Without a doubt, Social Networking in the internet is becoming a significant way for many businesses to market services and products. How does that affect the Financial Practitioner? Can you imagine if more “trendy” Financial Practices start to use this new media as a form of information, branding and a two-way communication tool to market to new clients or build mind-share with current clients? And will you be left behind?
Let me share with you some common applications of this technology:
From the latest study of internet usage, it was discovered that the social networking websites like MySpace, Friendster and Facebook are in the top 10 websites visited by people surfing the Internet. In terms of more Web 2.0 interaction, 42% of users actually visit blogs and 26% have their own blogs.
This means that many people have a habit to tune into what friends are doing, sharing what they themselves are doing and of course whatever that piques their interest like YouTube (among the top 3 most visited sites globally).
A Financial Adviser can use this technology for the purpose of branding, building mind-share and keeping in touch. It will pretty much be a soft-sell instead of a hard sell.
You can use Social Sites like Friendster, MySpace or Facebook (the most popular), to connect with friends, organise events, join discussion groups and share what’s happening in your business and life in general. This builds a more connected relationship despite our busy schedule. By writing on your client or friend’s bulletin board once in a while, you re-establish connections on a personal level. Not only that, you will also be seen by his other friends, as someone in their lives. The next time, a referral or introduction is made, the other person might have already “known” you.
You may be pleasantly surprised that people can even be curious enough to read more about you and what your financial planning business represents. That’s why you’ll need a more business profile. You can either have your own website or have a profile with sites like LinkedIn and Ecademy which are more “business” oriented. These sites gives you the flexibility to build your professional profile, to inform potential clients about your services, experience and even client testimonies.
Don’t forget to add a way for readers to get into your mailing list. You can do so by offering some free content that’s of value, or even an on-going subscription to your blog entries, by the means of RSS feeds. That way you enter into a regular communications with your potential financial advisory clients. Better yet, turn it into an email campaign to get a two-way communication going.
As you can see, it may be quite a lot to accomplish. The maintenance of this system can also be very onerous. That is why many people don’t get started or cannot follow through. The good news is that there are now some automation in most sites and software that will help you save time. Auto-responders and Contact Management Systems can help track your contact with potential clients, linking up your social sites, means that you may only need to monitor one or two gateway sites and finally you can even out-source (on-line) some of the work to free-lancers all over the world.
Enjoy your Social Networking Journey to generate a tsunami of leads!!
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