How to Move the Needle with Social Media

By Jonny Swift

Social media—done right—enhances your online presence, grows your digital following, builds credibility and authority, and reaches prospects who otherwise would never have known about you. Robust and actively populated social media profiles show up high in search results and can impress prospective clients and referral partners. Social media profiles are also a great place to feature and get more visibility for your news and announcements, as well as your thought leadership and educational content.

General Tips for Social Media 

Frequency

Stay active once established. Post at least once a week on every platform on which you have a presence—ideally two to three times a week.

What to Share

• Implement a mix of custom content (including blog posts, photos, videos, webinars, podcasts, white papers, special reports, lead magnets, and other educational content), credibility content (PR and media activity, including news releases, articles you’re quoted in, bylined articles, etc.), and personally curated content from trusted sources; use thoughtfully created canned (i.e., licensed) content if a supplement is needed.
• Feature your firm’s services, areas of specialization, or niche-focused information.
• Post content that shows the character and culture of the firm—for example, volunteering in the community, team-building events, vacations, snuggling new babies or grandbabies, pets, etc. This type of content garners high levels of engagement; audiences are eager to get to know their professional advisory team on a more human and authentic level. Also, because this type of content gets great engagement, it will lead to more visibility on your more technical or educational content because the more someone engages with your posts, the more likely they are to be shown a higher percentage of your content in the future.
• Include all the relevant details and pertinent info but try not to make posts too lengthy or wordy, or people will tune out. Start your post with an attention-grabbing statement or question, get to the heart of the message quickly, and include a clear call to action at the end.

Where to Link

• Use link previews with clickable images that lead directly to where you want to drive traffic, making it easy for users to navigate to the content you want them to digest. On LinkedIn, edit and update the title and image of link previews to be attractive, relevant, and attention grabbing.
• Don’t only drive traffic to external pages. Use “native content” that keeps viewers on the social media platform—for example, photos, graphics, uploaded videos, and PDFs of articles. While you will often want to drive people to your website or some piece of media you were featured in, social media platforms reward and increase visibility on native content that keeps users on their platform, so try to find a balance.

Engage with Others

• “Follow” and “Like” others you want to follow you and engage with their content in hopes that they will, in turn, engage with your content. “Share” posts from pages and people you support.
• “Tag” other people and pages in your posts to provide social proof, promote them, bolster credibility, encourage engagement, and cross-pollinate your audiences.
• Use topical and relevant hashtags that are popular and populated—but not so populated that your post will get lost among all the other posts using that hashtag. Don’t use more than five to seven hashtags in a single post, or else it may get demoted for being too “spammy.”
• Don’t be a braggart or a bore. Be humble even when announcing an award or milestone. Promote others as much as you promote yourself. Focus on sharing interesting and engaging content that’s a bit different from what everyone else is posting.

Try to have fun with your social media posts! Clever, humorous, and fun content, if thoughtfully created, can help you stand out.

LinkedIn Tips

A few moves can boost your visibility and network on LinkedIn.

Add “Services” and “Skills” to your personal LinkedIn profile. Services show in the header section of your profile and allow your profile to show up higher in search results when people search for those services. Identifying your relevant skills and specialties in the Skills section on your profile makes them searchable keywords that help your profile show up higher in search results. Plus, connections can endorse you for having those skills (or you can turn that feature off).

If you have a spreadsheet or an email list of contacts that you’re not yet connected to on LinkedIn, connect those databases in the “My Network” section of your account by clicking on “More options” under “Add personal contacts.” After they’ve become connections, invite them to follow your company’s LinkedIn page, which you can find in the admin view of your page. Each company page receives 100 to 250 credits (also known as “invitations”) every month, allowing page administrators to filter connections and strategically choose whom to invite.

After making a post to your company page, share the post to your personal profile by clicking the “Repost” button. You’ll have the option to simply repost it to your personal connections or to “Share with your thoughts” and add additional comments. Either way, this allows you to boost the content to a larger audience (most of us have more personal connections than company page followers) while simultaneously drawing attention to your company page, leading to more engagement and more followers.

Voice and Authenticity

Social media profiles also provide a platform to share opinions on topical issues, so use this strategy to attract prospective clients who share your beliefs. Of course, you may also drive some prospects away, but this could be a good thing. Good marketing will attract right-fit prospects while subtly repelling wrong-fit people.

As for whether to avoid or lean into tough, topical issues when posting on social media, it depends on your firm and the topic. Some businesses lean into being controversial, opinionated, or edgy on social media, especially if they serve a niche that usually agrees with those opinions; this can have a positive effect and lead to more business and great clients. However, firms that serve a broad client base with varying demographics should be more careful about weighing in on controversial topical issues. If you do wade in, try to be tasteful, present your comments as opinions rather than facts, and always be respectful of others. If presented as wanting to open a discussion, this can help the firm’s image and show you’re willing to be cordial and open-minded.

For most controversial issues and topics, it is probably safest to avoid sharing your thoughts and opinions unless you are feeling pressured or compelled to do so. For example, with #BlackLivesMatter, businesses that stayed silent were often seen as being unsupportive. So while it’s usually safer to avoid posting about topics like this, sometimes supporting a cause or stating your opinion outweighs the risk. After all, you want to be working with as many right-fit clients as possible—ideally, those with whom you share common values and beliefs.

Social Media Hygiene

It’s a good idea for advisors to review their old social media posts annually, at least. If your stance has changed on a certain topic, your messaging or service offering has changed, something isn’t relevant anymore, or you received negative reactions to certain content, then it’s a good idea to delete those posts. This is not only to remove content that no longer applies to your business or that, in retrospect, reflects poorly on you but also to clean up your profiles so that visitors focus on the content you really want to highlight.

Many advisors say they don’t have time to be active on social media or don’t see the value. But not only is it a crucial path to reach prospective clients and hone your brand image, but it’s also less time-consuming than you might think. Investing just 10 to 15 minutes a day can help you create stickier relationships with clients and fill your marketing funnel with ideal prospects.

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Jonny Swift is vice president of Impact Communications, a full-service marketing and PR firm serving independent financial advisors and allied institutions.

image credit: istock.com/JuSun