ShareME makes it easy to connect with clients through social media
An effective social media campaign has long been touted as a way to maintain relationships with existing clients and drive new leads. But for a time-poor broker, developing and posting regular content is often easier said than done.
MPA spoke with ME head of broker distribution Mathew Patterson about ShareME, a free subscription that enables brokers to share home buying and finance specific content to their social media channels in order to maintain a strong digital presence.
Why brokers should use social media
Having a strong digital presence is important in the current environment, says Patterson. With COVID-19 forcing us to become a contactless society, it is vital for brokers to engage their customers in the online arena of social media.
“The other thing is, social media can be your first point of contact which can be followed up by tactics such as emails and phone calls.”
“It helps you get in the front door and build your business brand or your personal brand and your customer base a lot easier than what it has been in the past.”
He adds that customers now expect this presence, with many googling a broker and checking out their Facebook page when they are referred to one.
“If you’re not doing it, you’re probably missing out on the big element of their customer expectation.”
How ShareME works
Patterson says ShareME is designed to make it easy to post content.
“Essentially, we’ve leveraged our whole marketing department and expertise to make it available for brokers.”
“We have a simple sign up page where the brokers can subscribe to receive the content. Each month we send them an email and they get the articles that they can share to any of their social platforms.”
In that email, the broker receives five articles that cover different topics. One of these is an education piece taken from ME’s financial literacy program.
The remaining four cover each of the core market segments of the industry and are targeted at lead nurturing.
“We have one that’s specific to first home buyers, one that’s specific to refinancers, one that’s specific to investors and one that’s specific to upgraders.”
“They can share that across all of their networks or they can be quite specific and email it – there’s a variety of different ways that they can use this information to keep in contact or nurture lead sources that they’ve got.”
“Response rates have just been phenomenal. In a relatively short space of time we’ve had in excess of 10% of our entire broker base sign up to receive the content and I think that the drop out numbers have been negligible.”
He says the performance of the content in terms of how often it is shared and opened has exceeded expectations.
“Something we’re really focusing on is how we can support brokers and how we can leverage our resources to support brokers, especially during COVID.”
The lender has a series of webinars coming up for brokers who want to go the extra mile and create their own social media content.
“Stay tuned, because brokers will start to see some more content which is more directly targeted at generating leads and helping them to build their business.”
