From Burnout to Breakthrough: The Ultimate Social Media Tool for Loan Officers

Loan officers, realtors, really anyone in the professional space, I have a question for you. Do you feel overwhelmed with content creation? If this is you, this is the episode for you we have

to solve. Welcome to Lending Leadership, The Creative Brief. I'm Rach. And I'm Rinn. I love that opener, Rachel. There's so many times that I hear officers just talking about the consistency of having a message, having something to talk about every week to their audience, to their realtor partners, to their past customers and their business partners on social media and just communicating out there to the public. We have a solve. We cannot wait to get into the meat and potatoes of this episode with you.

But first, I want you to think about your week to week. How are you scheduling your day when it comes to content creation and making sure that you're staying in front of your audience? I feel like that's a really good place for us to start. Don't you, Rach?

Yeah. Because I think most of the time, it's a shot in the dark. It's like, oh gosh, I haven't posted on social media in a while, or, oh gosh, I haven't sent out an email or a text to to my network, and you just kind of go in with the flow, which is fine in some ways, but it's always better to be strategic and have a plan because then you can measure that plan, you can grow that plan. If it's just a dream and a wish, that's not no plan. I hate to break it to you.

Mm-mm. It sure is not. And then we end up kind of cheating on ourselves sometimes, as you like to say, Rach, where we end up using the time that we had suggested that we spend for that content and for those releases doing something else. So I feel like the tool that we're gonna talk about today is gonna help you leverage your time so that we can set up content on a regular basis. We hear a lot of loan officers talking about this and how it's really helpful to them, but it's not a leverage against your time. And I think that that's the biggest tool, that's the biggest takeaway, and what we're gonna get into in this in this, episode.

Absolutely. So without further ado, this this platform is called Social Coach. We looked at a number of different platforms, and this one, for a number of different reasons, we decided to go with Social Coach. One of the biggest reasons is that scheduler that Curran talked about. You know, it's so nice to be able to automate something, but you don't wanna be able to automate something to the point where it's set it and forget it, and it has no personalization to it. So you wanna make sure that you are actually having some skin in the game and not just pushing out marketing material that your company is providing to you. You wanna make sure that it's branded and, and that it's about you. Because at the end of the day, people buy you first and foremost.

Right? So the

scheduler is huge. The scheduler is a big deal because, again, it's a leverage against your time. So now you have a scenario where, you know, as a loan officer, you're looking to your marketing department to provide that content that they're putting into this this tool, this software and library in which it's linked to your social media accounts and you can just load up messaging 1, 2, 3 times a week on those moments where maybe you don't have a personal share or maybe you don't have a video ready to go. And, you know, as far as the library of content, you know, the the sky is the limit. You can do q and a graphics, you know, holiday seasonal information, product and service support when you wanna talk about a specific product or service, you know, at your firm. You can get into just regular first time home buying experiences and just really those kind of conversation starters. Things you want to put out there in which maybe a customer reaches out and says I have a question about that or maybe a realtor partner says hey I didn't know that you offered that. Let's have a coffee next week.

This is what we're really trying to do when we have a software tool like this that enables you to have a message out there on a consistent basis. How many conversations when we can we create? How many reactions can we get? Increase your following and increase your online presence. It really does a good job. I absolutely love Social Coach for this reason.

Yeah. Yeah. It does. And, hey, they don't even know that we're talking about them today, so this is a shameless plug. You know, we just we love this tool, and we use it, and we've we've found a lot of success with it. Another way because I love talking about time, and I'm so glad you brought that up. Because I feel like another way, and this is so funny, Ren, that it saves time, is that, basically, you connect all of the social media platforms you have under the Social Coach umbrella.

Mhmm.

And I don't know about y'all, but when I go on to Facebook or Instagram to post something, I have to be so intentional with what I'm doing because I will squirrel and go down the rabbit hole so easily. And then you're like, what was I doing? What was I on here for? So the nice thing about this, especially from a professional standpoint, you you can just log in to Social Coach instead of having to go to each individual platform and then post to all places at once, never having to touch the platform, which is nice because it keeps you on task. I mean, how many times? It's it's the equivalent of going and walking into a room and saying, oh, wait. What was I doing? I I

like how you reversed that for for our audience, Rachel. I like how, you know, we're talking about that because it's not just the amount of time that you're spending coming up with the content, which is what I first talked about, but also the time wasted, I think is what you're addressing there, Rach. When you get on and you start wasting time on social media, it is designed to suck you in and have you continue to scroll. Right? So we want to make sure our time is intentional and that it's targeted. The other thing, and I don't wanna switch gears too quickly, but I think this is something that we really have to address with our loan officers range. The personal branding element of Social Coach is something I wanted to talk to you about. You know, what can Social Coach do to make your graphics, your moments stand out from other loan officers in the industry that are talking about, quite frankly, the same topics? Well, and that is so big because, yes, people need to hear

things, first of all, 5 different times, 5 different ways. And and we've talked about this in other episodes, how it's so important to carve out that niche to position yourself as the thought leader. And if you are just pushing out content from your company, people don't really care. So one aspect and element that they have within social coach, which, honestly, this was a huge reason that that I was attracted to it to begin with, is that they have stickers, and I love this. They have these fun little stickers that you can create. So you can put your headshot. You can have different wording. You can have your team logo.

You can have lots of different things that are specific to you saved within your social coach library, and your your marketing team can create graphics that are somewhat generic, but then all of a sudden you put your sticker, your branding on top of that. I mean, there's a world of difference. We've actually done side by side comparisons where I've posted the same exact message with the same exact wording in the post, and I'll I'll do it maybe, you know, a a month or so apart. And the the one that has my picture, has my branding on it, outperforms the generic graphic by, like, 3 or 4 times, sometimes even higher. Sure. So anything that you can do to go that extra mile to show people, hey. This is this is really me posting this. I think it really, cuts through the noise a lot better.

Yeah. It makes you stand out, and a lot of times we'll have these graphics where, you know, you know, officers are pointing up at a message. They're pointing to the CTA. They're maybe in a couple different outfit changes even though the the photo shoot was taken in the same session. Right? So it appears as if, you know, you can put your favorite blazer on or then you could have your favorite suit on in another picture, all showcasing different content and just giving it a more branded professional edge. Another thing that I really like is because Social Coach offers so many options to load up library content and campaigns and categorizes them for the loan officer right at your fingertips on the app on your phone or if you wanna hop online and you're an online web person, is that we can section out actual categories, within categories. So what I mean by that is let's take holidays for an example. Your marketing department can build out several different lines of holiday imagery and graphics so that if you have, you know, 5, 6, 7 of your colleagues all in the same generalized location or maybe you have some realtor partners overlapping, you can still send out a custom campaign that looks different than your colleagues.

Not only just with your stickers, but you can do different tracks and different campaigns so the imagery looks different as well. These are again ways to make you brand and stand out, you know, aside from not just your competitors but also your colleagues so everybody has a chance to succeed.

Well and I wanna ask you this, Wren. You know, I've used this, Social Coach at previous companies before. This is the first time that our marketing team has used this. How how did you feel that the transition or the learning curve was? Because, you know, I walked in and I've used it before, and I I sold it to y'all because I loved it so much. But how was it from your perspective with the team and inputting graphics and creating graphics? How was that for you? I have never asked you that before.

No. It's a great question. I mean, it was pretty simple. You know, it was a matter of downloading the app, and really you're just connecting links to your direct social media pages on if you have Facebook, LinkedIn, Insta, if you're a TikTok user, you can connect all of these links direct from the app, And then the marketing team on the back end is just loading the content in so you can select your campaigns. And, you know, as we talked about set and forget, which is kind of a double sided term. Right? There's a positive to set and forget, but you also wanna just keep an eye on your marketing and and what you're doing so that you're staying fresh and adding those personal moments as well. The other thing I really liked, Rach, is the compliance element, that

your return would love that.

Well, of course. You know? You know, in the in the space and role that I'm in, I need to make sure that the company is protected and that the loan officer is protected. Right? So obviously your your individual NMLS, your company NMLS, the Equal Housing Lending logo, and website and information that we wanna make sure is present on every message online is a part of the social coach platform. So it's another thing that you don't have to think about when you're setting up those posts to make sure you're protected from a legality standpoint.

Yeah. And you can have things flagged too, which is nice. You know, you can put in a phrase to say, hey. If Susie loan officer uses this specific phrase, it will flag and the team will get notified so that nobody gets in trouble because nobody wants that.

Yeah. And it's protection it's protection for you as the loan officer and protection for the company, which does better for everybody.

Yeah. It's really cool. I have to say, we have a couple of of loan officers that one in particular, she is a self proclaimed technical nightmare. She's like, I don't know how to do anything. I am such a novice. I you know, she used other

I know nobody's nobody's relating to this rage. Nobody. Not even myself at times. No.

I know. No. Never. But I love the fact that so first of all, she'll schedule some one on one time with me in the beginning, and she's not even doing that as much anymore. But she would schedule, every other week, she would schedule time with me. We would go through, and and she would pre post. So pre schedule post for 2 weeks, then we'd meet again, and she'd pre schedule. We'd walk through how to do it.

But now she's just kinda rolling and she really didn't even need me. I mean, I think that's that's really cool when you see somebody who really hasn't hasn't played in the social media sandbox, and now she has this this tool to be able to do that and get out there. I mean, listen. Social media is not the thing that all of a sudden you're gonna do one post and sales are gonna come flooding through the door. But, again, people need to hear something 5 different times, 5 different ways. So I always like to see it as creating a reputation for yourself, letting your reputation walk through the door before you do. So someone's like, oh, I know Rachel. Oh, I know Corinne.

Like, oh, yeah. And it just it's that that nice connection. And then and I've I really feel like it's cool to see people, I don't know, try something different and step out of their comfort zone, but in a way that is manageable and straightforward and, looks good.

Yeah. It looks good. It needs to be just a tool that you feel like is helping you every week propel your business. And I agree with you, Rach. The best part of it is the consistency of being able to spend a limited amount of targeted time and have that content supporting you. So we would love to hear from you guys specifically about your ideas and what you're doing on social media. Any questions that you guys have regarding this tool of social coach and how to use it, how to learn more about it. Love for you guys to comment, share, and and tell us more about your own experience.

Well and even before we jump off, I know I'm just there's so much that it offers. I I would be remiss if I did not mention this, that they just enter they're adding this, this new feature where you can do video. And I know video is such a scary thing for people because it's, what do I say? How do I say it? So they have a new feature coming out where it has teleprompters. It has scripts in there. You can record right on the app, and that's just right on the website. That's just part of their offering. But if you wanna

Let's slow down let's slow down on them for one second. Yeah. That's great. Thanks. Right? Yeah. I mean, I know how it works, but I wanna just slow down and and illustrate it for any loan officer out there that might not be using this this type of feature yet. So if they get a script, they would load it into Social Coach, and then tell me like, tell about the user experience a little bit of how it

works from there. Yeah. So they don't they can load their own scripts into Social Coach, or there's a boatload in the library that they can pick from. So all different categories, you know, you can even have your team we've loaded some specific scripts in there. But once they click on a script, they have the ability to pair it down, to edit it, kind of make it their own a little bit, or they can put their own script in. You know, how many times do we have an idea of what we wanna say, but it's just so hard to put the words together when that little red light on the camera comes on. It's it's really hard. So you can you can have the teleprompter right on the screen.

This is part of the Social Coach platform. It's not any additional fee.

And then How does the captioning and editing work, Rache?

Well, that if you would like to take it a step further, you know, for people who maybe don't wanna do that lifestyle video, they want a little bit more editing behind it. You know, they want the captions. They want music. They wanna have those cool little stock photos or stock videos that pop in and out, or maybe they have pictures from an event that they just did. That is an extra offering where, again, you can still use the teleprompter, use the scripting, record it right on the app, but then take it a step further and send it to the social coach video catalyst, it's called, and they will edit it for you. And, usually, it's about 2 business days that they get it back to you. And I've seen such a huge, huge uptick in our loan officers who really wanted to do video. Maybe they I don't know.

Maybe they were good at editing, but editing can take a really long time, and that's taking away from their business. You know? They're they're not video editors.

Separate yeah. It's also a separate skill set. Right? So to have the have the ability to jump on an app and just say something quickly to your audience or if you know that you wanna talk about a specific product or service, being able to record it and just submit it and then have it sent back to you within 24 hours with captioning, with edits included, and the ability to say, I don't like this part or I do like this or can we add some music here. It's allowing a loan officer to feel like a professional editor without being one and without spending that much time leveraged against their their their day either. So I think it's an awesome offering and something definitely to check out as a part of the program.

I do too. And, you know, they have all different platforms that you can look into, but I really feel like it has definitely solved that problem of not knowing what to say, where to start, have the consistency. You know, it is when it is very hard when you have so many things pulling you in so many different directions, and it's not your specialty. Your specialty is to go out there and play in traffic and talk to people and and bring in loans. Right? But you still this really will help because we're seeing loan officers create videos on here and use it in a number of different platforms. You know, use it in their, in their email campaigns, or maybe they're creating videos that are specific to different steps within the home buying process. So you can really get creative. You can do things with your realtors.

So if this is something that you're interested in, we'd love or maybe you're using it or you're using a platform like this. I'm always so fascinated on ways that we can save time and look good doing it and still focus on the thing that, that really brings us the the money, honey.

Yeah. Great. I love that. I wanna finish on one other thing. A lot of times, she'll tell me a little bit, you know, about being, you know, being a video expert with us. Stats on video. Stats on engagement through video versus just static posts. Right? And again, it's not to say that anything that your marketing department is that you shouldn't be utilizing that incredible content that they're making for you.

It's just that we wanna incorporate video as well. So I'd love to hear just a little bit more about the engagement stats based around video.

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, did you know, Corinne, that video sticks into your brain and and you're able to analyze video 60,000 times faster than text? Okay. Because think about it. It's it's hitting many different, senses at once. Right? You're hearing something. You're seeing something. You're seeing the caption come up on the bottom.

For me, I'm an auditory learner. When I hear something, it gets into my mind so much better. So when you have that visual and somebody's walking through, it's just so much more memorable. And when you see a video, you are so much more likely to remember that a month later than something you've read. Not to say we we shouldn't do text or we shouldn't do blogs. We we should still be doing that, but video cuts through the noise so much faster. And and, really, that's what it's all about, staying in front of your audience and staying top of mind, and this is a great, great way to do it.

Well, I love it. I think that just gives a little bit more context to Video Catalyst and how it pairs so so well with Social Coach and this platform. So I wanted to spend some time talking about that with you guys today. And again, I would absolutely love to hear any questions or comments that you have regarding this episode, regarding Social Coach and Video Catalyst, how it can help you drive your business forward. So make sure you engage with us, comment, like, and share, and we can't wait to bring you another great episode next time.

Thanks everybody. See you soon.

See you.