Episode 46 How Bankers will Use Social Listening in 2024

Jack Hubbard  00:01

I've had the privilege of being in and around banking for more than 50 years. Lots of changes during that time. We've gone from Ledger's to laptops, typewriters to technology. One thing, however, remains the same. Banking is a people business. And I'll be talking with those people that make banking great here on Jack Rants With Modern Bankers. 

It is Thursday hello, Brynne.

Brynne Tillman 0:51

Jack, thrilled to be here with you today talking about this very important topic 

Jack Hubbard: 00:50

Yeah it's a great topic you know and it's timely because this time of year the young kids you know their parents are listening to “are they naughty or nice.” On the 24th they're going to be trying to listen for Santa under the roof  but every day of the year we should be doing some social listening and today we're going to talk about how Bankers should be using social listening in 2024 and we have a goodly number of things to talk about so let's get started.

One of the things that you've really taught me over the years is how to identify customer needs and concerns and this is all based on what they're saying so things like public posts and quotes and and other things that are going on this is a great social listening tool.

Brynne Tillman 1:54

It is and you know identifying customer needs and concerns based on what they're putting out there is a really powerful way to get started in Social listening and I probably jump slightly ahead on that in my excitement but generally you know social listening is critical. It is how we identify the needs of our prospects of our clients of what's going on in the industry what's going on with our colleagues at other Banks and Institution and if we are not socially listening we're losing out on really good information that can help us in Outreach it can help us in deepening relationships. It can help us in customer retention as well as attraction and ultimately you know you could know every banking product and offer out there inside and out

But if we can't bridge this to what our customers need, that knowledge is going unleveraged.

Jack Hubbard 03:10

And it happens way way too often. So one of the things that Bankers might say now is well okay this sounds really good but how do I know how do I find out well one way to do that is to follow some folks and I love, I'll tell you three that I love to follow one is a great Bank out West called Umpqua Bank. Every year they do a tremendous small business survey and I just got mine for 2024 and there's some really good revealing information there.

The second is South State Bank correspondent division and my good friend Chris Nichols every week Chris and and the folks at South State Bank put out some amazing amazing content that's real practical and very actionable those are the kind of things plus people like Vertical IQ and RelPro I'll add one more that that a lot of people don't know but they should and that's Bill Fink is a very senior Banker at TD Bank in North America and he is on podcasts and he publishes lots of good industry information.

So one way to socially listen, Brynne is to follow companies and also to track industry Trends and that's one thing I think you do really really well.

Brynne Tillman 04:37

So I think this is so important and there are lots of ways to do this. You could use hashtags to check out what's going on for example if you wanted to track banking Trends, the hashtag banking industry is one of the largest followed and used hashtags on LinkedIn. So there are lots of things but I would say it's more than just your banking insights. Is your prospect in manufacturing? Are you looking up their industry insights? What's going on for them? Is there a logistics issue? Is there a cash flow issue? What's going on in the manufacturing industry?

One step further if you sell to manufacturing that that sells into Automotive now you want to look at what are the trends in automotive because that you're manufacturing clients will care about so what's going on and having this information whether you're sharing it on LinkedIn or you're using it to start conversations with folks  you're reaching out with insights if you understand their industry and you understand their client's industry or  you've at least attempted to truly get it you're going to be the banker they want to work with.

Most every Banker understands lines of credit. Most every Banker understands treasury Services. What's going to set you apart is that you've taken the time to socially listen to what's happening in their industry and their customers' industry.

Jack Hubbard 06:26

And let's take this a little deeper too. I get a lot of Bankers when we do these programs. They'll message me or pick up the phone and they'll say you know all this stuff sounds really really good but I don't want to come off as an expert in the industry. I don't know everything about the industry and I don't know all the things that are going on in their industry.

What I always tell them is let's take a step back from this and look at things like marketing. What are they doing there? Strategic planning hiring great people and for me one of the companies that I follow is Galloway Research Service because Galloway does a tremendous job with research and then they take that research and make it very actionable and I share quite a lot of that if you would follow companies like a Galloway like McKenzie like other companies like that you would not only be able to take that to a particular industry but you could take it to all Industries because it's such generic kind of content let's go on to the next one a couple weeks ago you and I were… oh go ahead, go ahead…

Brynne Tillman 7:31

I'm actually going to jump ahead because it seems to meld into what you were just talking about so if they say you know you've got this industry content and they're the expert in manufacturing not you, this is a fabulous opportunity to share this content and then ask them for their thoughts around it. Ask them for their perspective so now and so there's like the the  passive social listening which is is what we've been talking, about finding what's out there.And there's the active social listening which is asking them you know polls and we'll get to polls and interviews and other things but if you're like I've got this great content on the state of automotive parts manufacturing and you know and they know you not the expert there but you can share it with them or you could post it and share it with them or even just privately share it with them and say hey I came across this article I'm really fascinated I work with lots of people in this industry and I'd love to hear your thoughts on what's coming down the pike. And now you're not showing off or trying to prove you're actually learning so you're actively social listening to their response as well.

Jack Hubbard 08:57

Yeah that's a really good one. I  like the distinction of proactive versus reactive and we're going to talk about some more proactive as we go forward a couple of weeks ago you and I were working with a with a bank and they do a lot of community events and so one of the things you can do from a social listening perspective not necessarily for specific trends or whatever but to look at various companies that you want to do business with and see how they are engaged in community events or different kinds of community content for example.

Brynne Tillman 09:38

yeah I mean that's a great one and certainly on LinkedIn you can find events but social listening is not limited to LinkedIn right? Go to your chamber of commerce look at not only what events are happening who are the speakers,  who are they attracting, you could look at who are the sponsors of these events right these are folks that are giving back to the community  that you know there are opportunities there to have conversations around their big heart and their sponsorships so all of these events are huge.

I had one client this was quite a few years ago was actually pre pandemic but  was a banker who really and it was before LinkedIn had any events as an option they were going to meetup.com an Eventbrite and they were looking for community events if they could attend they would attend otherwise they might help them they would post the event sorry I can't make this but this looks like a great event for any of my network and they would mention the Chamber of Commerce and any of the speakers and so they would use those events in in the engaging and sharing side but the social listening side of this is “Boy I see that this local chiropractor is sponsoring a lot of these local events that they're growing their business they obviously have some kind of capital that they're investing in growing their business there's a good chance they might be outgrowing their bank right now” 

So those things that you start to connect the dots on are are huge right and social listening at the event maybe a chamber has  new member event so we had a chamber that twice a year had a new member event these are people that have decided to you know small companies in the community that have decided they want to join the chamber to start expanding their business these are people that whether they're ready to switch Banks now or not are people that are investing in their business and that's just small ways to look at those events from a social listening perspective.

Jack Hubbard 12:10

Well I love that let me expand on that a little bit tell you a quick story work with a bank up in the Northeast for a long long time 18 or 19 years and so I made a few joint calls with them and one of the things that I always would ask if the banker you know needed a break would be things like “Well how do you stake current with Trends and best practices in your industry?” so it's actually physical listening I guess and so the person would say to me well I do this organization or I work with this organization and one time they said well “I I'm the president of XYZ Association” An industry that the a vertical industry the bank wanted to get involved in so Banker takes the call back and says well how how would someone like me get involved in something like that and bottom line is she's now the treasurer of this particular organization and it's an organ a vertical that the bank wants to be involved in and here's the other cool thing no other banks are there so she has the room basically to herself

So you could use that social listening to look at different events and different organizations in your community that you say I really want to get involved in that industry. That's a really really good way to do it. Well Brynne, whatever you do from a physical or a social listening perspective one of the things that you talk about is when you do communicate personalize this communication this whole idea around making it personal is critical.

Jack Hubbard 13:47

Oh I could not agree with that more and you know you say it's something I talk about but hands down Jack this has always been your philosophy whether you're handwriting notes that you're you're sending out to people physical notes I  don't know anyone that makes communication more personal than you do and and that is really why you have grown such an incredible… and I'm not even gonna say following but immense relationships.

People that will say to me oh my gosh you are the luckiest person in the world that you get to work with Jack Hubbard. Why? Because you personalize communication right it's amazing and and by the way I agree with them so why is this important when you are social listening  there is that reach out right so we started talking about  your perspective on an article or your perspective on a poll or I like your thoughts now if I just send a mass message that says “Hey I just put out a poll could you please vote on it” I might get some people but if I send it out let's say a little video message and I say hey Jack I hope you're doing well just put out a poll specifically for sales  train you know sales experts and trainers I I would some as someone that has followed your career for the last well 15  years, you know I you know I  your insights especially around personalization or especially around power prospecting you're like oh that is clearly personalized for me right now I'm sending this out now you're like okay wait how is that social listening? 

Well I'm asking your perspective on something so I am now actively asking for information that will help me understand your perspective your thoughts your priorities whatever that might be but I'm asking you Jack Hubbard not all the sales trainers in my entire network right like I have really personalize this what happens is you get really good answers. I typically don't use this but that law of reciprocation but when someone is really kind to you when someone has made you matter you automatically matter to them and so their response is going to be thoughtful you're going to get more people that vote on that poll or give you their perspective on the manufacturing article and Trends and you you start to build build a stronger Rapport leading to real relationships and as Bankers that is what we need. We really need that personalization. So that was a long way around how important this point is.

Jack Hubbard 17:13

Yeah I'll just add one other quick thing. When you go on to your LinkedIn feed and you happen to see something that is really powerful. I saw a bank in the Northeast it's about a billion and a half dollars and they just promoted several folks to  to senior vice president there was a nice picture there and I commented to the president  and on the photo “how wonderful it was to see the diversity and how they're promoting women  and congratulations etc etc…” He reached out to me and said hey I'd love to connect with you. I did and as a follow up I said you know based on what I saw on that photo this article that I just published about resource management might be of interest.

I sent it to him in a one -on-one message. He reached back out to me and said this is exactly what I've been looking for. Would you be open to a conversation? Now I wasn't trying to be salesy Brynne but it was just that few events that I was proactive around and watched went on in that bank from a community perspective it really helped I love what you have up here now ring the Bell of prospects clients and accounts.

Brynne Tillman 18:36

Yeah so most people don't realize that you have the ability to go beyond just connecting with someone you can proactively ring their Bell both for people and for companies and so that when they share content it actually goes into our notifications not just our news feed where it kind of gets you know falls out on the Wayside if you're not there your notifications are there until you choose to delete them right? So if I want to keep in touch with all of the things that my prospects are saying or sharing, ringing the bell is one of the most efficient ways to do this.

Now if you are a first-degree connection you will automatically see the Bell but you might have a lot of prospects that are not first degree connections yet but if you go ahead and follow them the Bell will appear and then you can click on that Bell now you have triggers to start to learn right what they're triggers for social listening but they're also triggers for starting conversations  and so I would say make make sure you have connected with all of your clients and you ring the bells of the ones that you want to engage they're not all sharing content 10 times a day you're not going to get flooded with notifications. But when they do it's important to them and that's why we need to be notified of what is important to them.

I might learn something that has nothing to do with banking. Maybe they had a grandchild and they posted it. Maybe whatever there could have been there could be a lot of things that  can help me learn about my prospect that may not even be solely around business that can help me build that Rapport as well.

Jack Hubbard 20:38

It's outstanding  we have several more but I'd like to I'd like to stop just for a second and talk about a very exciting Workshop that we're going to be doing  next year it's a public workshop for Bankers it's going to be six weeks plus a Bonus Week  and Brynne I'm really really excited about this because it really gives us an opportunity to help Bankers see the power of integrating Linked In into sales in 2024.

You've done these so many times talk about some of the content that we're gonna have there yeah we are really excited because you know we've done this many times with so much on LinkedIn has changed in the last year that this is going to be the most up to-date training available anywhere because it'll be live in the moment so  we're going to talk about how do you update your profile in a way that gets your targeted prospects interested in having a conversation with you because right now most of our profiles Bankers, it's rese driven but we are going to really create you as as the banking expert the thought leader in banking and show up as a resource where your profiles actually bringing value to your audience.

We're going to talk about the content Trifecta the engaging curating and creating content and bankers don't worry we're not going to have you writing tons of content but things like polls are really important and that's original content. We're going to talk about nurturing our Network. Jack we found out through a study the average person  had 10% of the average person's connection. The average salesperson's connections are people that we want to have conversations with and so some folks will say 10%? Well yeah you may not want to talk to 90% but you have a thousand connections that would be a hundred people do you have 5,000 connections because that would be 500 people.

So we're going to talk about how do you take inventory and identify who have you been ignoring that we should be engaging and we're going to give you great personalized communication opportunities to   you know to start and restart some of those conversations so that's pretty exciting and we're going to do which is my favorite which is warm Market prospecting this is about leveraging the clients that know love and trust us to see who they know that we want to meet how do we build strong relationships with our clients other trusted advisors that can become wonderful referral Partners how do we leverage all of thatI I am so excited.

Then we're going to have  a sales Navigator program that it's really kind of getting started with sales Navigator  but for folks that are new to it or have it and haven't really leveraged it or exploring it this is a great session we're also going to have a session that we're calling a day in the life and this is something we have not done in our public classes before so I'm really excited about this. This is literally putting together and helping you Bankers put together what do I do on a daily and weekly  process like what do I do?

This is one of the biggest questions like this. It has amazing content where I start when I come in in the morning. What's the first thing I should do so we are going to go through and we'll have a Playbook around this for the a day in the life of a LinkedIn Banker a banker leveraging LinkedIn so we're very excited about that and you're going to get our coaching and we do have one really deep dive coaching in the the program but  you get… Are we doing three months Jack? 

Jack Hubbard 25:12

Three months 90 days of  live coaching every week for 90 days very crazy.

Brynne Tillman 25:22

Now we said it out loud, we can't change our minds. So once a week for three months I think that's the math you can come in and you have access sometimes it's Jack and myself sometimes it's me sometimes it's Jack but you every single week at least one of us is there helping guide you personally and Jack tell one of the stories about one of our clients that  he was on I that's just like two or three coaching calls and he ended up closing a huge deal.

Jack Hubbard 25:49

Huge deal. Millions of dollars in loans and deposits as a result of something that he learned on our coaching. Then he went back because he's using our training and looked at it again and messaged one of his former clients and reactivated it and it turned out to generate the entire  relationship.

$197 Bren this is a great great offer for all of this  program and you get Brynne who is  one of the 2023 sales influencers for LinkedIn  I'll be there too  kind of guiding the way and we're very very excited about it so it's themodernbank/list and you can scan the QR code if you’re watching  

Brynne Tillman 26:43

So this is a waiting list we I probably  well by the time if you are listening to this on podcast it's probably live  it's you know but  if you are listening now live  it just go to the modern banker.com list We'll add you to the list and if it is live and you get added to the list we will immediately send you a link.

Jack Hubbard 27:01

Yeah for sure and and message as as we go back to  to  the last few things we want to talk about with starting with an oldie but goodie Google Alerts  I would just say that  if you message Brin or I  if you're connected at the first degree message us we'll be happy to add you to the list we've got some marketing going out pretty soon and the landing page created and  we'll be very very excited to have you.

So let's go back, Brynne, we were talking about social listening together today and just a couple more one is one that I've used for a long long time and that's Google Alerts  and it's still popular.

Brynne Tillman 27:45

Oh I love Google Alerts and nothing beats it there's nothing out there yet in my opinion  that beats Google alert so what is it you go first of all you go to google.com/alerts and you put in the names of your clients you put in and company names you could put in people name you're not going to get a whole lot on people but the com the company names of your prospects of your clients of the Chamber of Commerce of the associations that you're part of. You know Jack mentioned the industry associations put all of that in and say one email a day that's it because otherwise you'll be overwhelmed but you can set it to one email a day.

And if you want to talk about incredible social listening this is unbelievable I'm going to throw in a quick thing that I have been doing that has been great if I get a long article an industry article let's say so  you know we obviously Banks so I get an article that's on you know the state of  Credit Unions for 2024 and it's a long article and I'm going to read it but I want to know now. 

What is the top…I will copy the link because I have ChatGPT4 but if you're not paying just copy the text in the article go into ChatGPT and say give me the top  tips from this article paste and enter and it will tell you the top things the top trends the top in that art and you can kind of glance at it in 15 seconds and get some of those… and now you go oh here are some things I really would love to go deeper dive on and so now that becomes relevant but I've been doing that from Google Alerts when these articles come up I might get eight or ten articles in a day which ones do I really want to read and that's been helping me.

Jack Hubbard 30:00

Wow what what a great tip I Love that here's another thing I think that Bankers don't do as well and they and they could do a better job from a social listing perspective exploring company websites and I'll add one more thing to that Brynne, exploring company pages on LinkedIn there's about 30 million of them and one of the things I'll do from a banking perspective because we work with banks is I'll go right to the bank company page and I want to see who I'm connected to there, how many employees they have, look at hiring Trends, are they posting a lot? This is a really powerful way to socially listen.

Brynne Tillman 30:38

I love it. The next one is one of my favorites. I'll let you introduce it but then I can't wait to talk about it. Hiring Trends so you open it and then I'll jump in.

Jack Hubbard 30:57

Well on the company page it will show you if the company is hiring or they're not hiring this gets a little deeper on sales Navigator but this is a really powerful social  listening tool especially from a banking perspective if the company is hiring that means they're growing and that means maybe I want to at least get in contact with them.

Brynne Tillman 31:24

Yeah I love to see so there's a few things so LinkedIn the company page if you have any kind of Premi you can actually see the trends of of what they're hiring in in sales Navigator it's amazing how deep you can go you can go by departments and who's hiring and who's laying off and and all those fun things but you know you can simply go to their website and they usually have a career page and you can take a look at where are they expanding so we had one Banker a couple of years back that took advantage of this and they went in and they were hiring a CFO at the company sorry the bank or the company the prospect was hiring a CFO well don't you know that that Banker knew a ton of CFOs and started reaching out to all of his CFOs and said hey there is an opportunity at a local company I'm reaching out to my CFOs too if they know of anyone that might be interested in that role.

One of his old prospects that never turned into a client ended up applying for the CFO role got the role and guess who became his Banker now it doesn't always work that way but social listening will open up hiring Trends can open up huge opportunities the other thing is keep in mind when they H even if you don't get involved the way he did keep in mind they're gonna have a new CFO and then when they you find that CFO go look at where they left because that company's going to have a new CFO too right and so absolutely in LinkedIn we can look at Job changes right career changes but we can proactively look look at what company Trends are happening and use that social listening to open up opportunities.

Jack Hubbard 33:39

That's great. Well we've got a couple of more minutes let's talk about polls I'm doing some polls now  for my Jack Rants 30 I've got three polls going and you know I've got a 100 votes in each but I can get more votes if I socially listen in a proactive kind of way. Talk about polls as it relates to social listening.

Brynne Tillman 34:01

Yeah so a poll first of all is an incredible social listening tool we are asking a question and getting answers right there's no better way to get information than asking exactly what it is you're looking for now you can't make this over salesy so we had one Banker I found this to be amusing if you're listening hello you know who you are who  who wanted to say what is Your Nber One banking concern for 2024 you know is it  interest rates is it was all banking related and I went who's going to answer that who really are they really thinking about so that's when we did a deeper dive into the the industry  and we made sure that it was more about the industry that that she was going after than it was the banking Discovery questions that they were looking for so we ended up with where do you see  the biggest bottleneck in the business in 2024? I think it might be a little off but you'll get the point right so the first one was cash flow to fulfill orders on time it might have been something like that. Number two Logistics in getting products out fast enough. So It all Leads back to where banking can help but we're not leading with banking so the polls that really work there's still Discovery there's still social listening we're learning from our prospects what their priorities are but it's not about banking even though banking can help solve those problems so we want to make sure that when we are putting out a poll that it's a poll they want to vote on it's a poll that Matters to them. So now to answer your question after that very long way around  at the bottom of the poll or any piece of content there is a little paper airplane and you can click on that paper airplane and you can send a poll individually to someone that you'd like to vote now you can do up to 50 people at a time it is a little less personal so you know we talked about hyper personalization but I'll say if these are people I'm having conversations with often I'm okay with this. So maybe I send out a poll and say, “I just put out a poll for local Chicago Business Leaders I truly appreciate your oneclick vote” So I can send that to 50 people blind copied at a time again if you send that personal video message your success rates going to go through the roof but you can do this particularly if you know them don't send something generic like that to someone that doesn't know you at all yet but you know if I send something like that to Jack he's not going to be like oh she didn't put in my name right so just make sure you know the relationship that you with the people you're doing this but you can now send this to 50 people at a time and ask for their vote you are the only one who will see who votes and what they vote on but the you know the world gets to see the percentages of the of the vote and it's a great social listening tool to learn what the priorities are of your prospects and I know I just keep ranting.

Jack Hubbard 37:54

I think it's great and and you can turn that into social proactivity you can turn it you can take that poll you can write a brief summary of the poll and you can put it out to the people who voted first and then put it onto social media you can file save as a PDF and you can email that there's a lot of things that you can do with a poll and to brin's point you're the only one who knows and you could use this for social proactivity let's say that the answer is  54% said  cash flow based to help me grow my inventory or whatever the case might you know who they are and if they're if they're concerned about that there might be a way for you in a non salesy way to say “Hey, thank you for answering my poll I found an article about five ways to help your cash flow in 2024 I thought that might be of interest.'' That's a dialogue that we have going.

Brynne Tillman 38:56

It's really powerful. I love that we have one more Jack one more which is interviewing your clients and Prospects oh this is this is so amazing. This is fairly new in my world but it's a way for you to socially listen in more of a one-on-one way. Brynne, you've done this and you know how powerful it is.

Brynne Tillman 39:13

Yeah and there's lots of different kinds of interviews right we can have we right now we are live right what even if you're listening to us in replay it's being recorded  as we are streaming live right so there's you know that live interview in my opinion this is one of the easiest ways to interview someone but some folks are like well I don't know if I want to go live what if I hiccup in the middle of it right whatever so you can do on Zoom you can get on Zoom or teams or whatever your bank is using and record a conversation now you can say, “Hey I'm going to use a quote from you” I'm going to put together a Blog and I'll you know I'll add a quote in there you don't have to use the video I love using the video but in today's world and I might be going  Step Beyond but we're loving chatGPT banks open up a little bit just just think about some of the ways that you guys can use this just have really good compliance in in place and make sure your policy and handbook is updated but you can take the transcript now from the interview and create an entire blog post by pasting it into chatGPT and say write a blog post.

We can have an enormous amount of content and we are going to learn from our prospects and our clients from these interviews so it's there social listening but there's so many more benefits that come out of these interviews.

Jack Hubbard 40:52

And watch for more of this from the modern Banker in 2024 because you may see this again in a little bit different way. Well Brynne, any final comments on social listening before we wrap this up?

Brynne Tillman 41:12

Yeah and I think I'm just going my comment on the your last comment is if you like the idea of the interview for many many many reasons reach out to Jack or myself because we have some ideas for you that we're we're excited as we roll some things out but we've got some great ideas on how you can leverage those interviews in many ways alright last thing on social  listening is this is so important we can't skip this step if in fact we really want to be the relationship driven Banker anyone can reach at on LinkedIn anyone can be transactional we have all been victims of the connect and Pitch where it's not personal and it's not personal if you say hey I checked out your profile and was really impressed that is not personal right I checked out your profile and I see that you worked at ABC company I worked with them years ago do you know Jeff that's personal right like right and so social listening can hyper personalize our communication it can allow us to truly see what matters to our prospects  and at the end of the day Jack, social listening is really what will set us apart in the conversations that we have with our clients and Prospects.

Jack Hubbard 42:33

And when I teach I always say you listen to talk or you listen to understand social listening is the same way if you find something on social and you talk about your bank right away it's over but if you listen and understand and start a dialogue you're going to be in really good shape this was a fun program today Brynne,I look forward to these every Thursday and this was great, was fun.

Brynne Tillman 42:56

It's always fun with you. This is what I am blessed seriously to have you as my partner and I enjoy every minute I enjoy everybody so we'll see you all next week.

Outro: 43:20

Thanks for joining us for Jack Rants with Brynne brought to you by our good friends at Vertical IQ and RelPro. We're live on LinkedIn every Thursday at noon Eastern time helping bankers turn connections into conversations. 

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