Many financial advisors and small business owners want to effectively leverage social media marketing to generate more clients and sales. Yet since they lack a clear understanding of what to do with social media, how to do it and even where to start, they oftentimes get lackluster results.
So let’s start with who is actually using social media. All young people right? WRONG! According to the PEW Research Center: Almost half (49%) of all online adults 65 and older use social networking sites and close to two-thirds (65%) of those 50-64 years old use them. This in addition to all of the tech-dependent Millennials and Gen ‘X’ and Gen ‘Y’ers. So, bottom line, your clients and potential clients are using social media.
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Next, let’s discuss where to begin. You can choose between LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest, Vine, Tumblr and more. There are many other social networking sites as well that may focus on various niches.
The best approach is to focus your efforts on just one social site initially. It’s common to think that you need to have many sites going all at once (ex. Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.), and while there are benefits to having multiple social channels, it oftentimes is best to focus on just one. Once you have your strategy perfected on that one social sites, then expand it to the other sites. It’s oftentimes best to start with either Linkedin or Twitter. These social sites are where most prospects tend to go to explore personal finance topics and interact with industry experts.
Take it one step at a time at a comfortable pace. You don’t have to spend all day on your social media channels to get good results. Actually, simply investing about 15 minutes everyday will yield good results over time.
So what should you do with those 15 minutes each day? Read about what your connections (and competitors) are up to, reply to comments, engage in any discussions and share your own updates. As you do this more and more, you’ll become more in tune with your market and more comfortable with the process.
Locate your clients, colleagues and trusted industry experts that are active on social media and follow them. Pay attention to what others are saying and sharing. You’ll learn a lot more about how they think, operate and what their true concerns and interests are. Look for any gaps between what your clients and prospective clients want to know and what other expert advisors are saying. This is your opportunity to provide unique value and content and establish yourself as a ‘Go To Expert’.
Next, focus on attracting followers. You want to get you existing clients to follow you on social media obviously yet also new potential clients as well. Have your social links displayed prominently on your website, post links in your email newsletters, on your mailers and more. For attracting new followers, encourage your existing connections to like, retweet and share your content with their social connections.
A word about your content, good content, people will want to read. Yet great content, people will share. This is key if you want to grow your business and have effective financial advisor lead generation results. A well designed social media strategy can generate a following of thousands (and a flow of prospective clients) relatively quickly.
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Leverage curated content as well. You don’t have to always post our own content. There are many good authors and blogs online with great topics and content. Post their articles, share or retweet them along with a 1 -3 sentence opinion of the article. Share with your followers what you liked, agreed with or disliked and don’t agree with about the piece. This keeps your fans engaged, keeps you top of mind with them and continues to build you as the ‘Go To Expert’ in the minds of both your existing and prospective clients as well.
So invest 15 minutes and start implementing the plan we recommended above. Once you’ve done it for a time, you’ll have the hang of it and will be on your way.
If you’d like some help putting a social media strategy for your firm and even implementing it, contact us for a FREE 30 minute strategy session.
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