In 2020, there are 3.5 billion on social media, so if you aren’t utilizing your social platforms, you are really missing out! However, we get it, social media accounts can be hard to start and manage, especially when you already have so much on your plate. So, that’s why we are taking it back to the basics of social media and helping you to get started and maintain a strong social presence for your firm.
In this webinar, Twenty Over Ten Chief Marketing & Business Development Officer, Samantha Russell discusses the basics of social media, what platforms you should be on depending on who you are targeting and the best practices for using the platforms. If you missed the webinar, click here to watch the replay and don’t forget to take a look at the slides, as well!
Key Misconceptions About Using Social Media
The main thing that we hear is that using social media is a waste of time and there is no ROI. Well, we wanted to take a look at an individual advisor story, Anthony Ruffalo, and show just how useful social can really be. I wanted to share his story. He is a CFP®, he works and operates with LPL. He just got started on LinkedIn last year, so his first post was February 18, 2019. He had 3 views but he wanted to do an experiment and see how posting on that platform could make a difference. So, he wrote 307 posts in 2019. He went from 300 to 1,958 followers and his average views went from July of 2019 went from 554 views in December, 2,226 views. He has produced the largest grown in Net new assets in 10 years and added 8 new households. He talks very “real,” and uses emojis, etc. He is very straightforward and candid, which many people respond well too.
Key Takeaways:
- If you are posting, you probably aren’t posting enough. Daily needs to be the mantra. You need to be posting a lot to really see engagement.
- You need to be authentic. There are certain posts that are very candid and in your face and that’s ok, bc he wants to attract a certain type of person.
79% of advisors say their use of social media has led to them winning new accounts, with an average asset gain of $4.6 million.
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We’ll tell you the most important tasks to complete daily, weekly and monthly so you don’t miss a beat.
What is the Average Time that Adults spend on social media per day?
The average adult spends 11.6 hours a day on media. A smartphone constitutes almost 2 and a half hours, so social media is a big chunk of that. You need to have relevant timely information where people are going to be checking.
Keep in mind:
Social Media doesn’t “just happen”
Social media traffic and followers take time to grow and nurture
Your audiences don’t know you exist yet
The Good News:
Social media is a strong and reliable source of the traffic to your owned channels (blog, website, landing pages, etc.) Once you’ve built an audience they’ll stick around and recommend you to others
what social media platforms should financial advisors be on?
Facebook
Facebook is where you go to target retirees and pre-retirees. 50 and older is one of the largest growing user segments on Facebook.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is where you go if you are focusing on people in their working years.
Twitter
Twitter is where you go to connect with other journalists, advisors, best practices, etc. It’s not where you really go to get clients. It’s a great place to get featured or to be seen as an expert, etc.
Twitter vs. Facebook for your business
YouTube
I think every business should have a YouTube channel. It’s the second largest search engine after Google. It’s a growing platform, people go there to search for so many different things. It’s a great place to build a following. If you aren’t comfortable writing, it’s a great avenue to record, give a tutorial, talk about something, upload it to youTube.
There hasn’t been an easy way to monitor it, and there are a lot o independent RA. It’s highly visual content. The average age of the user is going up month after month on that platform. There is a huge opportunity, you just need to be able and willing to make high-quality imagery to then link back to your post. You can use a tool like Canva to make an image of something and then link back to your blog post.
Should you have a personal or a business account?
In general, across all platforms, I recommend that you have a business and individual profiles. People connect and respond better to an individual than the ydo a company. Having the accounts in your own name is really good for engagement. On the other hand, if you have a company and you still want to claim those company accounts, you’re still going to be able to control that backlink. You want them to see your LinkedIn page and some of those other things.
You should be aware that on Twitter, Instagram and other platforms, if you register as a business, you get more detailed analytics than if it is a personal account. So, I recommend both.
What About Compliance?
Compliance is something we have to pay attention to, and it’s just a part of the deal.
- Use an archiving tool (like Lead Pilot 😉 ) Everything you deploy through Lead PIot is archived, but if you don’t use that, just make sure everything is archived so in the case of an audit, you are covered.
- Bulk Submit content to your compliance team ahead of time. If you need to post a lot, do it in bulk, so it’s ready to be scheduled and sent. Also, make it easier on the compliance team.
- Any time you add a new social platform included it in your Form ADV.
- Have a policy in place & train all of your employees
- Don’t make recommendations, predictions or projections
- Make sure your Form ADV includes any accounts you control – Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, etc.
- Add a disclaimer on profiles clarifying that none of the information provided should be construed as investment advice
- You can turn off commenting & messaging if required by your compliance team
What And When Should I Share?
The number one rule of thumb is the 60/40 ratio rule. You need to actually be social and be an active part of the community and get other people to do the same for you. So, 60% is engaging with others and 40% Is posting your own content.
- Like other people’s posts
- Like others’ comments on your posts
- Reply to others’ comments on your posts
- Comment on others’ posts
Only a small percentage of it should be self-promotional. everything else should be inspirational, motivational or funny. The majority of what you post should be informative.
Once a day is what is suggested for Facebook posts.
On LinkedIn, once a day is suggested. I actually don’t always agree with that. I think one a day is a great cadence. If you have a personal account you can post up to 3 times a day as long as you are providing value.
For Twitter, our third-party research suggests up to 15 tweets per day.
YouTube
One video a day is suggested. We find the sweet spot for us is once a week. We use a video tool called Loom, which allows you to record it and upload it. It’s a great tool that you can use.
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The third-party research we found, suggests twice a day.
How do you provide content that is real and of value that people want to engage with?
- Include images, GIFs or videos
- Ask questions
- Ask people to “comment below”
- Share stories
- Create slideshows
- Use hashtags and tags (mentions) for broader reach
- Curate content from other sources in your industry
If you don’t know what hashtag to use, you can start typing one and see. Be aware of what are consumers and investors going to be searching for, and what phrases or words are they going to be searching for? See what the are using, if they are getting a lot of traction and use those.
a financial advisor’s guide to using hashtags on social media
Algorithms want to see people commenting, liking and engaging with your posts. If you can get people to comment on your post, then you will stay at the top of the feeds. When people comment, you want to get back to them as fast as possible and actually respond.
Another thing you can do if you have a profile on Twitter or something you can do something interactive like a poll. If you can add graphics, imagery, etc. that will really post engagement.
How to boost your click-through & engagement rates with imagery
Use Hashtags and Tagging
If you tag people, you generally get a lot more engagement. It’s a really important strategy to increase engagement. Another thing you can do is a roundup, we do a “Five Little Things for Your Monday” post, s then when we go to post, we tag all of the accounts that we included in our roundup.
If you are starting from scratch with a social following, this is a great way to do it. People love to be quoted, mentioned, etc.
If you are really entrenched in a small community, he started every Friday a “What is there to do in town this weekend? He started tagging restaurants, etc. and they all started retweeting, sharing, etc. If you really want to build your content you really need to use hashtags and tag people. It’s a way to be seen more.
What are the Platform Nuances?
LinkedIn:
- Join LinkedIn groups
- Use hashtags were appropriate – no more than 3 and be ultra-specific
- Rewards users who post videos natively
- Prioritizes distributing content that’s hosted directly on its site over content that links out to another website (use their publishing platform)
- Follow 60/40 rule
Facebook:
- Most popular channel for 50+
- Join Facebook groups
- Invite your personal friends to like your business page
- Boost posts that perform well
- Add a CTA (call-to-action) button over your cover page
- Remove URLs from post text (followers can click on the generated thumbnail instead)
- Follow 60/40 rule
- Follow industry influencers
- @ replies to get more attention
- Use hashtags were appropriate – no more than 2
- Retweet and like others posts
- Use emojis
- 280 character word count limit when posting natively
- Follow 60/40 rule
Instagram:
- Longer-form videos belong on IGTV
- Add location tags
- Include hashtags (up to 10) as a comment
- Add alt text
- Comment and like other people’s posts
YouTube:
You can get views on YouTube honestly if you pay a bit, like a cent or two per view.
- Add captions
- Add links & transcript into the video description
- Add 2-3 hashtags (to bottom of video description)
- Pin your own comment at the top-encourage engagement
- Play to the algorithm – ask team members to like/comment when you post a new video
- Create playlists
- Customize end screen
What Tools Do I Need?
When thinking about social, this is just our tools to consider that we have in general. One of the things you will notice is that Lead Pilot is on all these. We wanted advisors to have one tool for everything, but that being said if you are using tools and you aren’t ready to make the change, then we suggest these other tools.
Email:
- Lead Pilot
- Mailchimp
- Constant Contact
-
Social Scheduler:
- Lead Pilot
- Hootsuite
- Co-Schedule
Landing Pages:
- Lead Pilot
- Lead Pages
- Unbounce
-
Graphics:
- Lead Pilot
Canva -
-
Content
-
- Write your own
- Get from a library (Lead Pilot)
- Curate (NYtimes, WSJ)
- Hire a writer (Upwork, Writers Access)
Introducing Lead Pilot
Lead Pilot is a separate stand-alone tool that anyone can purchase. You don’t have to be a Twenty Over Ten customer. It is meant to replace all the other pieces of your digital marketing tech stack. You can upload any of your original content. That could even be things lie adding in a video.
The content is completely editable to make it specific to your firm, even if you use the content that is already in there. You can put in keywords and phrases that re going to get noticed more in social media. Once you save it, you can preview it. All of the pieces you deploy from Lead Pilot, you deploy on the landing pages.
It can be hard to have different messaging for different audiences, so this really helps with that. When you are ready to share, you can upload it to the social scheduler. You can tag people, add hashtags, in the scheduler, you can schedule it out to go to the other email lists that you may have.
How do I know which platform is worth my time, and you can actually see these at a glance? You can check a dashboard and see how everything is performing. You can see which content is performing best, etc.
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We actually can score prospects in Lead Pilot with their Lead score, as well, so you can see which people you really want to cater to and focus on. You can click on the history of something, so you can send them hyper-specific content as a follow-up. You can get insights into that person.
If you have Riskalyze connected, you can even send people content based on their risk score. So, you have access to videos, content, infographics.
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