As medium and small businesses continue to be affected by COVID-19, banks are rushing to provide new services, protect their employees, and develop communication channels with clients and prospects. Although many banks won’t close their doors, they will likely experience service issues around Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loans and other COVID-19 related issues.

Right now, social media is a tool that can help banks in 3 major ways:

  • Keep clients and prospects informed on important decisions and promotions
  • Increase client retention by addressing concerns, service issues and general complaints
  • Attract new business with thought leadership and general advice

Now—more than ever—banks need to develop social media content strategies and implement COVID-19 social media best practices. Here are 5 strategies your bank should consider today:

  1. Stop Creating Content on a Monthly Basis

With tools like Hootsuite—a social media management tool that allows marketers to schedule posts throughout the month—many banks have found convince in developing a social media calendar for an entire month at a time. However, new laws and developments around COVID-19 are being made on a weekly basis (if not daily).

Pro Tip: To stay current, stop developing a monthly COVID-19 social media calendar. Instead focus your social media strategy on a daily or weekly basis. This way, you can stay current and avoid tone-deaf posts.

  1. Make Connections with Local Businesses and Clients

Mandatory shut downs and quarantine has made it extremely hard to maintain connections with our communities and clients. That makes interactions on social media that much stronger. With strategic and well-executed posts, you can make connections to drive new business or increase client retention. Simply tag a local business in a post wishing them positive thoughts, support them financially by purchasing their goods or services or give thanks for making a difference in your community. These types of posts will go a long way.

Pro Tip: Never ignore a customer who has concerns or complaints. Social media is an open forum. If their concerns go unanswered, other clients or prospects might see that as a lack of ability to help (or even worse, a lack of caring). This is your chance to right a wrong or connect them with someone who can help.

  1. Keep Your Followers Informed with Advice and Bank-Specific Insights

The stock market has been an ultimate rollercoaster since early March. Many bank clients aren’t even open for business. It’s no wonder many business owners feel anxious and confused. To help, use your social media as a trusted hub where they can come for actionable tips and insights. Breakdown the loan programs like PPP, simplify complex regulations and processes and provide insights into what the future may look like and how your bank will be there for customers.

Pro Tip: If one of your thought leadership posts performs well organically, consider boosting the performance with paid dollars. High-performing organic posts typically do extremely well when boosted. Right now, the metrics you should care about most are reach and link clicks.

  1. Use Social Media to Make Important Business Announcements

Reality for many banks include closing down branches, creating business continuity plans and in general, making tough business decisions. To keep clients (and day-to-day customers) informed, use your social media channels to make important business announcements.

Pro Tip: If your bank is implementing social-distancing initiatives, changing hours of operations or introducing new services, it’s important to keep clients informed. To grab your audiences’ attention, consider using emojis to highlight important announcements from everyday posts.

  1. Measure the Success of Your Social Efforts and Your Competitors’

To truly make successful content that resonates with your audience, you need to understand what drives engagement. A great place to start is on your competitors’ social media pages. What works best for them? Is it posts around products and services? How about social good and responsibility? This takes time and effort, but it provides insights that will help you generate high performing content.

Pro Tip: Tracking social performance takes a significant amount of time and effort. That’s why big banks like U.S. Bank partner with Nichefire to help them develop content strategies that work, track their competitors’ social performances and get monthly reports on the entire banking industry.

Why Banks Partner with Nichefire

At Nichefire, we understand your clients may have questions about COVID-19 and how it will affect their business. Our AI technology provides access to data to see exactly what business leaders are saying about COVID-19 and what measures they take to protect their customers and employees. Additionally, you can tap into powerful, real-time analytics to see how your closest competitors are responding to the crisis. Our expertise goes far beyond building a great tool. We provide monthly consulting reports that break down your social performance across all social platforms and offer suggestions based on data to improve metrics like your engagement rate and follower count. Talk to a social media consultant today.