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Written by: Samantha Russell
Two top questions we get are, “How can I promote myself as a financial advisor?” and “How do I make my brand stand out on social media?” And we always tell them how important it is to share content and engage on social media. But with 3.96 billion people on social media, how can you stand out from the crowd? We’re sharing 10 social media ideas and posts proven to work for financial advisors.
1. Share Your Take on Recent Headlines
Lately, it seems like it’s one major headline after another, and sharing your recent take on breaking news is a great way to share your thoughts and generate some meaningful conversation. Timely content and breaking news a great ways to connect with your audience, especially as we have spent increasingly more time online. So, start a conversation about what’s happening in the news by taking a news headline, a research report, a stat, or something that’s breaking and then give your opinion on it.
The stock market and all its volatility have been on top of everyone’s mind, so sharing any insight into this on social is a great idea. Dorsey Wealth Management offers fee-only wealth management and retirement planning for women and couples, and they do a great job of creating and sharing content that answers pressing questions and pertains to their clients, as well. In this blog, “What Should You Do About Inflation and Stock Market Volatility?” Angela Dorsey offers some great advice about staying calm and the next steps that you should be taking and then shares it on social to get even more eyes on the article.
2. Tailor Your Posts to Your Niche
When it comes to connecting with your audience and getting more for your marketing dollar, catering to your niche is crucial. Tailor your posts and share content that your niche can find useful and that they can relate to. Keep this in mind when coming up with social media ideas. If you cater to pre-retirees or retirees, then share content that relates to that group.
For example, C.L. Sheldon & Company has an extremely unique niche, catering to active and retired military members, and so their social posts reflect that.
President Curtis Sheldon, CFP®, EA, AIF® shares “Curt’s Chalk Talk” with an eye-catching emoji discussing what happens if you deploy in the middle of March and it’s time to do your taxes. This is obviously a very unique issue that only military members will deal with, so this should get a lot of engagement and really help the niche.
3. Include Strong Imagery
According to Forbes, you only have about 7 seconds to make a strong first impression. Make sure you’re only including important content that really wows. You want to create something that “stops the scroll,” and including strong images is a great way to do this. In fact, posts with images receive 2.3 times more engagement than those without, while tweets with photos receive an average of 35% of retweets. You can even create your image in Canva, a great and FREE tool for non-designers so that they can create beautiful images to share on social media, in blogs, etc.
WealthKeel has a post every week called “The WealthKeel Weekly,” where Founder Chad Chubb CFP®, CSLP®, shares a post with an eye-catching one where he summarizes a roundup of some great articles from the week. Not only is it eye-catching, but whoever he tags or shares their content will probably retweet, plus it will make them more likely to post something of his in the future.
4. Share Personal Stories
Next, we have one of the most common but effective methods of reaching and engaging with your audience. That is the idea of sharing personal stories with your followers and friends. For this, it’s important to understand that social media is a place to connect with your audience. You’re not just there to sell a product or service but to share about yourself. Your business and the people who make it all possible.
That’s why being able to share personal stories helps bridge the gap between business and client to establish a more meaningful connection. When advisors use personal stories, they allow their audience to relate to them. As a client, hearing that your advisor goes through the same struggles as you help break down any barriers.
For example, we have Anthony R. Ruffalo, CFP®, who shares his experience at a doctor’s visit where they want to bill for potential unforeseen costs. Something that I’m sure anyone who has been to a doctor’s office can relate to. It’s an experience that Anthony can share and relate to with his audience, which is what makes it impactful.
5. Promote Personal and Professional Events
Social media is a wonderful location to promote your upcoming events, like webinars. But it can also be a great place to show how much you care and support your employees. If an employee has an important event coming up in their life – whether it’s professional or personal – make a post about it (with employee permission). If someone is getting married, congratulate them and wish them a lifetime of happiness. Is an employee having a baby? Make a lighthearted joke such as “Help us welcome our newest team member starting in the baby finances division.” Take these life events and turn them into a talking point to get clients and prospects engaged.
6. Share a Valuable Offer
Finding content that provides great value and useful information is always a treasure for those online. This means that if you can provide things such as eBooks, whitepapers, or webinars that are chock-full of helpful information, your social media will explode. Making a financial social media post a great place to share such offers. Users are always looking for new ways to learn, especially if they’re searching in a niche.
To boost engagement even further, when promoting your piece of valuable content, ask users to leave a comment or a like. This will improve engagement and give you a good idea of how many people are interested in that particular piece of information.
For example, here we have Dave Lowell, CFP®, sharing one of his case studies on how clients can gain financial independence. He promotes it on LinkedIn by asking people to like his post and comment that they’re interested in the case study. He also invites them to DM (Direct Message) him so he can get them access to the study.
7. Use the Read More Method
On most social media, when you create a post, you’re given a certain amount of space to type out your thoughts. Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, when you add spacing like a paragraph, the words “see more” or “read more” are added as action text for users. This means for users to see all that you wrote, they have to manually click “read more” or “see more,” which on some platforms helps indicate that your post is receiving engagement.
For example, Thomas Kopelman uses this approach by first building curiosity and including a “see more” section:
Once clicked, this area reveals the information the reader is curious to know:
8. Share Your Excitement for the Things You Enjoy
This type of social media post focuses on the excitement users get from their daily lives. Including things they’re looking forward to, things they just recently did, and more. You can also include things that make you happy. Whether it’s a poem, saying, or a joke. It’s always a great idea to share your personality.
The great thing about posts like these is that you’re able to ask general questions like “Anyone doing something exciting or fun this weekend?” or more specific ones. Many financial advisors will be able to make use of local events such as concerts, fairs, and more to further personalize their questions. Events aren’t the only thing suitable for these types of posts. If there are any movies, music releases, tv shows, or video games coming out, use those as a talking point.
9. Be Thought Provoking
Another social media idea is sharing data that your audience would find valuable is a great way to garner engagement. For advisors, this can mean anything from a statistic that shows how much people spend on everyday purchases each year to how much should be put away for retirement at certain age brackets.
FMG’s very own Samantha Russell is known for using this approach with great effect. For example, in the following post, Samantha introduces a topic and then uses data from a Spectrem Group study to support and draw engagement to the post.
10. Use Hashtags and Tag Other People
On LinkedIn, we would recommend three hashtags per post, as this will help your post to show up in different groups, so think about the ones that you want more people to see you in. When we create hashtags, we usually use the hashtags #WealthManagement, #FinancialPlanning, or something like that. Additionally, tagging others is a great way to get the conversation going quickly, which gets more eyes on your post, and the quicker that happens, the better it is for the algorithm.
As you can tell in this post, Jeanne Sutton, CFP®, CPFA, MBA, has included hashtags and tagged multiple people in order to get the conversation going.
Related: How Financial Advisors Can Systemize Their Referral Process