34.9 million people¹ in the UK are on LinkedIn, making it an incredibly important platform to consolidate your reputation, share value-adding content, and find new clients.

But there’s a problem; we keep seeing financial advisers/planners making the same basic mistakes.

Those mistakes mean:

• The time they spend on LinkedIn will be used less productively
• They won’t maximise the undoubted opportunities that LinkedIn offers
• Advisers/planners who know how to use LinkedIn properly will get ahead of them.

So what are these mistakes? And, equally importantly, what’s the solution?

Mistake #1: Not building a great profile

Even if you’re not actively using LinkedIn to promote your business, you still need a great profile.

Why?

Because prospective clients, including those recommended to you, will search for you online before getting in touch. Some are looking for basic information, like your contact details, while others have been recommended to more than one adviser/planner so are researching both options before deciding who to contact.  These prospects will search for your name and/or your business name.  Either way, they need to be able to find you easily and be impressed by what they see.

If they search for your name, your individual team page on your firm’s website and your VouchedFor profile should appear at the top of the search results.  And, so should your LinkedIn profile.

However, many profiles are unloved:

• The adviser/planner’s profile picture isn’t visible
• The banner is set as the default image, or some meaningless picture has been added
• The profile doesn’t explain in detail what you do, who you do it for and why people use you.

A shabby and unloved profile won’t impress prospects who visit it. Fortunately, there’s an easy solution, which we’ll give you in a minute.

Mistake #2: Only talking about themselves

Too many advisers/planners only use LinkedIn to post humble brags about themselves. We all know the type. They’ll pop up when they have passed an exam, received a positive online review, or been nominated for an award. Only to bugger off until the next time it happens.

It never occurs to them that they should also be adding value or sharing knowledge.

Meanwhile, the advisers/planners who use LinkedIn most effectively understand the need for balance. They spend most of their time adding value and sharing knowledge with their connections, only posting about themselves relatively infrequently.

Mistake #3: Not building their network

Most people believe that their number one activity on LinkedIn should be posting.

Sure, it’s important to post consistently, but you also need to increase the number of people who potentially see what you’ve got to say.

So, as well as posting regularly, you also need to consistently grow your network with new connections.

That means you should:

1. Connect with all clients (most advisers/planners don’t do this), professional connections and every new prospect when they initially make an enquiry. Most advisers/planners don’t connect to prospects, but it’s an important part of the nurturing process.
2. Go through your diary each week and connect to everyone who you’ve spoken with.
3. Send unsolicited connection requests (this is the one people often don’t like, but it genuinely works and it’s the key to quickly building your connections). Use the LinkedIn search to look for people who might make ideal clients. Then send a connection request, with a polite covering note explaining why you want to connect and that they won’t get spammy sales messages from you.

Do all three every week, until you hit your connection request limit (about 200 every 7 days) and you’ll very quickly increase the number of people who see your posts.

Mistake #4: Trying to hack the algorithm

LinkedIn is packed with “gurus” and “experts” talking about the algorithm.

In fact, there’s so much noise that it:

• Causes posting paralysis (“Am I doing this right?”)
• Distracts advisers/planners from doing what’s important
• Leads to confusion, because so much of the information is contradictory.

So, instead of obsessing about beating or hacking (urgh!) the algorithm, use your LinkedIn time more productively by doing these three things consistently:

1. Posting regularly, focusing on adding value by sharing your knowledge
2. Engaging with other peoples’ posts by reacting, commenting and sharing (in the right way)
3. Building your audience by connecting with your clients, professional connections, people you’ve interacted with over the past week AND sending unsolicited requests.

So, that’s 4 mistakes, here’s the solution. 

The solution: Sign up to next week’s workshop – How to use LinkedIn effectively in 2023

The workshop is interactive and practical. You’ll leave with a list of things you can start doing immediately that’ll have an immediate impact.

During the workshop you will:

• Understand the components of a good profile, both personal and corporate
• Develop your understanding of how to write value-adding posts, with examples
• Be taught how to build your network with ideal clients and professional connections
• Learn why engaging with the wider community is important, and how to do it
• Explore peripheral elements of the platform that are often overlooked
• Have time to ask any questions and look at other areas of interest.

After the workshop, you will be sent:

• The slides
• A recording so you can watch the session back
• Our LinkedIn scorecard, so you can check your profile is in tip-top condition
• Any extra resources you’ll find useful that we’ve shared during the session.

The workshop will take place on Wednesday 7 June from 10am to 1pm, broken up into three 55-minute blocks, with short comfort breaks in between.

We can only accommodate 30 people on this workshop.

So, if you want to attend, head to this link, fill in your details and we’ll send you a personalised invitation to the workshop.

We’ve spoken a lot about LinkedIn over the last year or so, and we’re really excited to share what we’ve discovered with you. Look forward to seeing you there!

1. Source: Statista December 2022 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1314310/uk-linkedin-users/)