Hi,
I'm currnetly working on a strategy for how to market this website https://houseofbanks.se/ on socialmedia. It is very tricky to post finance relevant content on facebook and instagram when most people on there go to look at memes or pictures of their friends etc. Any ideas?
I see businesses post their product on Facebook all the time. Why would you call this tricky?
Also, you mention strategy. Don't you have a strategist on your team? If not, it's time to get one on board.
rproffitt, may I ask why you would recommend that a small business hire a digital strategist? IMHO, this should be the CEO/CMO's job until the company is very well established, and certainly not one of the first handful of hires. It's often much more cost effective to outsource to an SEO firm or digital agency.
That being said, in terms of promotion on social media, I think you're right on track with recent blog posts on the homepage. Images are a help as well, in addition to the actionable content that you seem to have. What is clearly missing, however, are share buttons for people who read each article. Readers should be encouraged to share your content to their social network.
I get what you're saying about facebook and instagram not being the right place where consumers might go to consume content about loans and finances. Instagram, for sure. However, not everyone uses Facebook to look at memes or pictures of their friends. My facebook network is almost exclusively people I know in the digital space who are posting articles about the latest news in the SEO industry.
Again, this brings us back to having those share buttons front and center in your content. Create blog content targeted to experts in the field, and those experts will share the content with their network of other industry experts.
Also, LinkedIn and Twitter are much more relevant to you than Facebook and Instagram. Use appropriate hashtags with Twitter. Share content on LinkedIn, and connect with industry experts over there.
I've seen startups without a digital strategist and the CEO or other C suite make a lot of "bold moves." Here they seem to be thinking Facebook is tricky. If so, they need that position or at least a wordsmith and lawyer to be sure what they have there makes sense and is legal.
I've seen startups without a digital strategist and the CEO or other C suite make a lot of "bold moves."
Perhaps, but don't you think that it's an entrepreneur's job to make a lot of bold moves? Successful entrepreneurs are naturally risk takers, and sometimes, especially when first starting out, you just need to throw spaghetti at a wall and see what sticks. It's important to constantly try new things that have never been done before, because if you just do what everyone else is already doing, you're never going to beat the competition and rise to the top.
I think the difference between a good CEO and a bad CEO are intuition in knowing just how much crazy is not too crazy, and what outlandish ideas just might be worth a try, and what's just way too farfetched.
Here they seem to be thinking Facebook is tricky.
I don't think that demonstrates a poor understanding of digital strategy, however. I think they're demonstrating that they are aware that Facebook isn't necessarily the right place to go to promote loans, which I would have to agree with. That's why I told them they should focus more on LinkedIn and Twitter, because not all social networks are created equal, and some are a better fit than others.
For example, Facebook works amazing for DaniPad, our shared coworking space, but performs terribly for DaniWeb. Google Ads work great for DaniWeb, and terribly for DaniPad. Sometimes it's all about just taking a small test budget, playing around with keywords, and tracking performance. After 3-6 months, you should have an idea of which platform(s) resonate best with your audience.
If so, they need that position or at least a wordsmith and lawyer to be sure what they have there makes sense and is legal.
Sorry, I'm not understanding? Either a digital strategist or the combination of a wordsmith and lawyer? How would a lawyer help them? Make sure what is legal? I'm confuzzled by what you mean here.
The loan business in the USA has a lot of laws and regulation and since their site is not USA I can't comment about what I read at their site but it seemed short on the disclaimer work.
But hey, the site looks pretty polished so the other side of my brain makes me think it's just spam.
I choose to take a different approach and answer their question more at face value. :)
For example, they asked specifically about the best social media strategy for their website, so that's what I looked into on their site and the question I tried my best to answer. If they ask about digital strategy, I'm not going to provide unsolicited advice about the legality of their website's disclaimer. That seems pretty irrelevant to the question being asked to me.
Perhaps they're now (or someone else is) encouraged to start up a new question related to any assortment of compliance regulations including HIPPA, COPPA, EU Cookie Law, GDPR, the right to be forgotten, etc. There's of course hundreds of various rules and regulations that govern the behavior of websites that collect data (which are the regulations I'm personally familiar with). There are of course lots of other laws that govern e-commerce sites (which I am not at all familiar with, and would not feel qualified to personally answer). None of this, however, has anything to do with digital strategy, since a digital strategist works strictly on the creative branding and marketing side of things (which is where my confusion was when you suggested either a digital strategist or an attorney, since they have no overlapping roles.)
You're right, they need both (strategist and attorney.) Here the fines for a badly done loan are so high that you can't go without your legal department.
But they don't sell loans, they are not an e-commerce site, and, as far as I am aware, collect no information from their visitors. As a result, they are not subject to any regulations revolving around loaning people money.
They are just a directory of various third-party sites where you could apply for a loan, along with a blog with informational articles about loans. If I were to create a webpage with a listing of banks, that doesn't mean that I need to be FDIC insured.
I would squarely classify them as an information-only site, putting them in the same basket as DaniWeb in terms of regulations that need to be heeded.
That has me change my view. The site doesn't have much value over say a Wikipedia page of banks in that country. They really need to pivot towards something of more value. Maybe something like Bankrate com or such.
I guess I should write it's worth is low since it's not what I thought it was. You noted it's not collecting visitor data so no added value to the site for selling the site to others. Maybe it's just worth what you can get for the name alone and not an issue at all as to facebook and more.
Cobbling together something you can get from a directory listing in your city, state, province or country doesn't really add value. You have to add something of value. Either in data collection about your visitors (like Facebook) or about the banks in this case such as bankrate com does.
I'm going to write that as it stands, this is a site of pretty low value if put up for sale.
So there's your answer, D_1. While I didn't find it confusing at all, rproffitt misunderstood the goal of your homepage. Additionally, he found the resources you offer not enticing enough. Perhaps it was because it was just a cursory look, and he would be thinking differently if he were actively looking to research for a loan.
The site doesn't have much value over say a Wikipedia page of banks in that country.
How not? They classify loans available from each place by average loan amounts, interest rates, etc.
Either way, the goal to gain traction with social media is to present yourself as an authority of knowledge on the subject. While I thought the blog articles on the homepage were front and center, rproffitt didn't get the "wealth of information" feel from his initial view of your site.
Something to ponder and perhaps improve on in order to get those social shares!
I'm going to write that as it stands, this is a site of pretty low value if put up for sale.
You're getting really off topic IMHO. The OP's question was mearly asking for tips to begin a social media strategy to promote their new website. DaniWeb had hardly any content yet and was not worth anything either when I firt began figuring out promotional techniques back in 2002. Why bring up how you would value it if it were for sale?
I looked at a few pages and didn't find one like https://www.bankrate.com/loans/personal-loans/rates/ there.
Maybe they need to move that sort of page to be prominent if that's who they are marketing to.
As to Facebook, as they are not selling loans, I still don't get why they wrote tricky but maybe they don't know who they are marketing to yet.
Some sites like this are looking to sell their site, others are looking to get folk to use their site but where is the revenue to make the site bring home the bacon or tofu?
I looked at a few pages and didn't find one like https://www.bankrate.com/loans/personal-loans/rates/ there.
To me, https://www.bankrate.com/loans/personal-loans/rates/ seems just like https://houseofbanks.se/privatlan/ (accessible from the big Loan button on the homepage) only House of Banks caters to different languages and global banks instead of just English.
As to Facebook, as they are not selling loans, I still don't get why they wrote tricky but maybe they don't know who they are marketing to yet.
If they were selling loans, Facebook would be a very difficult place to advertise on. The facebook audience are typically browsing in their free time, and while they may be open to smaller impulse buys, it's not the ideal place to promote if you're actively looking to do something as monumental as taking out a loan. However, for a research site like this, it can fare a bit better. I still recommend Twitter over Facebook though. You can also do REALLY well with Google AdWords, but the CPC rates are going to be astronimical making it very cost ineffective for you, if I had to guess.
Some sites like this are looking to sell their site, others are looking to get folk to use their site but where is the revenue to make the site bring home the bacon or tofu?
Gosh, it's almost like no one can have a blog anymore or run an informational site without there being an ulterior motive!! It looks to me as their revenue model is commission-based, the same revenue model as Bankrate, or, in the travel space, Hotels.com, Booking.com, Trivago, Kayak, TripAdvisor, etc.
I had to turn off an ad blocker and now I see more pages. So back to the top about the topic question how to market a loan website.
Are they marketing their site for sale or to the consumers?
Also the folk I know always check out these sites (bankrate or similar) then go direct to the seller to see if the deal is the same or better.
Why? "Cut out the middleman." That can really upset those that run such sites.
Are they marketing their site for sale or to the consumers?
I think it's clear in the OP's question that they are trying to promote their blog posts within social media.
Also the folk I know always check out these sites (bankrate or similar) then go direct to the seller to see if the deal is the same or better.
I'm the opposite. I am of the variety that is willing to pay for convenience. Whether it's buying a movie ticket straight from Fandango where I can browse multiple theaters at once, doing grocery shopping from multiple stores at once on Instacart, or ordering food delivery on DoorDash, I am someone who buys into the upcharge from sites that curate across multiple stores. To each their own :)
Also the folk I know always check out these sites (bankrate or similar) then go direct to the seller to see if the deal is the same or better.
The site is set up such that they redirect you directly to the bank. They place a cookie in your browser so that, should you move forward, they get the commission.
As to the cookies your seasoned users know what to do about that. Maybe not super cookies but private browsing works well along with a VPN to cover this. Also I have used the TAILS OS to test out just how anonymous I can be. TAILS is about as extreme as I've gone in such tests.
I wonder about D_1 as they have been very quiet. Most likely the old drop any question about their site as SEO and leave.
What would seasoned users do about cookies? If I was referred by a site and subsequently purchased something, I consider it stealing to purposefully delete the cookie so the site that initiated the sale won’t get the credit.
It’s the same as buying something from a furniture store and lying about who your sales person was just because you don’t want them to get the commission (even though it’s no more expensive to you.)
I also don’t think that 99% of the web delete cookies regularly. I know for a fact DaniWeb users don’t, based on our analytics.
Thank you so much for your feedback! I've been inactive because of a holiday! I will share this feedback with my team! The question wasnt formulated correctly. I really wanted to know how we can improve engagement on our posts and gain organic expousure.
I really appreciate all feedback! :-)
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