Growing Your Social Network
As a Financial Advisor, you have to find ways to differentiate yourself from the competition. Your goal as a Supernova Advisor is to develop your practice following a concierge style of personalized service. That includes monthly contact, at a minimum, with your clients and potential clients which will demonstrate to them you value them and are grateful for their business.
If you are fortunate enough to have a company profile online you may see that. If your company name is different than your name it may not show up. If you have been published in a journal or donated to a fundraiser, played college or professional sports that could also show up in your search results. LinkedIn or Facebook links will almost always be there. Click on each of the search results and see what they say.
Do you like what you see? Does it send the right message about you? If not, there are ways to change it.
Business Web Page
Start by using your internal company resources and create a thoughtful, informative website for yourself and your team. In the content, make sure you use words that will pop-up on a search, for example ‘wealth advisor’, ‘financial planning’, ‘high standard of service’, ‘limited number of clients’, specialties you work with like ‘401(K) plans’ or ‘retirement planning’. Have a professional photo taken of your individual team members and a group shot if you have room for it. Every word is important and communicates your brand.
LinkedIn
If your company will allow it, go to LinkedIn and join as an individual and as a business group. Be sure to follow the steps to add your photo, invite people to connect and have a few endorsements. Set up a schedule to add a new comment or link to an informative article at least once a month.
After signing up for LinkedIn the first step is building your profile. Your public profile describes your career history, education and other related content you want to publish. You can enhance your profile by adding sections for volunteering, experience, patents, publications and more. LinkedIn will prompt you to add this information and keep track of what you are missing. When writing your profile make sure you add your current role as a financial advisor and how you help clients reach their goals. Include your process and your (hopefully) low number of client that you serve with monthly contact, multi-generational planning and rapid response to client questions. Include personal information and accomplishments that will help build trust and make you approachable. Don’t forget to reach out to your Centers of Influence and clients and make sure you are connected with them on LinkedIn. This is a valuable exercise that will give you a more approachable profile.
Publish Your Thoughts
Write articles to be published in financial journals, industry publications or trade magazines associated with your target markets. As far-fetched as it may sound, even major publications, like the Wall Street Journal, are always on the lookout for new perspectives. This will give you good exposure and further establish your name.
Facebook
Finally consider a Facebook page or Twitter account. You can set up Facebook either as a family, individual or a business. If it is of a personal nature make sure you set your privacy settings accordingly so people doing a search for you can see your profile on Facebook but nothing else. This is where people see the human side of you. Post photos of your pets, sports activities you are involved with or charities you support. This is also a good way for your kids to be on Facebook with you controlling what they post.
Twitter
Twitter can be used by advisors to tweet the latest news, an update on market activity, or share personal accomplishments. Keep it short; tweets are limited to 140 characters. Invite your clients to sign up for your tweets. Just remember, Twitter is a time commitment – you will have to tweet once a day or at least once every couple of days to make it effective.
If you are short on time, “hoot suite” is a paid service you can use to schedule your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other social media messages. Set aside one hour a month to write them and then use this service to schedule them to go out when you want. You can try assigning members of your team a day or week to be responsible for content. Just make sure you approve it before it goes out. After you have published notice how many ‘likes’ or comments you get. Send those individuals a personalized note thanking them for taking the time to read them.
TO SUMMARIZE:
- Have a presence in social media and on the internet
- Take a professional photograph for LinkedIn and your business webpage
- Send out regularly scheduled articles or thoughts
- Set a date on your calendar to review and update your webpage, LinkedIn and Facebook profile once a month