As you may have read in Bee’s blog recently, social media can be an incredible resource for increasing brand awareness and growing your financial planning firm.
But where do you start?
If you’re tying yourself in knots trying to figure out how to do everything all the guides and gurus tell you to do, stop right there.
When it comes to marketing, taking the time to create a strategy first is the quickest and most effective way to succeed. Social media is no different.
So, rather than rushing in and trying to do everything at once, here are the five steps I’d take if I were a financial planner who had never used social media before.
1. Choose one platform you know your ideal clients use
You don’t need to be everywhere all at once. To begin with, we recommend choosing one platform and doing it well, rather than spreading yourself too thin by trying to be everywhere. Of course, you’ll want to start with the platform that your ideal clients are most likely to be using themselves.
As a general rule of thumb, LinkedIn is best for business owners and C-Suite executives who are accumulating wealth, while Facebook is more likely to be popular among people who are already retired or who are aged 40+. Instagram is for a much younger demographic – think 30s and under.
But, of course, this is a generalisation. As you’ve probably guessed, the best way to find out where your specific ideal clients are hanging out is to ask them!
We usually include a question on this in client surveys, as this is a really quick and easy way to identify the platform that is most popular among your current clients.
2. Optimise your profile so that visitors know exactly what you do and who you help
Regardless of the platform you’re using, a fully optimised and scroll-stopping profile is a must. So, take the time to ensure it tells any visitors:
- What you do
- Who you help
- Why people work with you (e.g. social proof).
Don’t forget to design a profile banner in the correct dimensions (you can usually find these by clicking the pencil icon on the banner).
If you’ve chosen to use LinkedIn, we’d recommend optimising your personal profile as these tend to perform better than company profiles. But on Instagram or Facebook, a company page will likely trump a personal profile if you’re advertising your services.
Our Definitive guide to using LinkedIn effectively has a whole section on optimising your profile for LinkedIn, and our social media team can optimise your profile for you if you’d like a hand – just get in touch here if you’d like to learn more.
3. Start growing your network of clients, prospects, and professional connections
When it comes to social media, the clue’s in the name – it’s all about being sociable! So once your profile is ready to go, the next thing I’d do as a newbie is to start connecting with existing clients, professional connections, and prospects.
If you’ve created a company profile on Instagram or Facebook, this will be as simple as inviting them to like your page.
On LinkedIn, you can add a personalised note to connection requests from your personal profile. This is limited to 5 – 10 each month on the free version, or unlimited requests if you sign up for premium. Adding a personalised note to your connection requests does seem to lead to a higher acceptance rate in our experience, but it’s not necessarily worth the cost of LinkedIn Premium if you don’t need any of the other features.
Once you’ve added your existing clients and prospects, you should continue to grow your network. Start by adding people you believe would benefit from your services or would enhance your network in some way, such as professional connections.
On LinkedIn, you can use the search function to identify people with particular job titles in a certain location. Remember to select “2nd” and “3rd” degree connections when doing so, as this will mean the search results only show you profiles of people you’re not already connected to (1st degree connections are existing connections on LinkedIn – no good if you’re searching for people to add to your network!).
4. Comment and engage with posts that are relevant to your ideal clients
Another great thing to do when you first start using social media to grow your business is to engage with others on your chosen platform. On LinkedIn, this will usually mean reacting and commenting on posts you see that are relevant to your subject of expertise or to your ideal clients.
Remember that when you comment on a post, this will show up in your connections’ news feed. So, try to stick to posts that are relevant to you and the people you want to connect with. This doesn’t necessarily mean you can only comment on financial topics, though. Posts about your local area or hobbies you have could also provide interest and help your connections get to know the real you.
5. Share posts that educate, inform, and entertain
Once you’ve mastered steps 1 – 4, the next step is to start posting. Take a deep breath; it doesn’t need to be scary!
Despite billions of people using social media across the world, there is still only a small minority who post regularly.
So, if you can consistently share relevant and useful content, you’ll stand head and shoulders above the competition. If it feels daunting, start by committing to something small. Perhaps one post a week could allow you to get started without feeling overwhelmed?
A good source of inspiration for your posts is to think about the questions you receive from your clients. Answering these questions in your posts in clear language can help prospects find you and understand how you can help them.
Don’t forget to add a little personality in there too – talk about your own background and hobbies to help prospects and clients get to know, like, and trust you.
And remember, including a personal photo on the post or a video of you speaking about a topic can really help your post fly!
You can do it – and we’re here to help
Getting started on social media can feel daunting, but by taking things one step at a time, you can drastically increase your confidence and your chances of a successful strategy.
If this all sounds a bit too much to do by yourself, though, the social media team here at Yardstick is here to help.
We can optimise your profile for you to give you a running start, or you can outsource your entire social media management to us. Just tell us a bit about yourself and your clients, and leave us to take care of everything while you get back to the work you really enjoy.
Drop us an email at hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk to learn more.
