As published in Financial Planning Magazine, August edition.
In this article, I am going to explain why most of the ‘social media elite’ set an example that, if followed as a financial adviser, will largely ensure that your time and effort produce a poor return.
I was on Twitter last night and was immersing myself in the flow of tweets and information. As I often do, I attempted to engage with the authors of some interesting articles, tweeters of quotes and curators of information.
Yet like so often is the case, none replied or engaged. Now I should point out that I follow a mix of active advisers, some advisers who are still relatively inactive on their Twitter accounts, and the social media elite that I am referring to here.
These expert bloggers, speakers, authors and ‘Twitter aficionados’ blast out a constant stream of information into the ‘Twittersphere’, on their LinkedIn profiles and Facebook pages, and yet will very rarely respond or engage with comments on anything more than a cursory level.
Yet as a professional adviser, the entire purpose of your social media activity is to engage in direct and personal conversation, otherwise your conversion of audience to clients will be poor at best.
So, here are my ‘Top 4’ reasons why the social media elite are actually anti-social (and how you can avoid making the same mistakes). This is because:
1. These experts are primarily tweeting via automated systems with pre-written tweets or posts designed to distribute their output of social media love at optimal and consistent times. This means that there is no one actually there to engage when the account is tweeting. As an adviser, I would recommend going with the ‘post less, engage more’ strategy.
2. They have so many followers that they couldn’t possibly respond to every ‘nobody’ who tweets, posts or sends a message to them. As an adviser, I would always recommend only attempting to influence (i.e. have follow or connect to you) people who you actually want to have as clients, or for simplicity, shoot for quality over quantity.
3. They do not know how to design people process to ensure they have the time and ability to actually be social with followers. Make sure you have systems in place so that engagement is your primary purpose. If you do, you will not need many followers to start actually taking on new clients. Remember, you do not always have to be the person to respond. I have a whole team of people who help to make sure the large numbers of daily interactions I personally generate don’t get ‘lost’.
4. They have evolved from the marketing profession where the priority is ‘impressions’ and ‘distribution’ before gaining conversion and clients.
As a professional, think of this more as networking and relationship building than as marketing. Marketing generally takes a ‘mass market’ approach where it is all about reaching enough eyeballs, so that the low conversion it generates is still effective. However, you should be far more focused on discussion, conversation and building trust. Remember, it is not about having the most followers, just the right ones!
Take care and actually be social.