I’ve used the platform not just to broaden the reach of our brands, but also to build a brand story, which helps build brand reach but also advocacy and engagement from your clients – whether that is new or existing. LinkedIn used to be a very professional platform, but now seems to becoming more relaxed, which again helps build a rapport and relationship with your clients. Essentially, LinkedIn is a great medium for building brand advocacy, particularly among existing customers.
The likes of Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are excellent in reaching a wide audience and getting any key tactical product or sales messages out to your clients, particularly using more fun and interactive formats such as photos, videos or even actionable links. Having said this, they can also play a role in telling a story and starting to build rapport with new or existing clients – at the end of the day, people like talking to people and are intrigued to learn about what other people are doing.
I suggest a mix of all of the social media channels would probably be best, but if you have a far more professional client-base then LinkedIn may be best, and likewise a younger client-base then Facebook or TikTok may be more relevant.
Five ways to use social media effectively
- Do your research – Ask yourself what it is your clients want to know? So at the start of the process, ask a sample of your clients what it is that they would like to see from you in terms of social media and build your plan or approach accordingly.
- Keep it simple – This might sound obvious but even the biggest brands keep their proposition simple. What I mean by this is they deliver the service or product that their customers expect. They don’t over-promise or make wild claims of excellence – with this in mind, ensure content is clear and concise and that it is easily digestible and captures clients attention. This is why video works so well, particularly across platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
- Get creative – Create content that is captivating and shareable. Compelling imagery or videos are key to engaging with clients on an on-going basis. Remember to think: Do you find this engaging? Would you watch this?
- Ask questions – Closed questions at the beginning of a sentence encourages people to engage with your post, and if you can create engagement then that is great news.
- Be brave – Although some social media will be more sensitive than others, such as LinkedIn, try and be brave with content and formats – experiment if you are able to.
Where should advisers start in terms of planning content?
Advisers should create a content calendar. Rely on your content calendar as a guide but be flexible enough to respond to or share relevant news, articles and events as and when you see them. I think the key is being active across the various social media channels – set aside some time each day (it doesn’t have to be the same time of day each day) to send posts, look at and respond to other peoples posts.
How can advisers monitor success?
Ultimately, the true level of success will be the amount of new business walking through the door, or indeed clients that return having seen your content. However, be under no illusion that this will take time to build. With this in mind, tracking the number of followers across each social media channel will be a good measure of the impact your activity is happening and will allow you to track this over time, so you can see whether a particular post, comment or share had an impact on followers versus others.
And then finally, simple ‘campaign metrics’ such as clicks or shares can give you a view on the level of interaction you are having with prospective or existing clients.
