Social media has transformed the way we connect with one another and conduct business. As of 2022, the average person spends two hours and 27 minutes on social media each day.[1]
With so many people engaging actively on social media, it’s crucial that mortgage lenders learn how to operate in this space effectively. Having a positive social media presence can help you build your brand awareness and attract more leads. You just need to make sure you always remain in compliance.
Below, we’ll discuss the value of social media and highlight some common mistakes to avoid. We’ll also provide ten tips to optimize your mortgage lending lead generation strategy.
Table of Contents
Why Use Social Media as a Mortgage Lender?
Having a social media presence as a mortgage lender can offer the following benefits:
- Connection to a vast sea of aspiring homeowners – These days, the search for a mortgage often begins online. Millennials and Gen Z borrowers, in particular, are more apt to seek out lending professionals after interacting with them on social media. If done right, your social media presence can connect you with this expansive network of potential borrowers.
- Brand-awareness-building opportunities – Most borrowers won’t be ready to work with you the first time they stumble across your company’s profile. It’s estimated that mortgage decision-makers require 22 touch points with a specific company before they convert into customers. Social media is a fantastic place to facilitate some of these touch points.
- A chance to establish yourself as an industry expert – You can use social media to educate aspiring homebuyers about the mortgage lending process, the current housing market, and much more. By posting helpful content, you can build your brand awareness and bolster your reputation as an expert in the industry.
- Authenticity – You can use your online presence to give consumers a sense that they’re interacting with real people, rather than an aloof company. This authenticity can help you garner greater trust and rapport with potential customers.
- Customer retention – You can use social media to maintain relationships with current clients, so you’re always top of mind when they need mortgages in the future. Simply add them to your friend list and engage with them every once in a while.If you’re looking for more ways to boost customer retention, you can use Cascade Alerts This customer retention tool monitors your current customers’ credit activity continuously. When your customers incur mortgage-related credit inquiries, you’ll be alerted within 24 hours, enabling you to reach out to them and secure their business before the competition.For more customer retention tips, check out our article, 6 Customer Retention Tactics For Mortgage Lenders.
- Exceptional targeting precision – Lastly, social media allows you to target various audiences with impressive precision. Through targeted social media campaigns, you can connect with your ideal customers and tailor your brand messaging accordingly.
What are the Major Issues Mortgage Lenders Face on Social Media?
With all of its cat videos and memes, social media may have a casual connotation. However, this isn’t the case for financial institutions. As you show off your company’s personality, you still need to stay in compliance.
Whether you’re communicating with potential clients via email or Facebook, the same regulatory standards apply. Thus, it’s important to avoid making the following mistakes:
- Leaving out key licensing information on your profiles, such as your company’s address or NMLS ID[2]
- Forgetting to include the required disclosures when discussing mortgage specifics
- Not acting in accordance with federal and state compliance requirements
- Posting controversial personal opinions from business accounts
These mistakes can put you at risk with regulators or harm your professional reputation with consumers. Either of these outcomes can counteract the benefits that come from establishing a presence on social media.
If you need help steering clear of these mistakes, reach out to the social media compliance experts at ActiveComply. The ActiveComply team can make your financial-related social media compliance a breeze.
How to Master Social Media as a Mortgage Professional
So, how can you reap the rewards of a social media presence while avoiding the risks?
Here are ten tips to help you do just that:
#1 Establish a Presence on Multiple Platforms
While you may assume that LinkedIn or Facebook is the only platform you need, it’s a good idea to build out social media profiles on several platforms. This way, you can increase the chances that potential customers find you online.
Make sure to post actively on each platform too. Otherwise, some people may assume you’re no longer in business.
#2 Choose Your Social Media Channels Wisely
Having an omnichannel presence is important, but you want to be discerning about which platforms you choose. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube are the cornerstones of social media today. While each of these platforms draws slightly different audiences and demographics, they’re all worthwhile for mortgage lenders.
Pioneering newer platforms, like TikTok or NextDoor, has the potential to reap great rewards. If you become one of the first mortgage lenders on an emerging platform, you may be able to accumulate a fast following.
Just keep in mind that newer platforms also come with some unique risks. As a result, you should always consult your compliance team before exploring a niche platform.
#3 Share Engaging Content
The point of social media is to be social. As such, you want your posts to generate engagement with your followers.
If you don’t know where to start, you can:
- Highlight your current employees and customers
- Create content addressing your FAQs
- Repurpose each piece of new content into various mediums (blog articles, videos, podcasts, infographics, etc.)
- Ask your followers questions to generate thoughtful discussions
- Engage positively with other mortgage professionals’ posts
Creating social media content doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. Just ask yourself what you would want to see if you were an aspiring homebuyer and go from there.
If you want a little inspiration, you can check out our insight section here at Certified Credit. We regularly share exciting mortgage-related news, timely podcast discussions, and helpful articles tailored to the interests of mortgage lenders.
#4 Be Authentic, But Don’t Get Too Personal
Social media is the perfect place to show off your team’s personality and have some fun. You can use your online presence to humanize your company, share behind-the-scenes insights, and put faces to your brand.
Just make sure you don’t get too personal. Cute dog videos and team photos are great, but controversial personal beliefs should be avoided.
#5 Take Advantage of Scheduling Tools
If you don’t have a dedicated marketing team, you can streamline your social media workflows with the help of scheduling tools. These types of tools allow you to pre-schedule content so it gets posted throughout the month consistently and automatically.
For example, SocialCoach is a social media scheduling tool made specifically for mortgage lenders and loan officers. Not only can SocialCoach help you schedule your social media posts ahead of time, but it also includes several key compliance checks, as well as a host of other helpful tools.
Keep in mind that the ideal posting frequency differs from platform to platform. For instance, you can post on Twitter multiple times a day, but Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram posts should be limited to a few times a week.
#6 Encourage Employees To Act as Micro-Influencers
Sharing from your business profiles consistently is one way to grow a following. Another way is to enlist the help of your employees.
Ask your team to share your company’s posts from their profiles so they populate their personal network’s newsfeeds. This simple strategy can help you generate valuable engagement from their friends and family.
You can also amplify your reach by tagging employees, vendor partners, and customers. Just make sure you always get consent when you post photos of other people.
#7 Have a Clear Social Media Policy in Place
Your team members can play a notable role in your social media strategy. However, you’ll want to make sure they stay in compliance at all times. Their posts about your company’s products and services are subject to the same regulatory scrutiny as your own.
Even if you delete their improper posts, they could always come back to bite you down the line—after all, screenshots are forever.
For clarity’s sake, you can outline what’s acceptable and what’s not in a social media policy. Many financial institutions’ policies are far too vague, and as a result, they aren’t very effective. A comprehensive social media policy should clearly outline:
- Your company’s brand and content guidelines
- Your content approval process
- Which social media platforms are appropriate for your business
- How to handle business requests received via social media
- When to refer to your marketing or compliance departments
Since it’s a slow time in the mortgage market, it’s the perfect time to update your social media policy and review it with your team.
#8 Monitor Posts Consistently and Thoroughly
Even if you have an air-tight social media policy, you need to monitor all posts relating to your company to ensure it’s enforced. You never know when one of your loan officers may be making exaggerated claims or disgruntled customers may be leaving defaming reviews. By catching these things in a timely manner, you can fix them right away—hopefully before incurring any compliance violations.
You should also watch out for fake profiles that use your name and branding. Some mortgage fraud schemes use fake financial accounts to try and steal your consumers’ account information.
Adhering to a consistent social media monitoring schedule can help you keep your online presence in good standing and provide you with greater peace of mind.
#9 Optimize Your Strategy According to Your Analytics
One of the most powerful aspects of social media is its data and analytics. You can track how well your posts are performing directly from your account dashboards. You can also use third-party services to track all of your profile’s analytics from one place.
For instance, you may discover that a certain blog post is receiving exceptional traffic. Or maybe your audience loves commenting on photos from your team conferences. You can use these insights to optimize your posts going forward.
The more engagement your posts receive, the more likely social media algorithms are to push out your content to new audiences.
#10 Follow Up With Social Media Leads
As your social media efforts start to pay off, you should receive an influx of new leads. It’s important to have a lead-nurturing plan in place so you can transform these leads into customers.
One strategy you can employ is encouraging new leads to apply for prequalification with you. Since prequalification uses affordable soft credit checks, it allows you to bring potential borrowers into your sales pipeline without impacting their credit score or costing you a ton of money.
Offering prequalification is easy with the help of Cascade Prequal. Cascade Prequal is an automated prequalification solution that can integrate with your customer-facing website and loan origination system (LOS). You can learn how to use Cascade Prequal in our article, How to Build a Strong Lead Qualification Process.
Strengthen Your Mortgage Lending Sales Pipeline Today With Certified Credit
Social media is a powerful tool for lead generation. As long as you curate your profiles professionally and remain in regulatory compliance, social media can help you take your mortgage lending business to the next level.
Once you start receiving more leads, you’ll need to evaluate their eligibility with affordable credit reports. That’s where Certified Credit can help. We provide affordable credit reports, as well as:
- Credit score improvement tools
- Fraud prevention solutions
- Automated lead generation tools
- Automated prequalification
- Automated verification of income and employment
- Settlement services
- Money-saving strategies
If you want to learn how our suite of mortgage lending solutions can help you grow your business, schedule a credit consultation with our team today.
You can also learn more about mortgage-related social media strategy and compliance in our recent two-part webinar with ActiveComply.
Sources:
[1] Statista. Daily time spent on social networking by internet users worldwide from 2012 to 2022.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/433871/daily-social-media-usage-worldwide/
[2] HousingWire. Implementing social media policies for LOs that balance risk and maximize returns.
