Welcome back to Lending Leadership: The Creative Brief. In this episode, we dive into the world of social media strategies, sharing ways to effectively communicate with your audience and what we consider the essentials of intentional social media engagement. 

We start by emphasizing the importance of intentionality in social media. It’s not just about checking off a box; it’s about thoughtful content that resonates with your ideal client or referral partner. Corrine and Rachael share insights on creating engaging, purposeful content, starting with the all-important hook, moving through your main points, and finishing strong with a call to action.

Highlighting real-world examples, we break down a video from Dan Anderson's team that creatively covers crucial messaging in a light-hearted and engaging manner. They demonstrate how to incorporate a hook, deliver valuable information, and close with a call to action—all while keeping the audience entertained.

Key takeaways:

1. Intentionality in Social Media: It's crucial to go beyond simply posting content. Understand your audience, define your ideal client or referral partner, and craft your messages purposefully to avoid getting lost in the noise.
2. Effective Hooks: A strong hook can be anything from a powerful statement to a question or an unusual action. It’s about capturing attention immediately so your audience stays engaged and doesn’t scroll past your content.
3. Planning Your Content: Whether it’s a short video or a lengthy presentation, map out the key points you want to cover. This ensures that your message is clear, concise, and impactful, keeping your audience’s attention throughout.
4. Creative Presentation: Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Change your location, mix up your style, and add humor or unexpected elements to keep your content fresh and engaging. The example from Dan Anderson’s team is a testament to how creativity can make your message memorable.
5. Call to Action: Every piece of content should end with a clear call to action. Direct your audience on the next steps, whether it’s liking your post, subscribing to your channel, or reaching out for more information. Your goal is to turn engagement into meaningful interactions and ultimately, conversions.

Join us as we dive deep into these strategies and offer practical tips and examples to elevate your social media game. Remember, your social media presence is not just about random posts; it's about creating meaningful and impactful interactions with your audience.

Until next time, keep engaging intentionally, stay creative, and as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!

Feel free to DM us if you have any questions or want to share some of your own social media success stories. We’re always looking to connect and learn from our fellow loan officers and realtors. Thanks for tuning in!

Rach & Rinn

You know, you don't have to be great to start. You have to start to be great. And, guys, you can't win the lottery if you don't play. And today, we're diving in deep to some social media topics that, you know, you think you know, but I think we could all use a little brush up on. And this is Lending Leadership, The Creative Brief. I'm Rach.

And I'm Rinn coming at you today. We are gonna focus a little bit on content. So, you know, Racheal mentioned social media. We're all doing it. It's a big world. It can be intimidating what to do, what to share, how to engage online. And we're gonna give you a few tips today on how you can be more effective communicating with your audience.

You know, it's really about intentionality. I think so many times we go on social media. I've done this before. You get stuck down the rabbit hole of some cute little TikTok voice over, and you're you're doing this thing and you're like, oh, I checked the box. I did social media today. Well, guess what? There was no intention behind it. You just literally checked the social media box that you did it, but maybe didn't think about the end user. Who is your ideal client? Who is your ideal referral partner? What's the message that you're trying to get out there? And all the fun stuff, family pictures, and really showing who you are, it's very, very important.

But it's also very important to make sure that you're having those strategic moments and you're really thinking through and not just, oh, okay. Cross it off the list. I did it.

I agree. I think, Rachel, at this point, it's really about, as you just pointed out that you really nailed it, thinking through what we're doing. Right, guys? So if you're taking a moment when you're planning your strategy for the week to just write down some things that you wanna incorporate, it'll help you with your intention when you're online. So I think with content today, we really wanna talk about a few different components that we wanna make sure you're aware of and that you include when you're posting on social media, when you're planning out your week. The first is being a hook. Okay? So write it down, get your notepad, hook, h o o k. And Rachel started with 1. So there are examples of a hook.

It could be a power statement. It could be a quote. Rachel started with a quote right there where she said, you know See what we did there? See what we did? You don't have to be great to start, but you do have to start to be great. Right? So it was a way to draw somebody and then what are they gonna talk about today? It could be a question. It could be an action. It could be something strange that you're doing if you're filming yourself or people are like, what's this person gonna do next? These are all examples of a good hook. So you know, you can easily Google online and there's tons of ideas. Many are very very simple.

This isn't an intimidating process, so get creative and first I want you to sit down and write down a hook. What do you think? I

know. I love that because it's it is so simple, and think about this this applies to everything we do, even the music we listen to. You know, it's always in songwriting. It's the hook. Right? The thing that's gonna draw people in, the thing that's gonna get into people's mind, and you keep it simple, but make it something that's all things to everybody. So that hook, really, I feel like is the most important part because, otherwise, there's so much noise out there, there's so much distraction, you know. Before you know it, if you don't have a good hook, people are swiping past your video, swiping past your post, and they're on to the next cat meme. So you wanna keep them on your page.

You wanna keep them there. And how do you do that? You have to give them something to sink their teeth into.

And we have you know, I have a lot of amazing loan officers that I coach, Rachel as well. And sometimes, you know, they're working on a piece or we're counseling and coaching, and we'll see that someone wants to start off their video or start up their graphic or their piece or presentation with, you know, my name is my name is Corinne Bibb, and I'm a loan officer at x company. That's

worst thing you could do, and it is so easy to default to that. I mean, I'm guilty of that. Right? No. I don't. What to say. So it's, hi. I'm Rachel from HMA Mortgage and blah blah. You've lost them.

Right? We are filled with a society of ADD people. I'm guilty of this, where you have 3 seconds to make an impact, so don't waste your 3 seconds by telling them who you are. They're on your page. They're most likely subscribed to you. If they're not, the like, they're on your page. They know who you are. They can see your name right at the bottom of whatever platform they're on. So don't waste that time by telling them who you are.

Maybe wait until the end and give them, you know, something a little bit more, but make sure you're not wasting that beginning crucial precious time on your name. They don't care.

I couldn't agree more, Rachel. It's just, you know, it's one of those things where you've heard it so many times. It's just easy to scroll right past it with all the noise. So hook, let's dial it in. Gave you some ideas. We can give you more. We'd love to chat about it in the chat line if you have some ideas and we've got more for you. The next piece of content that we really want you to think about is really the meat and potatoes of your segment.

So again, whether it's video, whether it's a social media graphic, you know, it could be a presentation if you're sitting down at a lunch and learn and doing it in person. You wanna kinda map out what are the 3 to 5 major things that I wanna get across during this moment while I have an engaged audience. And it doesn't matter if you're deliverable, you know, being a video is 1 minute long or it's a a PowerPoint presentation in which you're gonna take 20 to 30 minutes. You still need to have those intended moments of, I have a captive audience, I have their time, how am I gonna effectively communicate the 3 to 5 things that I want them to know? And, usually, I I don't feel like we're doing that. If people are doing a video, maybe maybe

they think of a hook or a theme, and then they stop there. So, really, again, making sure that you're intentional. If you do those 3 to 5 points or even 1 to 2 points, even if you're doing some kind of structure, it's gonna help you stay on task and not squirrel and start another topic, but it's gonna really keep that that focus on what you're doing. And, again, have to remember, time is so precious, and there are so many things pulling people's attention in so many different directions. If you can't keep your own attention, how are they gonna keep your their attention?

I agree. And part of it's just a little light preparation and mapping it out. We have some incredible, loan officers that, you know, do this really well. One example that I'm thinking of Rachel, I feel like we were chatting about it briefly before getting on to talk to everybody today. And it's an example of a video that was done very effectively in which you could really clearly kind of recognize, you know, 3 different points that they were trying to make in a very creative fashion over video.

Yeah. And actually, they really do a good job of bringing the hook in too. So it's not just a a typical, you know, face shot in a in the same location. They mixed up their location. We have one of our loan officers just chilling on the couch, putting his feet up. I mean, it's not a typical business style video that you would always see, but I think those disruptors are really important. Those things that are out of the norm that make you go, oh, what's this? This looks different. This doesn't look like the normal thing that they show all the time.

So we have it queued up. I'd love to show you guys. Let's watch it and then we'll come back and talk about it. Alright. Check this out. Okay. So here we have the Dan Anderson team. This is Dan Anderson and one of his loan officers, JV.

I love in the beginning that they have this little cover. It says work smarter. I'm interested. Let's check it out.

JV, seriously. I have 2 issues with you. A, you're always on your phone, nonstop. B, you keep drinking my good shit. Okay. Well, the second one I'm not gonna apologize for, but I'm actually working. So if you leave me be, I'm trying to get this preapproval done. Wait.

How are you doing a preapproval from your phone? Doing it right on the connect app. What connect app? The HMA connect app. The one I keep talking about? Yeah. The one you keep talking about. Do you know you could pull a client's credit? No. Right from your phone? I never knew that. Send out a preapproval letter right from your phone? Are you serious? Update numbers for a client right from your phone? So you're telling me all these loans that you've been doing and putting on the board are coming right from your phone or iPad? Wow. That's amazing.

Now if you leave me be.

So a little a little humor there, Rachel. Right? And you know, obviously gives you some good ideas, right, of how you can start off with a hook or grab somebody's attention in kind of a non traditional fashion of just sitting at a desk or doing something very businessy. But really the the actual point that I wanted to make there when we talk about intention, what they were trying to get across in that piece when speaking to their audience, they covered 3 points there. Right? What we just talked about, having some planning and intention behind your content. They wanted everybody to know that our the app that our our company uses, gets a preapproval letter done. You can get your credit pulled for a client, right, or customer, and then of course you can update numbers and showcase, you know, cost sheets and and things of that nature right from your phone in an app. And they effectively communicated that with just a very light conversation and back and forth. So a creative way to cover the points you wanna cover and still make sure that it's it's valuable and and it's something that somebody can get something from.

Yeah. And in a fun way. Right? JV's chilling on the couch at Dan's house drinking his good tequila and, like, you know, having a little bit of playfulness, but still having that those very important points. Again, you're hitting a lot of different areas right there that's gonna make somebody remember that. So when we saw we we were like, oh, that's great. I love that. I love that they put themselves out there, and we have a lot of loan officers that are that are doing content in this way. And over the series of the podcast, we'll definitely be be sharing some cool things people are doing, but we're talking with loan officers all the time, and this is not an easy thing.

You know, social media is one of those sticking points. I think regardless of what industry you're in, we know we need to do it. We know we need to put ourselves out there, but just the getting started can be really tough. So following these little tips can really help you kinda get out of your own way and just do it. Right? I really think another another point to mention is to really think about that end viewer. Who do you want? Who do you wanna appeal to? If you don't want first time homebuyers, if, hey, let's be real, if you feel like first time homebuyers are a little bit more difficult to deal with or maybe you love them. I don't know. But don't do a video for first time homebuyers if those aren't the clients that you want.

Yeah.

I I couldn't agree more, Rach. I mean, it's it's just taking again it's about that preparation moment. Sitting with a notepad, sitting with an email, working with your marketing consultant. Right? Take advantage of your marketing consultant's time to map out what you wanna do. You're gonna feel more confident in your presentation however it comes across, whatever piece or whatever medium you feel most comfortable using. And you know it kind of bridges on another kind of side point, I don't wanna get too off topic, but making sure that we're using different deliverables against our audience. So you know what what Joe might respond to is not the same thing that Jane is going to respond to. Okay? So if we're just doing the same thing over and over again, we might start getting that scroll effect where people are like, oh, well, you know, I I've seen, Michelle do this, you know, 10 times.

I'm just gonna keep scrolling. I don't wanna see what she has to say. Keep hitting them with something different so they're surprised. You know, if you're planning 1 or 2 posts a week, try to shake up what you're doing. So there's that element of surprise and that you're bringing something new to the table.

Yeah. Absolutely. And even I kinda touched on this a little bit more, but you reminded me and I feel like it's such an important point to drive home. Change up your location. Be outside, be in your car, be in your kitchen, be with your family, be in the office. You know, changing up the actual location is really important too so people the actual visual when people see it on your Instagram or on Facebook, content is different and then the look is different also.

And the one last thing that I think that we should probably cover too, Rachel, is kinda going through the segment of a piece. You know, we started with hook. We talked about intention points and what we wanna hit upon when we're communicating with our audience. What is the last thing that we should probably think about? Drum roll. You're the music person, Rach. Why don't why don't you hit them with the last thing that is

Most important thing is your call to action, people. Like, we have to have the call to action. Otherwise, again, you're just a cute cat meme. You can be in the same category. You have to give them something that you want them to do, whether it's as simple as, hey. Give us a a heart down below. Hey. Honestly, give us a heart down below right now, please.

Thank you.

Thank you

very much. Like and subscribe. You know, whether it's as simple as that or if it's, hey, shoot me a DM, and use the word call to action, and I'll send you my booklet. I I don't know. You can really come up with so many different things, but you have to direct people and you have to be very clear on what you want them to do.

I couldn't agree more. You're asking a question. You're asking for engagement. Maybe they're sharing a picture. They're sharing an idea. Maybe you're asking for an appointment or you're asking for a conversation. You know, we are all you know, you guys are salespeople. You know at the end, you're eventually asking for the sale.

So it's as simple as starting with, you know, social media and and getting your audience to engage to all the way through to the closing table and things that need to be handled and addressed there. But if we don't ask a question, if we don't ask for anything, we cannot expect engagement to happen. So, feel free to comment, you know, below ideas you have of CTAs, ones that you've used effectively and, know, Rachel and I have a lot of ideas too that we'd be super excited to share with you.

Show me the money. Jerry Maguire had

it right. Show me the money. Hey, here's a call to here's a call to action. Who's coming with me? Is this Not Jerry Maguire. Who's coming with me?

That's right. And guys, we're on this great journey, and we like Corinne said, we have so many great ideas to really help you. We're in the trenches with loan officers every day, and we're getting really unique ideas from people. I mean, this game is changing constantly. Social media is just getting bigger and bigger. So if this is something you're shying away from or you're just kind of dipping your toe into the social media water, I I say go all in. Jump all in, and your marketing team should be behind you a 100%. If they're not, we're always looking to connect with loan officers that are looking for something different, looking to make a change.

Feel free to DM us. If you know anybody that is just a great loan officer, great realtor, we love to expand our network. Share this podcast with us with them, share this podcast with them, and, we're always looking to to build that that entire network. I'm a big believer that iron sharpens iron, so we surround ourselves with rock stars.

Sure do. So, guys, we hope you enjoyed the segment today. We have so much more coming at you. Definitely like, share, and subscribe, and until next time.