*based on total active accounts on the top social network in each country, compared to population.
Social media is here to stay. In their report ‘Digital in 2017 Global Overview’, global agency ‘We Are Social’ and social media management platform ‘Hootsuite’ revealed that globally there are 2.789 billion active social media accounts, up 21% from 2016.
What does this mean for financial advisers?
Social media allows you to engage with a wide community, 24/7, quickly and easily. It’s a great way of showcasing what your business can do and how you can help prospective clients. You can use social platforms to drive traffic to your website, identify potential leads and generate awareness.
Here are our seven top tips on how to make the most of social media:
1. Understand how you and your business want to use social media. Common strategies are to generate new business, build loyalty amongst your clients, create awareness or showcase your professional know-how.
2. Be prepared to use social media platforms in different ways; just make sure your business objectives are aligned.
3. Create and stick to a clear process for ensuring all social media activity and communications are compliant, particularly where you are using them for financial promotions.
4. Introduce a clear set of guidelines for all employees to adhere to. These should set out the social media ‘dos and don’ts’ for your company, as well as giving guidance on personal use of social media.
5. Monitor your business profiles regularly. Customers using social media have high expectations when it comes to service, particularly around response times.
6. Take advantage of the client reviews functionality included in many popular social media platforms and encourage your clients to leave reviews. Consumers are increasingly reliant on using social and digital channels to choose financial advisers, often looking at business and personal profiles to help inform their decision.
7. Consider advertising through social media. Because social networks gather such a large amount of user information, social media advertising is able to target clients and prospective clients in a wide variety of ways. What’s more, all major social networks offer plenty of online help and tutorials, so you don’t need a marketing agency to get started.
Messenger apps
Social media is more than just Facebook, YouTube, WeChat and Twitter. Messenger apps are growing in popularity, overtaking all other platforms bar Facebook. WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger provide a quick and easy way for advisers to communicate with their clients; however it’s important to remember these channels, like other social media channels, are under regulatory scrutiny.
If you’re considering using messenger applications to communicate with clients we’ve compiled a handy list of dos and don’ts:
Do:
• keep a record of all messages sent
• ensure the content sent is suitable for public view (in other words, it doesn’t contain any personal, confidential or sensitive information)
• watch out for autocorrect changing the content of your messages
• make sure it is clear what your message is about; just like email communication, irrelevant messages will be ignored. Keep it specific and concise
• make sure that you use your company phone for all conversations relating to business.
Don’t:
• send personal, confidential or sensitive information
• use it as a marketing tool – like other communication channels, people need to opt in
• use your personal phone for business related matters.
Want more help?
We’ve created some social media training videos that can help you decide how best to use social media for your firm. You can access the tutorials on our YouTube playlist.
