The Financial Brand looked at over 500 different bank and credit union Facebook pages, saving the best profile images for you to study and use for inspiration. Here are 75 examples.
Click through to the last page in this article to see a special collection of The Financial Brand’s favorites.
Build Your Reputation
Say something interesting about your organization. Share your philosophy or approach. Express your mission, vision and values.
More: Benchmarking Facebook Likes: Industry Averages for Banks & Credit Unions
Promote Your Products & Services
You don’t have to be in users’ faces with rates and terms (although that is now allowed on Facebook). Some of these examples are fun, more gentle ways to promote products. Others are hardcore, sales-focused ads.
Read More: Financial Marketers Benefit Big As Facebook Quietly Eases Rules
Pictures of Plastic
Debit and credit cards are the most common point of interaction between consumers and their bank or credit union. Plastic products are the face of the modern banking institution. The good news for Facebook marketers is that they lend themselves to a myriad of creative uses. You can play with the pictures that go on the cards or the background behind the card. You can stack the cards, use them as props, twist them in varying perspectives, you name it.
Show Off Mobile Devices
Just about anything looks cool on an iPad or iPhone. Incorporating mobile devices in not only fairly easy from a creative/executional standpoint, they send an important message: “See, we offer the kind of technology you’ve come to expect from your financial provider these days.”
More: Social Media Power 100 Rankings for Banks & Credit Unions
Simple Text & Graphics
You don’t need a big expensive ad agency just to create cool, professional images for your Facebook profile. Sometime simplicity is the best way to go — a background texture with type, or a logo magnified so large that it becomes its own design element. A little color and a visual element from your brand identity is all your need.
More: Social Media Power 100 Rankings for Banks & Credit Unions
Zoom In
Many Facebook profile images are too busy, cluttered with too much information — too much going on. You can “calm your page down” a few degrees by zooming in on the subject of your Facebook image. Some rather ordinary objects can rise to a whole new level of significance — and visual interest — simply by cropping in tighter. Use “selective focus” (a fancy photography term for “foreground in focus, everything else blurry”) to create an added layer of drama.
People Photos
You hear financial institutions talk about how banking isn’t a numbers business, it’s a “people business.” Reflect this philosophy in your Facebook Cover photo. Nothing engages human curiosity more than pictures of other people’s faces. You can show one customer/member or many. You can show one employee or many. NAB puts pictures up of its social media team.
More: Social Media Power 100 Rankings for Banks & Credit Unions
Sweeping Scenics & Stunning Panoramas
If you’re a local bank or community credit union, why not highlight your connection to the area by celebrating local landmarks in your Facebook profile photos?
Make Your Brand The Hero
Banks and credit unions love using photos of their branches and HQ as their Facebook Cover image. The Financial Brand estimates that approximately 25% of all financial institutions go this route, perhaps because these are the kinds of images most marketers have conveniently laying around (or maybe a branch photo is the only high quality photo they possess). But you should avoid using photos of your buildings because they send a cold, corporate, lifeless message — “We are an ‘institution.’”
If you struggle finding the right photo for your Facebook profile and/or you just need a placeholder image, at least don’t be boring. Do something interesting, like zoom in on an architectural detail — presumably your logo, or a building sign. You can take photos like these with an ordinary digital camera.
Get Artsy and Be a Minimalist
The less said about this approach, the better 😉
Create a Collage
In Photoshop, you can assemble a series of images to tell a bigger story than just one image will allow. You can blend photos of people, places and things. You can add layers, texture and messaging as well.
Illustration
There are a lot of different ways to get illustration on your Facebook page. You can either find some stock illustration at a site like Getty. You can hire a designer/illustrator. You can solicit works of art from customers/members. Or you can have a contest for user-submitted images.
Happy Holidays
You can create seasonally themed profile images for your Facebook page, although you shouldn’t overdo it. Pick one or two — no more than three — holidays a year and make a festive Facebook Cover image. Even tricky, sensitive religious holidays like Christmas can be handled with secular tact: snowmen, snow flakes, colorful decorations, candy canes and language like “Seasons Greetings” or “Happy Holidays.”
The Financial Brand’s Favorites
First Direct – Conversational Community Coolness
Latitude 32 Credit Union – Nothing Get People’s Attention Like Money
Missouri Credit Union – Wanna See a Piggybank Flung Into a Brick Wall?
Orange County’s Credit Union – Rainbow of Numbers
Rogue FCU – Great Product Promo (Summer Toy Loan Sale)
Pima FCU – Minimalist Creativity
Washington State Employees Credit Union – Awesome People Photos
