How to Build Your Business through Social Media
Social media offers a huge opportunity for business development. It is a personal way to gain a broad reach over your target market while interacting in a social yet business-focused way. This article will outline the general guidelines that advisors should follow as well as provide basic tips for success on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
Social media guidelines
Financial advisors have the opportunity to reach prospects from many demographic groups on social media, from Gen Y and Xers to Baby Boomers. Many of the spheres of influence around your prospective clients are likely to engage with social media outlets, even if not all of your current or prospective clients are active on social media. For example, while retired people may not be frequent users of LinkedIn, their CPAs and estate attorneys may be. Also, keep in mind that the children of retirees, many of whom are of the Gen X or millennials demographic, may be more avid users of these platforms.
Other spheres of influence that reach retired and high-net-worth clients are worthy of mention. For those advisors who are looking to gain brand awareness from their audience through press appearances, it’s important to note that social media has changed the face of PR. Many reporters and podcast hosts who formerly would have been only accessible to well-connected PR agents are now reachable through their Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.
Remember: the more you can convey a genuine enthusiasm for what you are doing, the more likely other people are to feel the same way. The written word can be easily misinterpreted, so be empathetic, read the words back to yourself, and try to imagine what the person receiving the message may think.
Empathetic communication
When posting to social media, keep your communication style conversational and relatable, almost as if you are talking to someone at a networking event. Try to maintain a warm and friendly tone so that the person on the other side of the screen can relate to you on a human level.
Engaging imagery
Much of the financial advisor imagery on social media is obtained from generic stock photo sites. Authentic photography of you, your team and your clients will convey a more personal connection with your audience. If you opt to design custom images for social media, consider enlisting the help of a professional designer.
Benefit-focused profile
Most financial advisor LinkedIn profile pages tend to say the same thing (number of years in the industry, fiduciary role, helps with investment advice and financial planning, etc.). Take the opportunity to differentiate yourself by naming a specific niche, if any, that you serve.
Focus on the benefits of what you do for other people rather than touting your professional credentials. Do this in the summary field at the top of your LinkedIn profile and in the headline field. This is where readers tend to focus more of their attention. Your credentials will be displayed in the experience and educational fields at the bottom of the page.
Tailored content
When publishing posts on social media, focus on how you can help investors reach their financial goals. Developing content, including videos and images, which resonates and delves deep into a particular subject may help set you apart. General content on a variety of subjects may not carry as much meaning for the potential client. For example, if you focus on income generation for retirees, try posting the following articles to your profile page:
- An article from a CPA about reducing taxes paid on retirement income streams
- A quarterly sneak peek article that talks about what people should be doing each quarter to augment their retirement income
- A video about common mistakes people make in the process of estimating how much income they will need in retirement
Make sure to post this content as a “media” piece on your LinkedIn page as opposed to just a posting in your feed – this way, it becomes a permanent part of your profile. On Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn business pages, you are able to “pin” a post or tweet to the top of your feed so that it stands out more. If a person nearing retirement age were to visit your page, it would be clear that you stand to offer him or her more than a financial advisor who hasn’t taken the time to create this valuable content.
Answering common questions you receive from clients or prospective clients can go a long way. A simple Q&A video or article can help address investors’ initial concerns about choosing the right financial advisor. Brainstorm the top five questions you receive on an ongoing basis and develop engaging content that addresses them. You can repurpose this content in a variety of ways, especially if it is evergreen.
Aim for interaction
Content that gets the highest engagement typically gets the most visibility. Your goal with every action you take on social media should be to obtain a response or reaction from your target audience. Here are a few examples:
- Share an article that a CPA wrote with an insightful comment that reflects a deep understanding of what the CPA is discussing.
- Depending upon your compliance rules, you may or may not be able to like other people’s content. If you can, try liking content from someone whose attention you want. You may likely get their attention by doing this consistently.
- Invite the audience to comment on your postings (again, if your compliance permits it). People will often pay more attention to the comments on a particular post than the actual post, especially if the comments are insightful or humorous.
Don’t forget about hashtags
Adding hashtags to a post (example: #retirementplanning) will provide the platform with more information about what your content is about. This will help improve your visibility by increasing your content’s recognition in the platform’s search engines.
Hashtags also show the audience, at a glance, what the post is about, which helps capture the reader’s attention. It also can help organize a series of postings. Clicking on a hashtag will consolidate posts (both your own and others’) that use that hashtag. This can be used for events, specific campaigns or to insert yourself into a conversation about the “hashtagged” topic. Some users follow specific hashtags that they are interested to learn more about.
Make sure to look out for double meanings, especially when it comes to acronyms, and run a quick search of a hashtag before using to see what the hashtag is associated with. For example the Pope included #Saints in a tweet after canonizing new saints, but this hashtag on Twitter automatically brings up the New Orleans Saints logo.
Messenger
You can send messages through both Facebook and LinkedIn to your existing connections. These messages are free as long as they are sent to first degree connections. If you are trying to communicate with someone who is not already connected or “friended” so to speak, there may be an additional charge, as is the case with LinkedIn’s InMail service.
Pitching a product or service or sending boilerplate language should be minimized in favor of creating a dialogue that aims to uncover the person’s needs. Messaging isn’t the same as email – messages should be shorter, no longer than a few sentences.
When posting to LinkedIn (as for any social media platform), keep text to a minimum (three sentences or less) and be sure to include a high-resolution image with each posting. It is more engaging for the audience if you vary the content between articles, videos, podcasts, surveys, etc.
LinkedIn groups pose the opportunity to connect with certain audiences, such as golf fans or luxury car lovers. The groups allow you to get to know potential clients in a more casual setting. Imagine if you were to attend a cocktail party. You wouldn’t just drop an advertisement on the group and run away, which is what people commonly do in these forums. Instead you would try to engage people in conversation and if it comes up and is welcome, you might mention what you do and how to find out more.
LinkedIn Sponsored Content is a good way to reach an extremely targeted audience. These campaigns must be run through a business page rather than your personal profile page. LinkedIn allows you to select your audience based on demographics
such as career, job title, age, geography, etc. The system to upload your content and advertisement is user-friendly and easy to navigate. Your content should be educational and add value to the reader. This will help you build trust with your potential clients and further develop yourself as a thought leader.
When building your campaign, be sure to get your LinkedIn Ads Pixel placed on your site as soon as possible. An ad pixel allows you to start tracking the people who visit your website. This enables you to set up a Retargeting campaign so your ads can stay in front of your website visitors. A Retargeting campaign is often the most cost-effective campaign you can run.
Plus, you will want to set up conversion tracking to track any form submissions on your website or any other website action you deem valuable.
Facebook groups are a great opportunity for financial advisors who want to reach their local community. Although Facebook is a more social platform by nature, making connections here can lead to business relationships further down the line. Many financial
advisors have business pages on Facebook that are connected to their personal profile pages. Often time this allows them to convert “Facebook friends” from their personal network to followers of their business page.
Facebook, like LinkedIn, offers the ability to place content in front of various target groups for a fee. To reach high net worth clients, conduct research on the particular demographic you wish to reach, including their age, location and personal interests. It is wise to test each of these groups to determine their responsiveness to your content before investing significant advertising dollars. As in the case of LinkedIn, a business page is required to create sponsored posts.
Also, like LinkedIn, you will want to get your Facebook Pixel placed on your site as soon as possible so that you can begin building an audience. Once that audience grows a little, you can leverage it for a Retargeting campaign. Plus, once Facebook has enough data you can create a lookalike audience where Facebook can target individuals who have the same demographics and psychographics as your Retargeting audience.
One other thing to keep in mind is to test multiple images in your ads or sponsored posts. Typically, images with people tend to get the most engagement. Also, it is usually better to have fewer people with larger faces than more people with smaller faces.
Before launching any paid campaign, be sure to set up conversion tracking to track any form submits on your website or any other website action you deem valuable.
YouTube
There are several examples of financial advisors who have reaped great success in reaching retirees by posting highly informative videos about social security as well as other topics. The types of videos that do best on YouTube tend to be informative “talking head” videos in which the advisor is featured expounding upon a topic in detail using specific examples from his or her practice. For advisors who are camera shy, animated or slideshow videos are also options; however, these types of videos are less personal and tend not to do as well.
Another option is to create a whiteboard video. Write a script, and then hire a company to build a whiteboard video. They will create all the animation and the voiceover work. Vendors for these types of projects are easy to find on freelance sites, and can be surprisingly affordable.
Advisors can improve their chances of reaching their target audience on YouTube by researching keywords on Google Keyword Planner and other websites. Including these keywords in the video title and description helps optimize the video for YouTube’s search engine. These videos also may show up on Google search if they are popular enough, as YouTube is a Google product. Also, YouTube videos may be boosted as skippable in-stream ads that air during a video or as clickable ads that appear in the side bar. For example, financial advisors may place ads that come on during a video on a channel that is popular amongst Baby Boomers.
Inventory on YouTube is comparatively inexpensive. With a properly optimized ad campaign, costs per view as low as 4-5 cents are not uncommon.
Success on YouTube can be measured by the amount of likes and comments (if allowed by compliance) on the video. Looking at watch time is also important. Throughout the course of the video more than 50% of the audience should be retained. It’s also useful to assess what percentage of the time your video qualifies as “recommended content.” It can be very powerful to have your videos come up automatically as recommended to the viewer once he or she has watched a piece on a similar subject. All of these data points are available through the video dashboard (for free!) and are displayed for each video that is created.
Longer videos (>2 minutes) tend to perform better than shorter videos (15 or 30 seconds). You may be surprised to see how high a percentage of people will watch even a 5-10-minute video 50%, 75% or even 100% of the way through.
Be sure to add cards and end screens to your videos. Cards allow you to enter your website URL along with a title, call to action and descriptive text. This can show during your video to push people to your website. End screens show during the last 5-20 seconds of a video. They can show a link to another video to keep the user engaged, a message to encourage the user to subscribe to your YouTube channel or a link to your website.
Twitter is another social media networking website that may provide value to financial advisors. For example, many reporters use the platform to convey news to their audience. Twitter is a good way to interact with influencers and media in the financial services industry. By building these relationships you further your network and potential client pool. Reporters are always looking for new content and ideas. You also have the ability to advertise within Twitter, similar to LinkedIn. While you don’t have the same audience targeting capabilities, you have the ability to reach a broad and engaged audience that can help build your brand awareness.
Managing performance
Social media can become a time-intensive endeavor, so make sure you’ve determined your goals, defined an actionable strategy, and decided on a tangible key performance indicator (KPI) that will measure success.
Increasing your client base should be your ultimate KPI. However, determining exactly what brought in a new client can sometimes be hard. Consider also measuring your social media engagement over time, such as likes, shares, comments, followers gained, etc. Make a point to review this on a monthly basis at a minimum.
An important part of maximizing performance is experimenting with different kinds of content. When you see a bump in engagement, consider trying new variations on the same theme. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time. Over time you’ll see that certain topics are going to resonate more deeply – pay attention to this and it will be easier to get better results.
Track which posts get the most engagement and note the day of the week and time of day for those posts. You may find that your audience is more likely to skip over content posted at a certain time, while another time may lead to far more views, likes and comments.
Optimizing time
Many advisors may be concerned about the time commitment required to maintain an active social media regimen. Keep in mind that quality matters more than quantity. Look for signals from your audience as to what content they connect best with and produce more of it. Spend your time focusing on a smaller amount of content that will get higher likes and shares, rather than blanketing the audience with a high volume of posts that don’t resonate with them.
Consistency is important on social media, so financial advisors should make sure to maximize efficiency. One time saving measure is to consider looking into social media management tools such as Hootsuite and Buffer. These tools will allow you to input your content in once and broadcast it across multiple platforms. You can also schedule postings to publish automatically—for example, you may decide to simply set aside an hour a week to schedule a full week’s worth of posts in a single session.
Summary
There are a variety of ways that social media can be a valuable tool for financial advisors looking to create new relationships. Successful interaction alone can be enough to create new followers. Remember to put the clients’ needs first and position yourself in a way that shows people how you can help them meet their financial goals.
Generating original educational content and utilizing organic and paid social media to distribute that content may ultimately position you as a thought leader and help you build trust with your followers. Providing valuable content is key. Get the user to view you as an knowledgeable in your field. When the time comes for them to look for help or when someone asks them for a recommendation, they may remember you.