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Social Media for Financial Advisors: 5 Ways to Drive Business

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social media for financial advisors

Social media offers virtually endless possibilities for scaling your business and its value is not to be underestimated. With billions of people using social media channels to connect and consume information, advisors are increasingly taking notice of its possibilities. For instance, nearly 19% of advisors say social media outreach is their primary marketing focus for 2023. If you’re not leveraging the benefits of social media for financial advisors yet, it could be the right time to revisit your marketing strategy.

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Do Financial Advisors Need Social Media?

Social media is not the only way to market your business, but it can be one of the most effective ways to increase your visibility in the public eye. Being active on social media allows you to develop your brand and build trust, something that can be invaluable for attracting new clients.

Compared to word-of-mouth marketing or cold-calling, social media can provide you with a much larger landscape in which to work. While those old-school marketing techniques still produce results, they can be time-consuming. If you’re busy trying to grow and scale your business, efficiency matters.

Posting on social media can allow you to get your message out to a much broader audience with a smaller investment of time. It’s possible to promote your advisory business through social media even if you’re starting with a smaller marketing budget. And social media can provide you with helpful feedback and data that you can use to fine-tune your marketing plan.

What Social Media Should Financial Advisors Use?

social media for financial advisors

One of the most important rules of social media for financial advisors is to expend your time and efforts in the right places. Where you decide to focus on social media can depend on what type of clients you’re hoping to attract and where they spend most of their time online.

Some of the social media channels you might utilize to market your business include:

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • TikTok
  • YouTube
  • Twitter

The social media platforms you’re active on will determine what type of marketing content you’ll need to produce. If you haven’t yet developed a clear picture of who your target or ideal client is demographically and what kind of help they need, it’s important to do that first. That can inform your decisions about which social media outlets to use.

For example, if you cater to 30-something, dual-income childless couples then your content may be better received on Instagram, TikTok or Twitter. If your ideal client is a 60-something retiree, on the other hand, then you may get better results marketing on Facebook or YouTube.

You may be tempted to try everything all at once to see what sticks, but that can result in wasted time if you’re not able to focus on each platform evenly or you’re targeting the wrong platforms. Focusing on just one to two social media channels to start could offer a better return on investment with regard to the time (and money) you put in.

How to Use Social Media for Financial Advisors

One thing to know about social media is that you’ll likely do a lot of experimenting, especially in the beginning if you’re brand-new to this type of marketing. It may take some time to figure out what type of content your audience is most responsive to and how often you should be creating new content to maintain engagement.

With that in mind, here are a few tips for marketing your advisor business on social media.

1. Be Authentic

Authenticity can be essential in building trust with prospective clients and current clients. Trust matters, as it can mean the difference between retaining clients for years or losing them to other advisors. Being authentic with regard to who you are as a person and what your business is all about can go a long way toward building trust, even when you’re doing it through a phone screen versus face-to-face.

Sharing a little about yourself on social media can underscore the human element in your marketing. For example, if you’re hoping to attract young married couples to your advisory business and you yourself are married and in the same age demographic, acknowledge that in your bio. It’s a simple thing but it can help to foster connections with prospective clients if they feel like you “get” where they are financially and where they’d like to be.

2. Be Consistent

Consistency is also important in building trust. Posting content without any rhyme or reason doesn’t give prospective clients a reason to follow you. Showing up on a regular schedule and providing your followers with quality content can help to foster trust as you build your brand.

How often should advisors post on social media? It really depends on the platforms you’re using. If you’re using YouTube, for example, then one video per week may be sufficient to begin growing an audience. Something like Twitter or TikTok, on the other hand, may require much more frequent updates since those sites use a shorter format for content.

3. Provide Value

If you’re going to the effort of creating content for social media, then it needs to have tangible value for the people who see it. Valuable content gets shared, which can help to attract new business, while the best content converts. Creating a content calendar or strategy can help with planning out posts so each one has a defined purpose.

What constitutes good social media content? Again, that can depend largely on the platform you’re using to market your business. Some of the most effective types of content can include:

  • How-to guides or tutorials (good for video or long-form content)
  • Quick and easy tips (good for shorter-form content or TikTok)
  • Personal stories that are relatable to your audience

Trendy or newsworthy content can also work, though the traction you get from that type of content may be short-lived. A post may go viral, bringing you hundreds or even thousands of new followers. Producing quality content that’s designed to stand the test of time gives them the incentive to stick around.

4. Engage

Social media for financial advisors is all about bringing awareness to your brand, but there’s more to it than simply hitting publish on new posts. You also need to engage with the people who are reading or viewing your content. That may be as simple as replying to comments, but it can take other forms, such as asking followers to participate in a survey or share your content if they found it helpful. Those are simple ways to increase engagement and potentially convert prospects into long-term clients.

5. Be Compliant

Social media can open up new doors for marketing your advisory business, but it’s not an anything-goes environment. There are rules advisors must observe when marketing through social media in order to be in compliance with federal regulations. If you’re not familiar with those guidelines, it’s a good idea to review them before wading into the social media waters.

The Bottom Line

social media for financial advisors

Marketing through social media can be an effective way to drive new clients to your business and strengthen your relationship with existing clients. Thinking about what you hope to achieve and set some clear goals can help you fine-tune your marketing plan and produce solid results.

Financial Advisor Marketing Tips

  • Prescreen prospects. SmartAsset AMP (Advisor Marketing Platform) is a holistic marketing service financial advisors can use for client lead generation and automated marketing. Sign up for a free demo to explore how SmartAsset AMP can help you expand your practice’s marketing operation. Get started today.
  • Think virtually. Clients are increasingly willing to work with financial advisors online, versus meeting face to face. If you’re hoping to break out of the traditional advisory mold, consider broadening your search to include investors who are comfortable with virtual meetups.

Photo credit: ©iStock.com/courtneyk, ©iStock.com/wutwhanfoto, ©iStock.com/Kateryna Onyshchuk

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