How Bell Bank got off the endless treadmill of publishing and grew engagement 40%

You know the pressure. Post more, stay visible and keep the feed full. But when you’re publishing a lot and are unsure which posts are moving the needle, posting feels like a treadmill.

That’s where Marie Obsuna, Digital Marketing Manager at Bell Bank, found her team. Bell Bank operates in three states, but its strongest presence is in its home market of North Dakota, where it has built an extremely loyal following. On Facebook, brand-focused posts and content tied to Bell Bank’s North Dakota locations consistently outperform everything else. The challenge was to get the team off the treadmill by publishing more intentionally, expanding strategic content across a range of channels with very different audiences, without losing what made the brand feel like a hometown favorite.

The problem with publishing more

Historically, Bell Bank’s social strategy leaned on high-volume publishing. But all that output wasn’t connected to meaningful engagement or business impact. The deeper issue was visibility. The team couldn’t see how different content performed, so it was hard to judge what was working or optimize it.

When they looked at other banks on Instagram, Bell saw many leaning on educational and informational content. They tried doing the same thing. It consistently underperformed with Bell Bank’s audience. Anyone who has borrowed a page from a competitor’s playbook and watched it fall flat knows the feeling. What works for the brand next door doesn’t always work for yours.

What the data revealed

Obsuna pulled together Bell’s 2025 performance recap using Sprout Social’s profile, post and paid performance reports, plus channel-specific and year-over-year views. One trend stood out: overall reach had declined, but total engagement rate across all channels had grown 40%.

“Sprout was not a passive reporting tool in this process,” Obsuna says. “It was the engine behind our strategic shift.”

Bell Bank’s followers weren’t looking for polished, corporate messaging. The data showed that they responded to:

• Culture-driven content, like employee recognition and values-based storytelling
• Milestones
• Reels
• Trend-driven posts that felt more human and less overtly “bank-related”

In parallel, Sprout’s channel-level reporting showed where each platform fit in the funnel:

• LinkedIn was the top-performing organic channel, with the highest engagement rates and the most link clicks.
• Instagram supported top-of-funnel visibility through Reels and carousels tied to cultural moments.
• Facebook continued to drive awareness and community engagement as a bottom-of-funnel traffic driver to the bank’s website.

The post that changed how leadership saw social

Every social media manager dreams of the one post that makes leadership finally understand the importance of their social strategy. In the summer of 2025, Obsuna created that post.

She identified a trend emerging from posts by several brands and made a brand-appropriate carousel that tapped into the cultural timing of The Summer I Turned Pretty.  Using the “The Summer I…” format, she developed tailored versions that highlighted different products across Bell Bank’s business lines. The post quickly became one of Bell Bank’s most engaging Instagram posts to date, generating a 67.5% engagement among users ages 25-34, significantly expanding reach beyond the bank’s typically loyal audience of users ages 45 and older.

The part that landed internally was unexpected. Senior executives’ family members were engaging with the post, which sparked organic conversations that went beyond traditional metrics. Several bankers, typically passive social media users, said their children showed them the post. Suddenly, their work and their home lives overlapped through a cultural connection point brought to life by the social media team.

This moment served as a powerful proof point for leadership, demonstrating that social intelligence can bridge the gap between our brand, cultural relevance and real human connection.

Marie Obsuna
Digital Marketing Manager at Bell Bank

For executives, it changed how they saw social media. It stopped being a tactical marketing channel and became a meaningful business driver powered by data.

An unlikely customer

That same data-driven strategy produced Bell Bank’s most viral post ever.

In April 2026, a bear was spotted running loose in Fargo, North Dakota, and passed through one of Bell Bank’s ATM drive-thrus. The security team shared the images internally, and the marketing team turned the moment into a lighthearted, pun-filled post.

What started as a silly idea spread far beyond Bell Bank’s usual audience. It effectively became a piece of local news, with people across Fargo resharing and commenting.

“It felt like we reached the entire city, and the community even joined in with their own bear puns, which made the engagement especially memorable and authentic,” Obsuna says.

Loyalty that speaks for itself

Bell Bank’s growing loyalty shows up in more than metrics. When a major financial institution acquired one of Bell Bank’s strongest competitors, the team moved quickly to position Bell Bank as the preferred alternative. Community members engaged directly with the content, shared frustrations about their existing banks and asked for recommendations. Loyal customers stepped in on their own to endorse Bell Bank in the comments.

For Obsuna’s team, getting more human meant moving past high-volume, bank-sounding content and paying attention to what their audience actually responded to. With Sprout’s analytics showing what resonated on each channel, they made more deliberate choices about what to post, and the community showed up for the brand when it counted.

Ready to see what’s really working on your channels? Sprout Social’s reporting shows you which content connects with your audience so you can publish with more intention. Book a demo.