Follower count – e.g., the number of followers your page has on Facebook, Instagram, or elsewhere – is an easy metric for banks to use when looking at their social programs. 

The problem is, it doesn’t often correlate with how engaged your followers are (likes, shares, comments) in what you’re posting – and for sure doesn’t track how much your bank adds to its bottom line from its social efforts.

It’s nearly impossible to determine how your social media program is contributing to your bottom line, but in working on social programs for many mid-to-large community banks, we do know the following is true: 

1. Your followers are primarily bank employees and committed customers. So the focus of your organic social (the free stuff you post!) should be on building customer relationships, informing customers of new features/scams/changes in your hours, responding to customer service inquiries, and the occasional cross-sell (like, once or twice a month) promotion.

2. Engagement rate (likes, shares, comments as a percentage of your following) is a much better indicator of how much your customers are paying attention to you on social, and how “sticky” they are with your bank. 

I’d rather your bank have 1000 very engaged followers than 10,000 not engaged followers. If they’re engaged, they’re paying attention to cross-sell promotions too.

3. The more engaged your following, the more your posts and content get shown to them. Over the past few years, Facebook has severely limited the reach of organic posts (how many people see the stuff that you post).  Their algorithm optimizes for engagement across Facebook – so if your following is engaging, Facebook wants to show your posts more, and to a wider audience.

4. Facebook also wants your money – which is why, when you have a post that starts to engage, they ask you to boost it for even more engagement, and to reach outside of your followers.

So, given this, how should your bank approach social media? Three things: 

1. When tracking metrics, focus on engagement, not (just) follower count. Treat follower count as a lagging indicator – if it’s growing, you know you’re being engaging. Make sure your board and exec team understand this.

2. Make Facebook happy with your posts’ format. Typically, bank posts featuring real people and local businesses perform far better than promos and stock images. Always include a picture. 

If you’re posting about a bake sale, don’t just post the cupcakes, post a picture of a bank employee holding them. Better yet, post a video of the bank employee eating them! Post the video natively to Facebook (upload the actual file…don’t post a YouTube link – Facebook does not like when you send traffic away from Facebook!). These posts will be more naturally engaging, and Facebook will show them more often, which will also lead to more engagement!

3. Tell Stories. Find some emotion in what you do – your customers could bank anywhere. They bank with you because they are tied to your brand. They are tied to your brand because of what you do for them and the community.

Did your bank give a PPP loan to the local coffee shop? Make a short video (just use your smartphone, it’s plenty good quality for social) where the coffee shop owner tells their story. Does an employee have a unique hobby? Show it! Boost that video!

This can be a lot for a time-strapped bank social committee to take on. My recommendation? Aim for one video per month to start. Watch the engagement rates compared to your other posts. Don’t change anything else, don’t bite off more than you can chew to start. Get comfortable with creating that one video per month, then expand from there and reevaluate how you create other posts.

When you do this, you’ll consistently see your engagement rates increasing, which means more followers, “stickier” customers, and ultimately, improvements in cross-sell rates and your bank’s bottom line.