Financial services often approach social media with caution. Concerns over compliance, risks to reputation, and the difficulty in generating engaging finance-related content lead many brands to proceed carefully.
Moreover, the landscape of financial services is diverse. A wealth management company addressing affluent investors would adopt a distinct tone and voice on social media compared to a local credit union aimed at first-time homebuyers. Consequently, customizing your digital marketing strategy can be quite challenging.
However, it’s important to note that social media marketing goes beyond simply following trends and using hashtags. It’s fundamentally about establishing trust. In an age where misinformation spreads swiftly online, financial institutions can leverage social media to educate and safeguard their audiences. Our 2025 Sprout Social Index reveals that 93% of consumers believe brands should take a stronger stance against misinformation.
Social media marketing is also about engaging customers on their preferred platforms. Our 2023 State of Social Media Report shows that 90% of consumers anticipate being able to reach businesses via social media. Additionally, 71% of consumers are more inclined to recommend brands they follow on these platforms.
Curious to discover what more social media can offer your financial brand? This article will delve deeper into the effects of social media on financial services, along with tips and examples to assist you in crafting a successful social media strategy.
The impact of social media in financial services
In the past, connections with financial services often began with a meeting with a financial advisor. Nowadays, that initial interaction frequently occurs on Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube.
According to a 2024 RFI Global report, more than a third (35%) of American Gen Z and 21% of millennial respondents stated they have searched for specific banking product information through social media. Between 46% and 68% of Australian respondents noted that social media content has shaped their understanding of banking offerings.
Yet, the popularity of social media as a source of financial advice doesn’t guarantee that users are turning to reputable sources. A 2024 FIS study revealed that less than 25% of Gen Z and Millennial respondents learn from their financial institutions. This discrepancy presents a significant opportunity for financial services brands to emerge as reliable advisors in the online realm.
Furthermore, social media serves as a remarkable customer service channel. A 2022 report by American Express identified social media as the leading avenue for customer service inquiries. Additionally, a 2021 J.D. Power Customer Experience Study indicated that financial service firms that utilize social media efficiently can enjoy a 20-30% boost in customer satisfaction.
Key social media platforms for financial services
Your choice of social media platforms should align with your target demographic and overall marketing objectives, as some may suit your brand better than others.
To help identify suitable platforms (and what type of content to post), here are three social media sites worth focusing on.
Instagram is rapidly becoming a preferred social media marketing channel for financial services. Its visual nature allows brands to express their identity and make finance more relatable.
For instance, we admire how Wells Fargo leverages Instagram to showcase its corporate culture and community efforts, such as their Martin Luther King Jr Day of Service.
They also employ easy-to-understand infographics to educate their audience on vital financial issues, like the post regarding imposter scams.
Despite being the largest and most widely-used social media platform, Facebook continues to be an impactful channel for digital marketers—particularly for paid advertising initiatives.
Meta Ads enable brands to implement highly-targeted campaigns across Facebook and other platforms owned by Meta. They offer a multitude of ad formats, placements, and delivery options.
For instance, SG, a French bank, harnessed Meta’s Advantage+ placements to enhance ad delivery. In contrast to standard Feed ads, Advantage+ automates ad placements across all Meta channels, optimizing budget usage and reach.
SG’s results are notable: they achieved a 19% reduction in cost per acquisition while increasing reach by 6% compared to traditional Feed placements.
LinkedIn stands as the world’s foremost professional networking platform. With its focus on business and career-related content, it is a natural venue for financial services firms.
Per LinkedIn research, members are twice as likely to seek financial advice on the platform and 1.7 times more open to brand messaging.
Accounting software provider Xero utilizes LinkedIn Polls to engage small business owners. They also share humorous infographics, announcement posts, and educational carousel posts to entertain and inform their audience.
Steps to develop a financial services social media strategy
Investing in social media marketing without a clear strategy is analogous to embarking on a road trip without a map. While you may eventually reach your destination, you may expend excessive time, effort, and resources along the way.
Below is a step-by-step guide for crafting a financial services social media strategy from the ground up.
- Conduct a social media audit. Take some time to evaluate your accounts. What strategies work well (and which do not)? What content resonates with your audience? Is your branding uniform? A social media audit will help you set guidelines and highlight areas needing enhancement.
- Establish clear social media policies and guidelines. Define explicit rules, processes, and workflows for content creation, engagement, compliance, and security. Ensure that every member of the social team has easy access to these policies by incorporating them into your operational platforms.
- Maintain a consistent and reliable brand voice. What are your brand’s core principles? How do you wish your audience to feel when interacting with you? Utilize these inquiries as a basis for formulating clear messaging and tone guidelines. Similar to overarching social media policies, these guidelines should be easily accessible, with team members reviewing all posts to ensure consistency.
- Employ social media management and analytics tools. Social media management platforms like Sprout Social help streamline and automate crucial social media tasks. Use them to schedule content, track engagement, monitor mentions, analyze performance data, and more.
- Monitor and respond to customer inquiries quickly. Social media operates continuously, so utilize management tools to keep tabs on comments and messages. Set up real-time alerts to stay engaged with conversations. Pre-made reply templates and response workflows can also expedite this process.
- Build brand trust by developing an employer brand. Leverage social media to showcase your company’s culture, values, and employee experiences. For instance, we appreciate how CIBC spotlights co-op student profiles on Instagram to promote job opportunities. Also, think about empowering employees to act as brand advocates. Through our Employee Advocacy platform, brands can compile social content for dissemination via internal communication platforms such as Microsoft Teams or Slack.
7 tips for excelling in social media marketing for financial services
Having grasped the primary social media platforms and the process for building a strategy, let’s explore how to maximize your social media marketing endeavors.
Here are some practical tips to get going.
1. Ensure compliance with regulatory standards
While keeping all the acronyms sorted (e.g., FTC, CFPB, SEC, FINRA, ECOA, FHA, GDPR, etc.) can be daunting, regulatory and compliance standards safeguard consumers and encourage ethical marketing practices.
Prior to producing content, familiarize yourself with the compliance requirements pertinent to your brand. Establish processes to ensure adherence to regulations. Finally, consider having your legal team review and approve content prior to publication.
2. Generate genuine, targeted content.
Social media allows brands to infuse personality into traditionally serious sectors. However, overdoing the effort to be relatable risks coming off as inauthentic. For instance, our 2025 Sprout Social Index indicates that a majority of consumers prefer that brands refrain from hopping on viral trends for content creation.
The most effective strategy? Focus on crafting digestible content that remains informative, valuable, and consistent with your brand identity. For example, privacy and data security are significant concerns for many consumers, so consider generating content that helps clients protect themselves—like this post from TD Bank.
3. Collaborate with influencers to expand your reach and credibility
Partnering with financial influencers can help connect your company with your target audience. Influencers possess the ability to create engaging content and have loyal communities that you can tap into. Moreover, they provide the essential human element that social audiences seek.
For example, Vivian Tu (also known as @your.richbff) has cultivated a following of over 5 million across Instagram and TikTok, where audiences appreciate her down-to-earth finance advice. She has also collaborated with financial brands such as the fintech entity SoFi.
Identifying fitting ‘finfluencers’ may take time, so consider utilizing a tool such as Sprout Social Influencer Marketing to simplify the process. The comprehensive influencer management platform includes robust discovery features, like targeted search filters and an Affinity Engine that identifies suitable influencers automatically.
4. Leverage social media management tools for enhanced workflows
The tasks of creating and publishing content—and interacting with your audience—can become labor-intensive, especially if your brand engages actively on multiple platforms. Social media management tools can streamline this process significantly.
For instance, Sprout Social provides scheduling and publishing capabilities across multiple platforms to maintain consistent brand messaging. Features like the Smart Inbox help marketers prioritize and respond to messages and comments efficiently. In addition, Collision Detection aids teams in avoiding duplicated or conflicting replies to the same comment.
5. Enhance customer support with AI and automation
If your brand leverages social media as a customer care channel, integrating AI and automation can help you work more efficiently. For instance, Sprout Social features Enhance by AI Assist, which employs generative AI technology to help marketers modify the tone and length of their responses.
Message Spike Alerts allow users to set notifications for sudden surges in incoming messages on social accounts. This enables marketers to swiftly address any potential crisis communication challenges without needing to be constantly available or checking social platforms outside of work.
6. Harness social listening to enhance customer experience.
Creating and sharing content is just one facet of social media marketing. To stay ahead and gain a deeper understanding of public sentiment around your brand, focus on social listening.
Monitor and assess brand mentions and competitor activity in real-time through Sprout Social. Our data-driven insights will aid in measuring brand health and sentiment, recognizing emerging industry trends, and benchmarking your brand against competitors.
For instance, Reddit serves as one of Sprout Social’s most beneficial sources for social listening. Due to its anonymity, it provides genuine, unfiltered opinions from the audience.
Furthermore, Reddit’s collaboration with Intercontinental Exchange facilitates easier access to key data for financial professionals, helping inform investment decisions and enhance risk management strategies.
7. Derive insights from social data
What does social media success translate to for your brand? Is it about gaining more followers? Boosting engagement? Increasing conversions? Once you set your goals and KPIs, track and report metrics to evaluate your progress.
With Sprout Social, marketers gain access to extensive social media analytics, including engagement on posts, audience demographics, growth trends, and competitive data. The platform also generates a variety of reports and data visualizations, simplifying the process of extracting pivotal insights and refining your strategy going forward.
To explore these features firsthand, begin your 30-day free trial today.
Examples of social media usage in financial services
Looking for more inspiration? Here are three financial services brands excelling in social media content, along with key insights to define your strategy.
1. Bank of America
Bank of America shares a diverse array of content on its Instagram account, ranging from carousels with budgeting advice to infographics featuring statistics. Their true strength lies in how they promote their brand partnerships.
For instance, to highlight its partnership with the FIFA World Cup, the bank showcased three pinned posts on its profile and updated its bio accordingly.
2. Barclays
Barclays, an international financial services firm headquartered in the UK, utilizes Instagram to both educate and entertain its followers through a combination of street interviews, influencer content, and animated visuals.
For example, this brief video post educates its audience on identifying scam warning signs. It conveys essential information in an engaging and professional manner without oversimplification.
3. Coinbase
Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange platform, showcases more creative and playful content compared to traditional financial services brands.
They transform weekly performance metrics into visually appealing carousels. Additionally, they partner with digital creators to craft explanatory videos that simplify complex financial subjects in an innovative cinematic fashion.
4. Rocket Companies
Rocket Companies, a fintech platform specializing in mortgage, real estate, and personal finance, executed a groundbreaking marketing campaign for Super Bowl LIX.
This campaign featured a 60-second advertisement with a rendition of “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” culminating in a live stadium singalong, creating a memorable Super Bowl moment.
Post-game, the brand repurposed the advertising content into a YouTube video series that included an interview featuring the chief marketing officer talking about the campaign’s inspiration, footage from the stadium singalong, and both short and full versions of the advertisement.
Finding the right balance with social media in financial services
Achieving the right balance with social media in financial services can be challenging. Your brand must be accessible and captivating while remaining credible and compliant. In such a highly regulated environment, producing content that stands out—without violating any regulations—can feel like a delicate balancing act.
Our recommendation? Seek collaboration. Social media for financial services isn’t solely the responsibility of one individual. Marketers, compliance teams, and industry specialists must collaborate to create content that is both accurate and engaging, yet in line with brand standards.
It is also crucial to allocate adequate time, resources, and an approval process to develop brand-safe content. Starting with more evergreen content—like financial advice, FAQs, and expert insights—that can be approved and scheduled ahead of time is more sustainable than simply chasing virality.
For further insights into what consumers expect from brands in the social sphere, refer to our 2024 Social Content Strategy Report to discover what priorities to set and which types of content and platforms yield the best ROI.
The post Social media for financial services: 5 tips to ace your marketing strategy appeared first on Sprout Social.
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