Social Media Marketing for the Everyday Advisor

Social media has enabled financial advisors to market in entirely new ways.  Some of the most effective marketers are using blogs, internet radio, video blogs, ebooks and webcasts to attract clients and gain exposure.  But what about those advisors who would like to dip their toes into social media marketing without too much fuss?  For those advisors, social media can be used to further the exposure of marketing already in place.

The Strategy
The most basic social media marketing strategy can be summarized as this: connect with people and then provide them with compelling content that will make them want to learn more about you and your business.  That’s really all there is to it.  You can accomplish this strategy in just two steps.  Step one is choosing the right social networking sites that reach your target market.  Step two is creating the content that will drive the audience to want to learn more about your business.  While each networking site will have its own intricacies, this is a general strategy that can be applied to most forms of social media. 

Step 1: Find Your Target Market
Unless your target market is over the age of 65, you should be able to find plenty of networking sites with potential clients.  Even if your target market is over 65, there is still a chance of finding some prospects on social media sites.  If you are not a social media marketing guru and don’t have the time to maintain profiles on several sites, I suggest you find one or two that work for you.  Wikipedia has a list of major social networking websites you can browse to determine which ones might be the best for finding your target demographic.  Once you have picked a few sites that sound like they might be good, visit www.quantcast.com for specific demographic information.  You will be able to find information about users’ age, gender, education, and income which will help you determine if a site is right for you.  Don’t assume that just because a site is popular, it will be effective for you.  If your target market is Baby Boomers, a site like Eons.com (http://www.quantcast.com/eons.com#demographics), which you may have never heard of, but which is designed for Boomers, will probably be a lot more effective than a popular site like MySpace (http://www.quantcast.com/myspace.com#demographics). Also, don’t overlook micro-blogging sites like Twitter (http://www.quantcast.com/twitter.com#demographics) which brings millions of people together into a community.  If all of this is still too much research, LinkedIn is usually a good place to start since it caters to affluent business professionals, an appealing demographic for most advisors (http://www.quantcast.com/linkedin.com#demographics). 

Once you have chosen a site, it’s up to you to start connecting with as many people as possible.  Each site has its own mechanism for doing this, so you will have to take time to learn the ins and outs of the site you have chosen. 

Step 2: Provide Compelling Content
Let’s assume you aren’t interested in creating any new content just for your social media marketing strategy and you want to leverage your existing marketing.  This is quite doable; in fact, I suggest you start this way if you are new to using social networking as a marketing tool. Start by taking inventory of your marketing.  Do you host any events, live or online, for your clients or prospects?  If so, you can promote your events on your chosen social networking site.  Do you write articles for your client newsletter?  Submit links to these articles for discussion.  Do you host a radio show?  Ask the station to provide you with a copy of the recordings to post on your social networking site profile page.  Have you made a television appearance on the local news? You can embed the video in your profile or share the link with a group.  Do you have PowerPoint presentations or other documents that you use as marketing tools?  You can use applications like SlideShare to share these documents and slides with your network.  Each site will have its own capabilities and you may not be able to accomplish all that I have discussed, but it gives you an idea of how you can easily integrate your current marketing with social networking sites. 

When choosing which content to share, make sure that you choose compelling information.  Rarely does a prospective client choose an advisor after one interaction.  They key to your success using this strategy will be to entice the prospect to visit your content over and over again.  Eventually, you will be regarded as a trusted subject matter expert. 

Tools to Help You
 If you are just getting started with your social media marketing strategy, I have developed a worksheet to help you focus your efforts.  It is a simple worksheet but it is designed to make you define your social media strategy.  If you are interested in specific advice on using LinkedIn and Twitter, visit past blogs I’ve written on these topics:

Twitter Your Way to New Clients, Part One and Part Two

How to Use LinkedIn to Market Your Buisness, Part One and Part Two

Compliance Alert!
As always, I have to remind you that you should speak with your compliance department prior to implementing any of these strategies.    Social media can be considered advertising so you need to ensure that you are following all of the necessary rules and regulations.

Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, a firm dedicated to providing marketing advice and support for financial advisors. Kristen works with independent advisors to develop effective marketing plans and provides the back office support required to implement the strategies. For more information, visit www.WealthManagementMarketing.net.