so I know reaching gen Z is a big part of your social media strategy. Why is it so important to reach gen Z? And why is social media a major way to do it?
Regina DeMars: (
Yeah, gen Z is definitely a significant focus for us. It's just the right age to engage with them. We wanna start young and build a relationship with them. So we do a lot to engage gen Z, whether they are in high school or college or right out of college. Just because, they are looking at starting a new relationship, if they are moving to a new city, if they are going to eventually want to buy a house or just saving in general, we wanna make sure that we start that relationship at a young age. So then when they are considering us, they have a good brand experience with us. And I mean, if you're not on social media and you're trying to engage, gen Z, probably wouldn't work. I mean, they started basically born with a screen in their hand. I have to laugh cuz my 14 year old last year, he was like, I have to be on Snapchat because otherwise I can't connect with anyone cuz nobody texts anymore. Nobody calls sometimes we FaceTime and he was very convincing. So I let him and, but you just, you have to be engaged there. Marketing is all about connecting and if you are not on social media to engage with that audience it's gonna be difficult. So we definitely have done a lot to engage with the gen Z audience
Miriam Cross: (
And Haley, I believe so reaching gen Z, isn't like a specific objective through your social media strategy, but where do you, like, what are your thoughts on reaching gen through social and where do you see the opportunity?
Hailey Boyer: (
Yeah, so we definitely have a different approach and I think that's really come from our banking as a service products. We realized several years ago that our FinTech market and industry, they are masters at reaching gen Z. They have dedicated audiences and dedicated products targeting those younger audiences. And as a banking partner, we saw that partnering with these FinTech companies that really own that customer acquisition piece. It's created a win-win for us. We could focus on our core banking functions and what we are good at, I'd say, and really let these fintechs go after the customer, acquire them and kind of nurture them in their journeys. So kind of that two party relationship has really been successful for us in terms of gen Z being kind of that bank behind the scenes. Maybe the customer doesn't even know who we are, we are comfortable with that. And we like, we embrace those FinTech opportunities to reach different audiences that we might not have been able to reach without a partnership.
Miriam Cross: (
And what tactics have you found to be the most successful Regina? I know from speaking with you before you do a lot of influencer marketing, you do unboxing videos, you do giveaways, things like that.
Regina DeMars: (
Yeah. So we did take kind of a queue from like fab bit fund years ago with the unboxing trend. And we realized people are doing this online all the time, so we are like, how can we take that consumer behavior and trend and insight and how can we make that kind of cool and relevant for banking? So we have done a lot of influencer marketing where they will send a cooler and with a lot of fun swag to different influencers as well as with our products. So we tap into these influencers in different markets to have them talk about our products in a fun way that we know that gen Z are always looking to influencers and their peers and to see what like the next cool thing is. And we found that we get a lot of engagement from that because it's a cool experience.
Regina DeMars: (
They're always looking for what's the next experience. What's something unique that they're getting. And we've also seen just from our products overall. We decided to launch it was three years ago, only on social media. We launched a rose gold card. Again, just looking into what's trending, it's a product. You know, everyone has a debit card, everybody has a credit card, but how do you make it more unique? And so we launched that it was aesthetically pleasing, beautiful card, and it was really cool to see online. People saying, I'm gonna switch my bank. We know that that can be difficult. So, to see that was really fun. I have to have that card and just seeing how many accounts we drove from that and having the impact from just a beautiful card. So we expanded that because we wanted it to be more cause related.
Regina DeMars: (
And we knew that this particular audience are really engaged with brands and companies based on causes. So we launched a be kind debit card series and we decided to have like a girl support girls card, a kindness comes in all colors. We have a Ethan card, which is actually all about suicide prevention awareness. And it's a self-portrait of one of our employees, sons who lost his life to suicide. And so we partner with companies across our markets, like Boystown, national suicide prevention hotline, or youth frontiers, who do they do kindness retreats in elementary schools. So we really wanted to launch products that they'd be excited about, but also have a tie to having an impact in our markets. And those are some of our most popular debit cards, cuz it helps, when they pull it outta their wallet, it tells a story and it represents them.
Regina DeMars: (
And then fast forward a couple years later, we extended this to, um, a mural experience that we just launched. A few months ago in Omaha, it's a beautiful rainbow. And we partnered with Kelsey Monague, who is known for her murals across the country. She has the wings in Nashville if you've ever been. But it's just been so cool to see how the community has rallied behind it. Her message is what lifts you, that's the hashtag she uses. And so we thought that it fit so perfectly with what we were trying to do. And you now see people taking photos of getting engaged there or their family photos or graduation photos. So it's just another way to create an experience that engages a younger audience. That's really relevant to them. And when they take photos
Miriam Cross: (
In front of the mural, do they tag F N B O or do they become more aware of F N B O
Regina DeMars: (
Yeah, they tag us and then what's awesome. We can, reach out to them and say thank you for taking your photo here and can just even explain that message further. Cuz then we can sometimes link to the website, like, Hey, if you wanna learn more about what we're actually doing as part of this effort. So it's been really cool to see
Miriam Cross: (
And Hailey, what have been the most successful tactics that evolve?
Hailey Boyer: (
Yeah. So, kind of going back to, I mentioned that we have a lot of different business lines. It's been really successful for us to kind of spotlight those different businesses, kind of on a monthly basis. It's a new strategy we're kind of working on right now on this month is national housing month and we're focusing on our mortgage division. So spotlighting differen professionals and our mortgage division that have different strategies and all are all over the world. So, that's been really successful for us really focusing on different content for different verticals of our business has been successful and really getting into creating content. That's gonna make sense for our different social platforms for sure.
Miriam Cross: (
Okay. So up to now, we've been talking about what kind of content you've been pushing out on social that, how do you glean insights from what people are saying about you, Haley, what has evolved to
Hailey Boyer: (
Yeah, so I think anytime you open a or do a different kind of communication channel, you're opening yourself to positive and can be negative comments. So I think it's important to have strategies around both of those. So definitely for positive. That's awesome. We always like to see great reviews come in or comments that are positive and relating to our products. And I mean, speaking from personal experience, there's honestly not a lot of times I go to buy anything without reading the reviews. So I think that's always important to have those available where you can see them, especially when you're making a big decision or a personal decision such as choosing a bank or choosing who you'd like to pursue buying a home with that's. Those are big things in people's lives that, you wanna kind of read the reviews before you pursue who you're gonna work with and kind of speaking to negatives.
Hailey Boyer: (
There's always going to be when you open a communication channel, there's gonna be potential for negative comments. And I think it's always important to make sure that you make sure they feel heard and acknowledged and then kind of move that conversation to a more dedicated place. So for us, that's our customer care center where we have different professionals that are, they're trained to handle those different, maybe tough conversations about why something went wrong or why, what, why weren't they happy with their experience? So there's a lot of different ways that you can approach those and both positive and negative. But yeah it's important to have to consider that when approaching like a digital strategy, because those are important considerations to have
Miriam Cross: (
And is somebody from evolve manually reading every comment you get on social or do you have some other tools you
Hailey Boyer: (
Use? Yeah, I think we use tools. I think, there's some great resources out there for kind of plugging in your social channels to an all in one view, an aggregated view. So you can kind of manage that on a day to day basis, we do have a team that is looking at our social presence and our comments on a weekly basis. Definitely. So us utilizing tools, kind of working that smart, smarter, not harder way is I think a great way to keep tabs on everything without looking through your comments on a day to day basis on one platform.
Miriam Cross: (
And you mentioned moving, like when you get negative comments, trying to move that conversation into a private channel. So is it your policy to respond to every negative review you get and do you start publicly?
Hailey Boyer: (
Yes. We respond to every comment especially the negative ones. It is our policy to acknowledge those things. And we do suggest opening a conversation with our customer care center. We found that that's more successful than having that conversation and kind of that public eye where it's not really, I don't think appropriate to talk about personal financial business. So we do, we do move those conversations to our customer care team.
Miriam Cross: (
Have you noticed instances have people like, because of your responses, have people changed their tune and how they've talked about evolve?
Hailey Boyer: (
I think so. I mean, there's always going to be those negative things that, you know, we can't foresee or hear every single person and what their experience is gonna be. But yeah, I think we have seen success being more communicative and more positive and open to being responsive. I think we have seen success in that
Miriam Cross: (
Regina, how does F NBO listen in on what its customer, what your customers are saying about you on social?
Regina DeMars: (
Yeah, we take a very similar approach. There's so many listening tools that you can leverage, but we leverage Syntheo and we look at anytime, someone tags F and B O in a comment and we respond to both negative and positive, but our policy is really to respond within two hours to a negative comment. And depending on what the comment is, we may need to do a little more research. Um, so we have a social media management, um, email and a group that will just screenshot it and we'll send it to them if we need to get a little more detail, cuz we want to make sure we have as much information so we can tailor our response. And you know, sometimes we'll just say, sorry for that experience, we'll be back in touch. But ideally we want to have it be as personalized of a response as it can be and say, specifically the details of the comment and we do take it offline a lot of times and either direct message or we'll ask them to call us or email us to get that information.
Regina DeMars: (
But most of the time, I mean, people are satisfied if they wanna feel heard and seen. And so if you do engage with them a lot of times if somebody writes a negative review and we're able to fix whatever the issue was, then they'll go back and they'll delete it. And that's really important because like Haley said, I mean, that's most people are going on and Googling that any type of relationship they wanna have, whether it's with the bank or your any product you're gonna buy. I think the latest that I saw was 87% of people will. Even if they have something in their cart, they will delete it if they see a bad review. So it's really important to manage your brand's reputation online and be able to have as positive reviews as you can. That's why we also want to engage with positive comments cuz then you're showing that you care about those two and helping drive loyalty and advocacy there.
Miriam Cross: (
When you say you try to respond to every comment within two hours, is that 24 7?
Regina DeMars: (
Yes.
Miriam Cross: (
Wow. Somebody's always monitoring your social.
Regina DeMars: (
Yes we have. We have overnight shift that monitors, those comments and response to them as well. I mean between the hours of midnight and four, it might be more than two hours, but otherwise how
Miriam Cross: (
Many people are commenting at
Regina DeMars: (
Midnight? Exactly. I'm like you need to go to bed.
Miriam Cross: (
And are there tools you use to listen in on what your customers are saying or is it people literally manually reading and writing responses to every comment?
Regina DeMars: (
Yeah, so it's a little of both Syco is really good at pushing any mentions to us that will respond to, but my team is always out looking for what the comments are too.
Miriam Cross: (
Okay. And I've gathered that it's difficult to really document results from social. Like if you get a lot of likes and comments, it's hard to translate that to new customers or new accounts, but Regina, what have you seen as a result of your social efforts at F N B O?
Regina DeMars: (
Yeah, that's definitely a question every day. So what's the ROI. What are we getting for this? So, we've had success recently. One, we just launched an evergreen credit card with 2% cash back and we partnered with several YouTube reviewers and we were able to give them a specific link. So we could show that anytime someone watched their review, it drove them to the website and then they clicked on that link. And then we were able to show, I think it was 106 applications for the credit card within 24 hours. So, anytime you can have a specific link and have it the backend tools to show, that your driving results is really helpful. We also, we really changed our strategy from an when ni L came out. We partnered with two basketball players in our markets around March madness and again, was able to give them a link and they posted on Twitter and LinkedIn. And within that week we saw an increase of 44% of checking applications cuz they were promoting our fan cards in their different markets. So we do have to get a little creative sometimes when we're telling the story of the impact that social media and content marketing overall can have for your business.
Hailey Boyer: (
Yeah. I totally agree. I think sometimes you gotta get a little creative to make a social media interaction, connect to an increase in business. I think we're, that's still something that we, as a total industry on social media, I think everybody's driving towards how can we really show ROI on social platforms? So I think that's important for us, you know, we oftentimes with our FinTech partners, we're that kind of the bank behind the scenes. So increasing engagement for us is sometimes how many API calls did we get in a month versus the last month? Or how many ACH transactions did we process or how many cards did we issue? So those are some ways that we might not necessarily have seen it was directly or exactly related to one social media campaign or one campaign at all. But we can see that growth and kind of correlate and start to kind of formulate those drives based on different product growth as well.
Miriam Cross: (
So we have five minutes left. I'm gonna try to squeeze in one or two more questions. I've, skimed through a lot of banks, social media, a lot of Twitter and Instagram, and some of them are super creative and interesting, some feel pretty run of the mill. So what advice would you offer to financial institutions that wanna up their social game? Maybe for the first time, if they haven't paid much attention to it so far, Regina, what are your thoughts?
Regina DeMars: (
Yeah, I would say, start with listening, seeing what is being said about your brand or company cuz that can give you a lot of insights into where you need to focus. I mean, if you see something negative, then maybe focus your content there first and drive that messaging or if you want to change what the conversation is online. So listening is extremely important. I think also, we always try to have our content work as hard as possible. So we are creating a lot of content around a lot of channels. I mean we post on Instagram once a day, but we'll post real several times a day on Facebook. We do two to three times. So a lot of different content that is tailored to those audiences, but we really try to make sure that they are working harder.
Regina DeMars: (
We always have unique photography that we're taking. We look at what are trending topics. So we have our content calendar that's already planned, but then we always are looking at, what's trending and how can we quickly pivot to create something that, so we can be part of that online conversation and even national holidays. So, everybody loves national coffee day. But we don't just post about that. We highlight a small business customer and then we also try to do a video that again is adding value to our customers. So it can be, how do you make the best latte at home or just looking at what that post is and how do you have a call to action? How do you create content that's gonna add value and just make sure that it does work as hard for you as possible.
Hailey Boyer: (
What advice would you offer Hailey? Yeah, I think Rodina touched on this, but having like a content calendar or a editorial kind of strategy, I think is a great place to start. I think consistency and also engagement is really important in the social media and digital space. So starting with something as simple as just identifying those values that you want to communicate to your customers and doing that consistently is a great way to even just get started on a digital platform. So, and honestly it can be intimidating. There's a lot of different digital platforms out there now and it's okay to start small, start with one platform, really drive into it and listen, as Regina said to what feedback or what engagement you're getting based on that one platform and then maybe expand to another and kind of grow with it instead of trying to be on 17 different platforms on day one. And you're not getting the engagement that you wished you were getting. So I think consistency and really focusing on maybe one platform to start and then expanding from there. It would be my advice to the digital world.
Regina DeMars: (
I was just gonna add look at your employees too. Those are some of your best brand advocates. And when we launched our brand ambassador program, we just kind of went out to see who's talking organically already and then just kind of coordinated the effort a little more by giving them swag to talk about or content ideas. And we leveraged a lot of our employees content for our own channels now. So that helps to alleviate, trying to come up with all the ideas yourself. Yeah. Thank you both so much. This has been great. Yeah. Thank you so much.