Financial Advisor Social Media Case Study: Success managing a compliant Facebook account in a highly-regulated industry
Driving engagement on social media is already challenging, sometimes. When operating the social media accounts of a financial services organization, it gets even harder. Communication surrounding the finance business is highly regulated, and that includes what you say on social media—even just a framed award in the background of a photo can give people the idea that you can guarantee some kind of investment return, for example, and that is a no-no for financial companies on Facebook.
Here’s the story of one such client of mine and how we’ve managed to grow their account despite these issues!
Client Background
Our client is a local office of individual financial advisors who provide insurance and investment products under a Fortune 500 organization. Despite their strong market position, they faced significant challenges in maintaining an effective social media presence due to stringent compliance regulations and a busy schedule.
Challenges
Busy schedules: The advisors and their administrative team did not have capacity to create and post content regularly.
Compliance and regulations: Highly detailed compliance requirements made it difficult to post meaningful and engaging content when the financial advisors did post on Facebook. Corporate frequently rejected their submissions for compliance issues, causing further frustration and wasted time.
Account suspension: To make things even worse, the financial services Facebook page was suspended by Meta for pretending to be someone else. This was due to the fact that their content, which was being funneled through a corporate social listening and scheduling app, was flagged as being identical to that of the hundreds of other advisors’ pages who were also auto-posting the same content. Yikes.
Solution
In the initial two months of our partnership, I devoted my time to resolving the Meta page restriction issue while temporarily overseeing LinkedIn posts to satisfy scope.
After what felt like hundreds of emails back and forth with Meta, my client’s corporate office, and my clients themselves, I was able to successfully appeal Meta’s ban. In the midst of this communication, I was able to provide my financial services’ corporate marketing team with my insights, letting them know that as Meta continues to crack down on internet misinformation, other pages were going to face similar issues. Beyond the information I was able to give my client, I was able to share my solution with both Meta teams and the corporate marketing department: we were going to adapt our content going forward so as to avoid these pitfalls.
I tackled the content challenges for the financial advisors by focusing on content that:
Centered the community
I utilized real photos of the team’s community involvement, steering clear of regulated language by focusing on non-regulated content pillars such as community engagement, events, and holidays.
Content that was unique but compliant
For educational content involving regulated topics, I adapted the pre-approved corporate posts that used to auto-post.
Rather than posting them exactly as-is, I modified captions to be more engaging but stick with the compliant terminology so that it would go through the corporate review process without a hitch. I also used UGC-style stock images from Dupe rather than allowing the link preview to populate. In this way, I was able to share the content in a wholly original way that steered clear of Meta’s AI triggers.
Results
Over a span of four months, our efforts yielded remarkable improvements:
Page reach: Increased by over 1000%.
Direct profile visits: Up nearly 600%.
New followers: Doubled compared to the four months prior to our engagement.
Engagement: Rose by nearly 20%, despite the regulatory constraints.
Link clicks: Doubled, demonstrating increased user interest and interaction.
Additionally, the page’s overall health improved, with no derogatory marks from Meta, reflecting a strong and compliant presence.
Conclusion
The transformation of the client’s social media presence highlights the effectiveness of a tailored approach to content creation within a regulated industry. If you're facing similar challenges in the financial sector or insurance industry, I can help optimize your social media strategy to achieve positive results.
To explore how I can enhance your finance business’s social media performance, reach out at aelsa@aelsawoods.com or visit the Contact tab on my website.
