Rob Birgfeld: Amplify Community Banking With Local Influencers

In the age of digital noise and national-scale marketing budgets, community banks continue to stand out by doing what they’ve always done best: building authentic relationships. 

But in today’s hyperconnected world, there’s a new set of allies ready to help tell that story. They’re the yoga teacher with 10,000 Instagram followers, the high school football coach with a devoted Facebook audience and the hometown entrepreneur whose TikToks about life in your community go viral.

These are local micro-influencers, and they may hold the key to unlocking a new level of visibility and trust for community banks.

Local influence matters now more than ever

While big banks chase scale, we win with proximity, familiarity and trust. This trust is built on genuine human connection—the same reason why local influencers are so powerful. 

Unlike national influencers with millions of followers and glossy sponsorships, micro-influencers (typically with 1,000 to 50,000 followers) boast higher engagement rates and credibility, particularly in niche or community-centric spaces. 

Recent studies show micro-influencers are outperforming their macro counterparts, generating higher engagement and creating a powerful advantage for community banks seeking authentic connections in their local markets.

Community banks have long operated under the banner of “relationship banking,” but traditional relationship building requires a more deliberate approach in a digital world.

Enter relationship marketing, powered by local influencers. When a respected figure in the community shares their positive experience with a local community bank, it resonates in a way traditional advertising cannot.

Consider this scenario: A popular local food blogger documents her journey of getting a small business loan from a community bank to open her first café. Her followers, who already trust her recommendations on where to eat, now see the bank not as a faceless institution but as a local partner empowering her dream. 

Results we can bank on

In April 2025, ICBA executed an influencer pilot campaign during Community Banking Month to validate this idea. We worked with eight micro-influencers across Instagram and TikTok, targeting millennials and Gen Z with authentic content about community banking. 

The campaign generated 8.4 million impressions, attracted more than 600,000 video views and delivered a positive lift across our key audience metrics: awareness (+15 points), consideration (+17 points) and action intent (+24 points). 

Even better, ICBA’s influencer campaign proved to be more cost efficient than our previous traditional digital marketing test campaign. While large financial institutions focus on creating viral moments with national personalities, community banks are poised to create relationship wins by starting small and staying local.

Your customers are online, scrolling through feeds filled with content from people they trust. The question isn’t how to meet them there, but how to become part of the conversation authentically. As younger generations seek values-aligned financial institutions, banks that show up authentically in the digital spaces where these consumers live will win hearts and wallets.

Trust wins every time

You’ve spent years investing in your community. Local influencer marketing simply helps more people discover what your existing customers already know: that you’re the bank that truly cares about this place and these people.

The community banker’s marketing playbook is evolving. But the core principle remains unchanged: trust, earned locally, wins every time. In a time when relationships are increasingly mediated by screens, you can partner with local influencers to bring human warmth back into the digital equation. Your next great brand ambassador is probably already inspiring your town and might even be a customer already. Isn’t it time you reached out?

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