When someone does social media marketing right, people notice and respect the brand even more.
But what does “right” mean? How does a company engage in social media marketing correctly? Although the answer may be slightly subjective, we could agree that a social media account with high CTR (Click Through Rate) and high engagement is a sign of an effective social media strategy.
Obviously, we cannot see the CTR of Fintechs’ social media accounts. But we can see their engagement. That’s why, for this post, we went through at least 20 Fintech Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts (that’s like 80 in total!), and picked the ones we liked the most: those who did something different or/and had high engagement.
From our overview, here are a few main thoughts
Most fintech social media accounts are focused on “exposure” rather than “engagement”.
Many fintech companies seem to be scared to let their creativity flow and do something different. Many social media accounts follow a cookie cutter method.
We believe outsourcing social media management is what creates this cookie cutter approach.
Most of the top social media accounts are doing giveaways and offering free money or free products.
We think we all know this, but social media usually works best for B2C. For B2B, it might be worth putting energy into something else (although this is definitely up for debate).
So many social media accounts have 10k+ followers but no engagement! Are these followers purchased?
Below, we have outlined some of our favourite social media accounts. At the bottom of this article, we’ve put together some tips for fintech companies looking to get started with social media and gathered a couple of quotes from people who know what they’re talking about. 👀
By the way, we covered this topic in depth on a Market Like a Fintech podcast episode. David from NMD+ and Afshan from Whitesight recently reviewed the social media activity of 55 banks and fintechs around the world and offer some great tips for fintech companies that want to get serious about social media:
Listen to the episode: Market like a fintech: What are the banks and fintechs that get social media right?
Table of contents
Zopa’s Instagram
Cashapp and Stash on Twitter
Listen Money Matters on Facebook
ANNAMoney on Twitter
Cleo on Instagram
Affirm on LinkedIn
Lemonade on Instagram
Chime’s Facebook page
Curve on Twitter
Social media tips for Fintech companies
Note: Are you a fintech company looking for support with content? We’re a content marketing agency that helps fintech companies turn their website blogs into a customer acquisition channel. Book a free consultation with our Director of Content to learn more about conversion-focused content!
1. Zopa’s Instagram
Zopa is a peer to peer lending company based in the UK, offering investors an average of 3.2% return if they invest in loans online. They also offer personal loans with lower than average interest that can be used for personal items such as cars. Although peer to peer lending is seen as something complex and confusing, Zopa manages to make it a lot more fun and entertaining with their campaigns and fun Instagram photos.
Zopa publishes a ton of educational content on their blog and have managed to distribute some of it through their Instagram channel as well. While many other Fintechs publish cookie cutter posts (images with quotes, educational statements, customer stories, etc), Zopa have taken their creativity to another level and now publish mini comic series. These are illustrations where coins, bank notes and other objects interact with each other in a both funny and educational way. It’s a very different approach to other p2p lending companies, and it helps make them more approachable and investing less “scary”.
Some would say that, like Klarna and the BNPL saga, this trivialises lending which means customers are more likely to take loans when they shouldn’t. However, considering how difficult it is to get a bank loan and the current low-interest environment we’re in, we believe empowering customers rather than patronising them is a better strategy.
2. Cashapp and Stash on Twitter
Cashapp is a US P2P Fintech that lets users send money to each other through an app. They’re doing very well on Twitter, so well in fact that they even launched their own clothing brand (that’s brand evangelism for you). They have over 1M followers on Twitter and tweets get tens of thousands of engagement.
Their Twitter strategy seems to focus mainly on giving away free money. As you’ll see at the bottom of this article, nearly all popular Twitter strategies involve giveaways.
Although many might disagree, giveaways are a great way to boost engagement and build customer loyalty. Is it a cheap and unsustainable way to acquire customers? We discuss this in further detail at the end of the article.
Another cool Twitter giveaway strategy is the one implemented by Stash, an investment app also based in the US. During the first Covid lockdown, they launched the “Stock party”: every day at 4pm, they would give away fractional shares to those who recruited friends and participated the most. With their Twitter hashtag #StashStockParty, they were able to spread the word, and according to Stash, 65% of Stock party participants went on to purchase more stock.
You may like: 6 Examples of Great Fintech Brands
3. Listen Money Matters Facebook group
It was very hard to find a Fintech company that did Facebook well. Nearly all Facebook pages had no engagement whatsoever, and those that did have engagement were mostly comments with angry customers saying “give me back my money”, “unblock my account” and “this is a scam”. 😂
We believe the best way to use Facebook in your social media strategy is to set up a Facebook group (although we’re keen to hear other perspectives). Listen Money Matters is not exactly a Fintech company; it’s more like a financial education website, similar to Nerdwallet. It was founded by Andrew Fiebert, who co-hosts the podcast with Matt Giovanisci and manages the website, and the Facebook group is incredibly active. What makes them different to other financial content is that the two hosts are honest, uncensored, aren’t scared to tackle difficult topics, and are incredibly entertaining.
If you enter the Facebook group, you’ll see that many of the posts cover everything from stock investing, renting properties, top investment apps and best car to buy. Your posts will always get an answer and you really sense a feeling of community.
Some other fintechs do the community aspect very well too, but instead host the discussion on their own forum rather than a Facebook group. Some examples are the Freetrade Community and Snoop’s community.
4. ANNAMoney on Twitter
ANNA is a SME challenger bank that offers mobile banking to small businesses and sole traders. As a relatively new Fintech and social media account, it’s difficult to tell whether they are seeing success with Twitter. Having said that, the ANNA Money Twitter account is definitely fun to follow and has been labelled as “unusual”.
It's unusual because most Fintech Twitter accounts serve as customer service accounts or as a way to promote their product or content. Here we're seeing ANNA Money take on a sassy, funny and direct tone of voice that may resonate better with SME owners.
The thing with social media is that all Fintech accounts have the same friendly but professional tone of voice. They’re scared of doing something different in case it negatively affects their brand or product. Considering all the regulations and compliance hoops they need to go through, this is understandable.
But that’s why a more risky strategy such as the ANNAMoney one stands out and might build more brand equity. Sure, they may be putting their reputation at risk, but this comes with higher rewards when it comes to marketing and branding.
5. Cleo on Instagram
We’re big fans of Cleo simply because we really like the way they approach money management: personally we believe chatbots are the future (once they become fast and efficient enough). Instead of searching on Google for “best restaurants”, you’ll just need to ask your personal chatbot for recommendations. It’s already happening with Siri, Alexa, Google Home and all the rest of them.
Cleo takes their chatbot to another level by being extra “sassy” to their customers. Similar to ANNAMoney, they are using a completely different TOV that will only appeal to a certain segment of the population. Sure, it means that they are cutting off potential customers and might even offend a few people, but the upside is that those who love Cleo, love it a bit more - and that’s how you create brand evangelists.
People on Instagram love following meme accounts: random stuff that makes you giggle. By turning their Instagram account into essentially a meme account, they’ve become another “must-follow” account that everyone has on their feed.
Read more: 5 Neobanks That Are Doing Things Differently
6. Affirm on LinkedIn
It was hard to find unique Fintech LinkedIn accounts. Most of them are about company updates and product launches - which is absolutely fine, but is that the best way to make the most of LinkedIn? We’re not sure. Some may argue that LinkedIn is not exactly a social media account, which might explain why most companies don’t bother with doing something unique.
However, we did find one Fintech company doing something different and interesting on LinkedIn: Affirm, a Buy Now Pay Later company based in the US. Their LinkedIn is pure thought leadership in the form of a LinkedIn newsletter called No Fine Print (LinkedIn Pulse). Once per month, Silvija, CCO of Affirm writes up a short piece on the industry. She writes about responses from Affirm surveys (so unique content) which offers some fascinating information about the industry.
This is the kind of thing we would enjoy consuming from a B2B Fintech brand. Although product launches and updates are also great, most people are on LinkedIn looking for thought leadership content. Why not publish your thought leadership pieces on LinkedIn Pulse and turn it into a monthly newsletter? We thought it was a good strategy.
7. Lemonade on Instagram
What’s great about Instagram is that it’s a platform that allows brands to connect with customers in a way that no other platform can. It’s what makes it the social media platform with possibly the highest ROI, yet is also the most difficult to manage. As a company that offers financial products and content, where do you even start?
We like what Lemonade does: random videos of paint with vibrant colours. Their Instagram has been described as “strangely relaxing”, and is definitely unique. As an insurance company that offers insurance to renters in the US (and now France), this is definitely not the norm - and that’s why people like it.
They took the approach of just making their Instagram visually appealing. There’s a fun variation of people dipping items into pink paint, fun and even strange animations. If you’re scrolling down your Instagram feed and see this, you’re bound to stop and watch it. This works well with their overall strategy of “being different from traditional insurance companies”. Also, they must have a lot of fun filming those!
You might like: Great Fintech Marketing Strategies For 2021 (Featuring Top Fintech Marketers)
8. Chime Facebook page
There is one Fintech Facebook page that did stand out, and that was Chime’s. As the largest neobank in the US, they are doing a great job with their social media marketing. The key? Giveaways. Like Cashapp, they offer free money, free products, and therefore people love interacting.
They combine their giveaways with engaging questions such as “goals for 2020” and some great member stories. This is content that other Fintechs do, but it usually doesn’t get much traction because brand accounts rarely turn up on your feed. As you can see, it seems you need to offer free money and products in order to get real engagement.
But is it really worth giving away free money and products for more engagement? Good question, and it’s one we’ve discussed extensively on this blog. The first thing to note is that there is a lot of strategy and planning behind these giveaways. These social media accounts don’t just give away money whenever they feel like it - there is a specific budget, metrics and objectives with each one.
The second thing to note is that these are Fintech startups with huge valuations and therefore a lot of VC money to spend. That’s where the giveaway money comes from, and it would be interesting to see if they continue doing these giveaways once they IPO. Considering how expensive it is for a bank to acquire a customer (according to StratiFi, customer acquisition costs between $1,500 to $2,000 for large banks), we could simply argue that these Fintech companies are spending the same amount, but just in a different way.
9. Curve on Twitter
Similar to the top Twitter brand accounts such as Fast and Gymshark, Curve’s tweets are fun, playful, sassy and engaging. They don’t even do giveaways, which shows that it’s not an absolute necessity in order to engage with your customers. What works here is that Curve has given free reigns to their social media manager and really focused on communicating with their customers, rather than just pushing their product or content.
We reached out to them to see if they would be willing to share their approach. Here’s what Katie, Curve’s Creative Director says:
“Put simply, our goal is to make branded social media suck less. We try to tap into emotions and feelings rather than cold hard facts or cheesy sales techniques. We have a really bold brand tone of voice, so it was a no-brainer for our Brand Team to take over our social media accounts in April 2020. I know it's not technical, but we often rely on intuition. We're no strangers to risk taking, and have no fear straddling the line between safe and controversial (as long as we're the center of attention, of course). You'll notice we love entering these 'David and Goliath' type moments, where we challenge the complacency or archaic thinking of big traditional industry players. Curve is here to disrupt the world of finance, so why wouldn't our tweets do the same?”
We love that. That’s the thing about marketing a Fintech: if we’re disrupting an entire industry, shouldn’t the way we communicate also be “disruptive”? And that’s the consistent theme we’re seeing throughout all these social media accounts: they’re doing something different. That’s what Fintech is about.
We’ve also asked Alex, social media consulant, what differentiates brands who do social media well, to those who don’t:
“The main difference between brands that do social media well and those that don't is how they treat the channel.
Social media is social, by definition. For a brand to succeed, they need to behave just like any other user would. They need to be organic to the channel. This means talking like a normal person, posting memes if it makes sense, and have real conversations with their audience.
If the only thing they do is post about how awesome their product is and the amazing offers they have, they are not providing any value to the platform nor the users. It's just a sales page. And being "salesy" in social media is just setting yourself up for failure.”
Read more: 4 Essential Items to Include in Your Fintech Content Marketing Strategy
Social media tips for Fintech companies
Be clear about why you want to be on social media
We believe there are three main reasons why you would want to set up a social media account as a Fintech company:
Customer service: to answer questions and post announcements
Exposure: so people find you when looking you up on social media
Engagement: to communicate with customers and build brand trust
It’s very important to be clear on why you are creating a social media account, and to set expectations accordingly. This is a mistake we made previously: many companies hire a social media marketer expecting a ton of engagement, and instead just get exposure.
Exposure simply means publishing regularly on your social media platform without expecting much engagement. If you want engagement, you should not outsource your social media (see below).
As you can see from all the research we’ve had to do to find the top social media accounts, engagement is not easy and you will likely need to dedicate a decent budget and time to the social platform.
If you want engagement, do not outsource
We’ve learnt this from personal experience managing social media accounts: outsourcing your social media to a freelancer will not garner engagement. Freelancers do not know the ins and outs of your business. They cannot do giveaways. They do not understand your product as much as an employee. And most of all, they cannot commit the time necessary to build engagement. If you want engagement, you want someone who can commit to it full-time.
That’s because if you really want engagement, you need to have someone who is willing to download the app on their phone and reply immediately. Yes, even on weekends. Users are most active on social media in the evenings and weekends - and that’s when you want to sign off? You can do that, but you won’t get the best results. Pay your social media employee a little more so they can reply to tweets and on weekends and evenings.
Adopt an engaging tone of voice
From what we’re seeing, the best social media accounts adopt an either playful/sassy or philosophical/controversial Tone of Voice (think Gymshark vs Naval). That’s because most of the users who engage on social media are the younger generations. If millennials/Gen Z are not your target market or you want to keep a formal TOV, then you don’t need to be on social media (seriously!).
The exception is obviously LinkedIn, where a formal TOV might be best. As all social media consultants will likely say, know where your audience hangs out, and post on there. Don’t waste your time on Twitter (and even Facebook or Instagram) with a formal TOV - it won’t work.
Be willing to take risks
Of course, this is easier said than done.
But as we’ve mentioned before, it’s the companies that take risks that seem to do best on social media. Whether that’s publishing something weird (Lemonade) or adopting a quirky TOV (ANNA Money), those who do something different are those who will stand out and get the highest ROI on social media. Give your social media manager free reign and let them explore their creativity. If they love social media, they’ll be very excited to do so.
Consider not marketing on social media
Maybe a bit controversial, but we believe that not everyone needs to be on social media. This is simply because as a Fintech startup, you likely have limited resources. If social media is not something you’re willing to do properly, you’re better off allocating your resources to a marketing channel that will offer more traction.
Once you are profitable or have the marketing budget and you believe social media makes sense, then it’s a channel that is worth exploring. Be prepared to hire a full-time social media manager, give them a budget, and make a strategy plan for giveaways and free rewards. Be willing to take risks, be different and encourage creativity from your social media manager.
Mint Studios is a content marketing agency that helps financial services companies acquire customers and position themselves as experts with content marketing.
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Financial Services Content Strategy
Araminta Robertson
social media, fintech marketing
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