Top Performing Content Buckets Q2 2021 | Financial Services

Key Takeaways

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Content Tactic — Telling Meaningful Stories: Across all social media platforms, there are various trends that emerge for different content opportunities. The most prevalent trends include:

• Highlighting Communities: This can range from how Financial Services are working directly with communities or how they are supporting from afar. This type of content focuses on promoting people, businesses or organizations through their platform to show support and engagement beyond being a financial institution. These stories usually address how each community is benefiting from using the Financial organization’s services. 
• Sharing Educational Information: This form of content relies heavily on paying attention to what users are asking about in comments or to customer service representatives. Take feedback or questions from customers and develop content to address and solve those pain points. This shows your audience that you’re invested and willing to make content to help them succeed as well. 
• Collaborations: These depend on finding timely topics that you can invite others in to speak about. Building seminars and talks creates a huge way to engage and involve your audience beyond your services. It shows that you’re willing to bring in the best of the best to address certain topics and help your audience grow. 

Best Practices — Posting Content: The most notable practices to keep in mind when planning your content are to:

• Maintain Your Branding: Make sure that your brand logos, colours, font and any other elements remain visible and consistent throughout the content you post. 
• Give Users Somewhere to Go: Always provide some kind of click-through experience that can expand on your initial post whether that takes them to your website or to a specific landing page/video for your content. 
• Engage with Your Audience: Open up space for conversations in the comments by asking engaging questions and responding to your audience in a timely manner. 

The top content buckets for the Financial Services industry in Q2 2021 on YouTube are as follows:

1. 🏠 Community Highlights.

Banks have been focusing on telling the stories of people using their services from entrepreneurs to athletes.

Best practices:

• Videos are typically 30-90 seconds.
• Let the community members do the talking.
• High quality close up to medium shots of places, product and people.‍

‍Opportunities:

• Tangible examples of your impact on different communities.
• Chance to engage with your audience in the comments.
• Tie your services in directly with the community members success as seen here in the Chase Business video.

How to Apply:

Focus on telling real stories with engaged community members in a diverse range of areas. Each video subtly addresses the bank’s core values to help viewers understand their brand. 

• Chase Bank touched on entrepreneurship in their network.
• TD took an approach that focused on their initiatives towards the environment. 
• HSBC focused on athletes and their progression.

2. 🥰 Emotional Narratives

Creating stories that focus on an emotional experience and story. Usually these narratives are used for advertising to capture viewer attention.‍

Best Practices:

• Videos are typically 45-130 seconds.
• Find a story to tell that hits an emotional chord for many people.
• Must be able to tell a clear story in a short period of time.

Opportunities:

• Chance to tell stories that many people can relate to. 
• Tap into a range of emotions from comedy to heartfelt experiences.
• Create content that shows the possibilities your services offer on a dynamic scale.‍

‍How to Apply:

Quick, digestible content that tells a story in an engaging way is the key to engaging organic and paid visitors.

• Principal Financial Group told a story of all the worthy moments in life you can build with wealth.
• AXA told a story of falling down and getting back up to build resilience. 
• Western Union told a story of how their product reunites people.

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3. ⚙️ Tutorials & How Tos

Creating short and sweet animation videos demonstrating specific concepts and actionable insights for using financial platforms.

Best Practices:

• Videos are typically 30-150 seconds.
• Shows process of one feature in detail. 
• Always presented in a clear and simple animation style.

Opportunities:

• Capture people with intent to learn about specific attributes of a product.
• Show your active users that you’re making content to ease their processes.
• Use long video descriptions to give as much information as possible to make it an accessible experience for all.

‍How to Apply:

Use your customer service reps and audience feedback on social media posts to learn about what current pain points are for customers. 

Invest in a unique animation style that represents your branding and create a series of easy to follow and actionable videos that all users can refer to at any point. These can be made accessible in FAQs on your website as well. 

The top content buckets for the Financial Services industry in Q2 2021 on Instagram are as follows:

1. 🙍Showcasing Individuals

Supporting a range of entrepreneurs and public figures across the globe to show support for real people using their services.

Best Practices:

• 1:1 Ratio 
• Single Image or Carousel Post
• Include thoughtful captions that bring more context to the post.
• Keep imagery consistent and always incorporate branding.
  

Opportunities:

• While telling other people’s stories bring attention to your initiatives.
• Include a call to action that allows users to learn more. 
• Make sure to communicate with your audience in the comments.
  

‍How to Apply:

Look at the initiatives that you’re currently working on and see how they impact the people you’re supporting or those who are helping you make it happen.

• H&R Block highlighted an artist in the ‘Make Every Block Better’ program. 
• Public promoted notable users and builds interviews with them to expand reach.
• HSBC highlighted global entrepreneur partnerships and creates feature content on them.

ER: 0.5%

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ER: 0.6%

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ER: 1.4%

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2. 🎉 Sharing Holidays

Celebrating all holidays from religious to hallmark days to create inclusion, recognition and excitement for everyone.

Best Practices:

• 1:1 Ratio 
• Single Image or Carousel Post
• Use captions as a chance to extend celebrations and best wishes to your audience.
• Use bright and eye catching designs to set your content apart.
  

Opportunities:

• Use national, religious or hallmark holidays to build extra content.
• Take a chance to include humour and personality into hallmark holidays as H&R Block did in their Valentine’s post. 
• Do your research to make sure you are appropriately representing national or religious holidays.
  

‍How to Apply:

Tapping into upcoming holidays is a great way to connect with your audience on a level completely separate from finance.

• eToro featured a religious Jewish holiday with bright imagery and a well wishing caption. 
• H&R Block provided tasteful humour to send wishes for Valentine’s Day.
• HSBC used a minimal design with their logo and a long caption to send respect for Lunar New Year.

ER: 0.5%

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ER: 1.2%

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ER: 3%

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3. 👩🏽 Support for Women

Focusing on the women that are breaking boundaries and making change in their communities.

Best Practices:

• 1:1 Ratio 
• Single Image or Video Post
• Focus on spreading a positive message about women in business.
• Use a mixture of engaging content to interact with audience.
  

Opportunities:

• Use national, religious or hallmark holidays to build extra content.
• Take a chance to include humour and personality into hallmark holidays as H&R Block did in their Valentine’s post. 
• Do your research to make sure you are appropriately representing national or religious holidays.
  

‍How to Apply:

Build themes of strength and resilience for marginalized communities in your network by building a content plan that truly looks to help, engage and impact those environments. 

• Chase Bank raised awareness and encourages the celebration of women. 
• VISA created a communication with seminar featuring female speakers.
• MasterCard dedicated a series of posts to promoting Black woman-owned businesses. 

ER: 0.6%

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ER: 0.7%

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ER: 0.7%

‍The top content buckets for the Financial Services industry in Q2 2021 on TikTok are as follows:

1. 💸 Financial Comparisons

Financial content creators using objects or real world events and relating them to financial concepts or changes in the market.‍

Best Practices:

• 9:16 Ratio Videos
• Bring real world tangible concepts into the framework of financial events/updates.
• Make financial concepts relatable for anyone with clear verbiage and concept.

‍Opportunities:

• Show your audience that you care about their financial literacy. 
• Be responsive to feedback you receive in the comments. 
• Try to use features native to TikTok such as text or filters to help boost your content.
  

‍How to Apply:

Look at feedback you’ve been getting about your platform or general financial questions and see how you can build content that speaks to these concepts in a manageable and attainable way for everyone.

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2. 👋 Influencer Collaborations

Financial brands using influencers to share knowledge about the benefits and use cases of their products through comedy.

Best Practices:

• 9:16 Ratio Videos
• Collaborate with influencers to build content around your product.
• Ensure the features of your product are always highlighted well communicated.

‍Opportunities:

• Work with influencers who already have established followings and branding.
• Use their content to build your own, repurposing to build a content library.
• Ensure your partners are well versed in your product and its features and benefits.
  

‍How to Apply:

Step Banking used an opportunity to reach a younger demographic through partnerships with influencers on TikTok to build funny, relatable and inspiring content. Each creator builds skits or narratives that feature the way Step card has benefited them. 

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3. 📚 Educational Content

Best Practices:

• 9:16 Ratio Videos
• Communicate one specific concept clearly as the focus of the video
• Usually produced through conversational skits where one character asks questions and the other responds.
  

‍Opportunities:

• Partner with #fintok influencers to explain pain points that are improved by your platform.
• Create a TikTok account so the creators can tag your services in the caption.
• Find trusted creators with loyal followers who know they are not advising them on how to make decisions but offering suggestions.
  

‍How to Apply:

A variety of financial service platforms have all created their own accounts on TikTok but have zero content. They rely on partnerships with others to bring traffic to their profiles where users will be able to click through to their site after being mentioned in a caption. 

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The top content buckets for the Financial Services industry in Q2 2021 on Facebook are as follows:

1. 📷 Lifestyle Imagery

Tying imagery and concepts not generally associated with finance into coherent stories. 

Best Practices:

• Varied Ratios 
• Single Image, Carousel or Link Posts
• Long captions with details about lifestyle themed content and finance.
• The style of this content maintains bright imagery and community applications.
  

‍Opportunities:

• Find people in your community to work with who can help bring a new perspective to your content.
• Create a spotlight to help promote and feature others on your page. 
• Allow your users to engage with creators through exclusive content.
  

‍How to Apply:

Choose a niche of lifestyle content to give your feed a bit of a change and appeal to a new demographic of users. Build content that is aspirational - lifestyles that people would be looking to build for themselves.

• Chase Bank featured local restaurants and chefs to bring new and unique storytelling to their feed.
• MasterCard hosted a table setting class for Easter that members can sign up for. 

ER: 0.01%

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ER: 0.01%

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2. 🧑🏻💻 Informative Content

Providing general updates on platform usage and important global finance knowledge based on frequently asked questions.

Best Practices:

• Varied Ratios 
• Single Image, Carousel or Link Posts
• Show your audience that you want them to learn. 
• Maintain brand colours, fonts and imagery in your graphics.
  

‍Opportunities:

• Create helpful, shareable content that users will find value in.
• Focus on how what they are learning will ultimately be a benefit to them.
• Direct traffic to your website through introducing the information on social media and finishing it through a blog post or FAQ.
  

‍How to Apply:

Make the content timely to financial planning related to your services that everyday people may have questions about. 

• Choose broad topics and do a deep dive on its nature and what that topic means or represents. 
• Feature solutions to specific questions that have been asked in the past for more users to gain insight on.
• Highlight helpful tidbits of information that build trust with your audience.

ER: 0.02%

ER: 0.2%

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ER: 1.6%
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3. 🎶 Culture & News

Using current events, sports and arts to build relevant financial collaborations, partnerships or general updates for  audiences. 

Best Practices:

• Varied Ratios 
• Single Image, Carousel or Link Posts
• Look into culturally relevant events that can connect with your audience on a deeper level.
• Use your imagery to focus on your partner and tie in your branding and association in the caption.
  

‍Opportunities:

• Explore unexpected partnerships that can expand your reach.
• Find shareable newsworthy content to tie into context with your business.
• Make sure you engage with your audience in the comments.
  

‍How to Apply:

Finding synergy with companies completely out of your orbit is a huge asset to expanding and finding new audiences. It brings external culture into your company and lets your users know what you are paying attention to.

• Western Union announced a partnership with a NBA player for the Denver Nuggets.
• Chase Bank showed support for the Sundance Film Festival as an official sponsor. 
• eToro focused on posting news that can be shared and engaged with beyond their audience.

ER: 0.02%

ER: 0.2%

ER: 1.6%

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The top content buckets for the Financial Services industry in Q2 2021 on Twitter are as follows:

1. 😂 Financial Comedy 

Using humour to relate to and engage audiences no matter what their financial pathway is. 

Best Practices:

• Meme, Image, Poll or Video Posts
• Connect with your audience through interactive content.
• Make your Tweets short & sweet.
  

‍Opportunities:

• Allow your messaging to lighten up and show your viewers you’re on their level.
• Get creative. Build out custom videos, memes or gifs to experiment with your communication tactics. 
• Speak to your audience. Direct questions, messages and celebrations to them.
  

‍How to Apply:

Think of existing partnerships, world events or goals your organization can relate to. Build out concepts that can poke fun on those ideas in a tasteful way.

• MasterCard used an image of their golf player Justin Rose to build a poll with joke selections.
• eToro referenced The Office to celebrate a communal feeling stockholders are waiting for. 
• Public partnered with Michael Bolton to film a music video about leaving brokerage services. 

ER: 0.09%

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ER: 3.3%

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ER: 19.9%

2. ⚖️ Social Justice Highlights‍

Creating series-based content that addresses and follows a social justice or activist movement. ‍

Best Practices:

• Single Image or Carousel Posts
• Shed light on important current events or social justice issues.
• Be thoughtful in your representation and content plan.
  

‍Opportunities:

• Don’t be afraid to show your community who and what you want to support.
• Research the best ways to roll out and the best people to engage and collaborate with for your project.
• Build actionable content that shows initiative and dedication to your topic.
  

‍How to Apply:

MasterCard launched a series to promote Black women-owned businesses. Their campaign actually called on their followers to engage and support the highlighted businesses, building community and proof of action. 

See where your business has opportunities to build content that can maintain strong branding and support a social justice topic.

ER: 0.7%

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ER: 0.1%

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ER: 0.1%

3. 🎤 Hosting and Promoting Panels

Inviting others to speak through your financial service platform to engage audiences and offer new ways of learning.

Best Practices:

• Single Image or Carousel Posts
• Find insightful thought-leaders to bring onto your platform to speak.
• Create bright and clean graphics with captions that communicate the events. 
  

‍Opportunities:

• Find leaders in niche communities that you can provide space for on your platform. 
• Make sure the concepts explored are timely and relevant to current events.
• Link the speakers directly in your post or provide insight on their relevance, if possible.

‍How to Apply:‍

Take concepts that you are seeing trending and build bigger spaces for them to be discussed by leaders in those areas. Show your audience that you’re invested in their continual growth. 

• Western Union invites a migration expert to discuss the effects of COVID-19.
• Chase Banking invites celebrity real estate experts to discuss home improvements on a budget. 
• Public creates a “Women & Money” panel to build community for women in finance who want to learn more from other women. 

ER: 0.04%

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ER: 0.09%

The top content buckets for the Financial Services industry in Q2 2021 on LinkedIn are as follows:

1. 🏆 Celebrating Accomplishments

Sharing awards and special recognitions that different financial companies have been noted for. 

Best Practices:

• Link, Video and Single Image Posts
• Let your audience know what you are celebrating as internal accomplishments.
• Clearly explain your accomplishment and provide a link where people can review for more context if needed. 
  

‍Opportunities:

• Give your audience a “why”. Provide interesting reasons that help them decide to work with you or become a client. 
• Show others how you’re staying on top of current events and playing a part in them.
• Try to write long captions to support your post and provide information clearly. 

‍How to Apply:

People want to know what you excel in whether that’s the way you treat your employees or what advancements you invest in that are now paying off. Give users a chance to align themselves culturally with your business. 

• MasterCard shared their feature on Fast Company’s ‘World Changing Ideas’ List.
• VISA celebrated their investment in making crypto accessible. 
• H&R Block enjoyed the title of ‘Best Tax Software for Simple Returns’ by NerdWallet.

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2. 🤝 Community Support

How financial services are going above and beyond to offer support across the globe.

Best Practices:

• Link, Video and Single Image Posts
• Highlight what you are doing for the community. 
• Tap into deeper and more serious topics that show how you’re supporting the community.
  

‍Opportunities:

• Acknowledge ways to support the community and act on them.
• Don’t limit how or where you support if you’re looking to make international impact. 
• Express feelings through sentimental and real messaging. 

‍How to Apply:

Pay attention to what’s taking place in the world or moments that are approaching where you can recognize and support people in your community.

• H&R Block partnered with Community Capital Fund to improve neighborhoods. 
• Chase Bank honoured their employees who are hard working mothers raising families. 
• HSBC shared a post from their COO expressing their commitment to help with COVID-19 in India.

3.👌 Tips & Tricks

Promoting advice, tips or webinars that will help people understand targeted financial areas. 

Best Practices:

• Link, Video and Single Image Posts
• Highlight useful information.
• Build it into saveable + shareable content that others can use. 
  

‍Opportunities:

• Experiment with graphics that others can take information from quickly. 
• Create ways that viewers can follow through to a link for more information.
• Make sure the tips and advice you’re organizing are in demand.
  

‍How to Apply:

Build opportunities to connect with your audience by creating content that speaks to specific advice that can be clearly followed and accessed. 

• eToro built an investing checklist for their audience.
• Western Union organized a Digital Transformation panel.
• Prudential Financial focused on building a report for managing budgeting pitfalls.

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