There are so many social media platforms out there these days, it can be overwhelming to know how to use each one to your best advantage. Do you dust off your dance moves and TikTok with the best of them or spend your time and efforts nurturing your Facebook followers? If you’re confused about where to put your marketing efforts, time, and money, and how to best leverage each platform, you’re in the right spot. In this article, we’re giving you the rundown on how you can use these social media platforms for the mortgage industry.

Do I need to use all the social media platforms?

Here’s the thing. You likely don’t need to use all the social media platforms that are out there. The most important thing is to pick two or three platforms where your people are, nurture them with solid content, and be consistent.

This means creating content for each platform specifically. By focusing on using two or three platforms and doing them well, you’ll have much better results than using all the platforms at once. In fact, we suggest getting used to using one or two platforms before adding another to the mix of your social media marketing.

TikTok

You might think TikTok is nothing but silly dancing videos for teenagers, but you’re wrong (though those are fun, too)! 

This video-sharing app is perfect for talking about mortgage—in fact, personal finance videos are a really popular category. Plus, the app has around a billion users! One of the app’s biggest perks is that content gets great organic (that’s right, unpaid) traffic. You really can’t beat that, with so many platforms being pay to play in the business world.

What TikTok Does

You can talk, dance, or lip-sync on video and add filters, graphics, and text. Videos can be up to 60 seconds long.

Tips for Using TikTok

• Post around 4 videos a day.
• Use branding.
• Provide genuinely helpful information in 60 seconds or less.
• Be strategic about hashtags; they’re critical for making sure your content is seen.
• Tell a story with your content and use plenty of text overlays.
• Have people swipe up to see your longer content on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for actual conversion.
• Link to your other social media platforms in your profile.
• Don’t share only mortgage content—share family or pet content, too.
• Have fun creating content, and don’t be afraid to be a little bit silly!

Pinterest

Pinterest is about so much more than craft ideas and recipes. At its core, it’s actually a search engine similar to Google. Think of it as a visual discovery engine that sparks inspiration for its users. 

What Pinterest Does

Pinterest allows you to post keyword-rich photos, videos, and ideas, linking back to your website or anywhere else you want to send people. 

 Pinterest has also just introduced Story Pins for business accounts (they aren’t available to all accounts just yet). Story Pins allow you to record videos and add images, lists, and text in a single pin, perfect for step-by-step guides and telling people about your business.

Tips for Using Pinterest

• Target people who have already shown an interest in your pins.
• Target local people with sponsored pins.
• Attract people with useful mortgage- and real estate-related content. This could include information about different lending programs and before and after stories of clients you helped buy a home. It could also include real estate tips like staging, curb appeal, DIY, and home renovation content.
• Make yourself a local expert by sharing information about schools, neighborhoods, and a network of service providers.
• Funnel traffic to your blog or website to create leads from your pins.
• SEO is key. Keywords should be placed throughout your business profile description, board titles, pin descriptions, and board descriptions.
• Re-pin content regularly to keep it in front of people.

Snapchat

Snapchat is a popular way to communicate with people through a social media channel and is a great way to build rapport with clients and potential clients, especially with Millennials and Gen Z-ers, your future clients.

What Snapchat Does

Snapchat allows you to post photos and (up to) 10-second videos with stickers, emojis, text, and more. You can send snaps to contacts, make them available for contacts for 24 hours in your stories or make them visible to people in your area.

Tips for Using Snapchat

• Add URLs as links to your snaps, encouraging people to take action.
• Use geofilters to show your content to users in your location, especially at networking events.
• Create a branded geofilter to build your brand presence.
• Share certain stories with specific groups of people.
• Use Snapchat to reach out to potential customers and build engagement and relationships.

YouTube

YouTube is the third-most visited website in the world and the second-largest search engine after Google. Video is a key way to build trust and connect with clients and potential clients. YouTube is the place to fully harness the power of quality video content.

What YouTube Does

YouTube allows you to post videos and playlists about just about anything. Using the power of SEO, videos can have a pretty long shelf life, so quality is important. Your content has to be valuable.

Tips for Using YouTube

• Use keyword research to find what people are looking for and optimize your video descriptions, titles, and tags.
• Include relevant links to your website and social media platforms.
• Offer freebies in your videos.
• Keep your videos short and high quality (fewer high-quality videos is better than posting frequent low-quality videos). Videos can stay popular for a long time, so it’s important for them to be good.
• Add end cards and encourage people to subscribe to your channel and link to another video you want them to watch.
• Build playlists for different types of videos you post.
• Add subtitles to all videos.

 Facebook

Ah, Facebook. We all know about Facebook! Even if you’re already using Facebook for your mortgage business, are you using it in the best way? People are on Facebook ALL THE TIME, so it likely makes sense for you to be on there, too.

What Facebook Does

Facebook allows you to post videos and photos, converse with people through messages and comments, and more. Facebook business pages also allow you to collect reviews on business pages and run ads.

How to Use Facebook

• Facebook Business is a pay-to-play platform. Consider boosting your best posts so that more people see them.
• Curate reviews on your Facebook page. Facebook is an easy place for people to leave reviews, and they have a lot of street cred, too.
• Don’t post about mortgages all the time. Post about behind-the-scenes in your office, any events you go to or partners you meet with, and even about your pets and your family some of the time.
• Consider friending clients with your personal profile if you are comfortable.
• Post videos to the platform natively, since the algorithm highly prioritizes videos posted directly to Facebook (and always add subtitles).
• Add in Facebook Live on an important topic so people can interact with you in real time.
• Share your mortgage posts to your personal page on occasion.
• CHECK YOUR INBOX! Leads do come in via Messenger, but you have to be quick about responding to people.
• Tag people (this can be challenging depending on settings) and business pages when possible.

For more tips, check out our blog on Facebook marketing for loan officers here.

Instagram

Instagram has over one billion active monthly users, many of them Millennials who are just starting to buy homes.

What Instagram Does

Instagram is all about the image or video, and the way content looks is really important. That said, authentic content tends to better than highly branded graphics. You can also do IG video stories (in 15-second snippets) and longer IGTV videos (anything over 60 seconds).

How to Use Instagram

• Be careful about posting a lot of graphics—unbranded, natural images often do the best.
• Tag users and business when you can.
• Share content from other local businesses to increase your reach.
• Use IG stories to share fun, behind-the-scenes stuff from your office and your everyday life. Highlight reels keep your best stories around as long as you want (instead of the normal 24 hours).
• Use up to 30 hashtags per post, and make sure they’re relevant or people will just get annoyed with you.
• Make sure your Instagram account is a business account (it’s easy to switch) so you have access to analytics.
• Set up a Linktree account so that you’re not putting links in your content (they’re not clickable on the platform) and people can easily access everything that’s important

LinkedIn

LinkedIn can be a great place to make professional connections, but what you share should be carefully curated for maximum effect, and it’s important to really be aware of your audience.

What LinkedIn Does

LinkedIn is primarily for making and cultivating professional connections. It’s more common to connect with someone on LinkedIn even if you haven’t met them in real life. It’s important to be careful to share more professional content that’s relevant to your audience on LinkedIn.

How to Use LinkedIn

• Regularly make connections with people in your industry, in real estate, and in other industries that may be able to refer you or partner with you. You may also want to make connections with people who will get a loan from you, but be sure to tailor your content to your audience. If you’re connected mostly with people in the housing industry, post content they’ll be interested in.
• Consider creating a company page.
• Leverage groups. Connect and interact with others in your industry. You can create conversations about what’s happening and learn to do better. You could also start your own group to communicate with your desired audience.
• Write articles and share them on LinkedIn’s publishing platform to build credibility.

We hope this helps give you some ideas about how to leverage different social media platforms for the mortgage industry! Social media doesn’t have to overwhelming or difficult, and the effects on your business can be huge!