January 22nd, 2019

About 80 percent of Americans are using social media, which means the digital world is rapidly becoming more prominent in our everyday lives. Whether we are using social media for personal, business or educational purposes, it’s handy to know what tools each platform offers to take advantage of all the benefits.

Why Lenders Care

As a loan officer, it’s important to engage with your homebuyers to build relationships. Utilizing social media tools helps you take those necessary steps to be interactive and build a trusting bond between the loan officer and potential buyer.

The best four social media platforms for lenders are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Different social media platforms offer several tools that are both paid and free that can help get you started and/or increase your online traffic.

Paid Tools

Naturally, paid tools are going to offer many more features than free tools.

1. Hootsuite: A major platform that offers bulk scheduling, real time analytics, social sweepstakes and unlimited RSS integration. It allows you to keep track and manage multiple social network channels.
2. Hubspot: A popular choice for lenders which includes different plans for various budgets and over a dozen services.
3. Buffer: Great platform for those who are looking to target anywhere from 3 social accounts up to 150, with as little as 1 user up to 25 users.
4. MeetEdgar: Has a base price that includes the four social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter) and provides unlimited text, images and videos.
5. Sprout Social: Has plans from 5 to 10 social profiles and offers advance keyword reports and custom URL tracking.

These different platforms and plans allow for different number of users, posts and accounts to best fit the needs of the individual and also come with a free trial option.

Free Tools

While paid scheduling tools have more to offer, free tools are just as helpful if you’re just starting out. The best free scheduling tools are Tweetdeck and Facebook for scheduling your posts in advance. Twitter has their own platform called Tweetdeck that allows lenders to post weeks or months in advance. Tweetdeck also allows you to post photos and links but doesn’t allow you to schedule videos. The Facebook scheduling tool is found directly on their platform. It gives you the ability to schedule weeks or months in advance like Tweetdeck. On the other hand, Facebook scheduling tools allow lenders to share pictures, links and videos. In fact, it appears identical to real time posts. Unfortunately, Instagram and LinkedIn do not offer any free tools.

The digital world is here to help the mortgage industry grow and not eliminate positions. Scheduling tools will be able to make organization easier for loan officers. It will also give them more time to build personable relationships between the lender and borrower. Overall, technology gives us the ability to utilize social media platforms to help make the life of a loan officer more efficient.