Top 3 Things to Get Started with Social Media Marketing

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At the Schwab Advisor Services meeting in New York yesterday, about 40 advisors joined to discuss a broad vision for achieving a digital presence with social media. In describing the “how to” I shared ways of thinking about digital presence and the role of social media. To help describe ways to get started, I outlined strategies that included actions for revenue strategy, revenue systems and revenue programs. But even this breakdown of strategy and planning recommendations are a lot to tackle for a busy advisor getting started with social media. I often get the question – “OK, but what are the top three things you suggest? Here are three things I would start with to get established online:

1) Solid Website – all roads lead back here, so make sure you have a foundation you are pleased with and relevant content as well as the ability to engage your audience to download items and register for interactions.

  • Clean professionally branded
  • Relevant content
  • Conversion capabilities

2) Professional LinkedIn Profiles – This is the easiest to manage from a compliance point of view and it is very well aligned with the advisor business of referrals and relationships.

  • Keyword aligned, current, descriptive profile and business page
  • Professional photo
  • Active network and # of connections

3) Active Content Sharing – With these two platforms in place, a steady stream of relevant publishing will help place you in the minds of your audience as knowledgeable and help reinforce your credibility when it is time to make a decision.

  • Sharing relevant material, text
  • Use video if you can to explain and introduce your firm (host on YouTube)
  • Publish regularly using a blog format with an RSS feed
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Should You Mix Personal and Business on Twitter?

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I am writing this post from the Acela train heading back to Boston after an interactive session with about 40 clients of Schwab Advisor Services in New York. One discussion at the event was with Adam Sheer from the Roosevelt Investment Group which was particularly interesting and I think offers some guidance when thinking about strategies for using Twitter and what content to share across social nets.

The Roosevelt Investment Group prides itself on always adding value in their interactions with clients. These interactions, today, use email or other 1:1 communication. So, when considering using a platform like Twitter, what should their approach be? What content should they tweet and share? An example I shared in my presentation was about ReTweeting a “good news” post from a client relationship as a way to help build the relationship. However, since the Tweet may have no direct relevance to investment management, would it be of any interest to the followers of the firm? The answer depends on the strategy employed and the role of your Twitter ID. What do you want to be known for on Twitter? Are you building a network of people and tweeting on multiple topics or only on business topics? After all, we know that Twitter is not just a business network…and the choice is yours.

So what is the lesson?

Yes, you can mix personal and business tweets – but begin by thinking about the role of your Twitter channel. Do you want a range of personal communications or a feed of posts about specific content themes? Perhaps you should consider multiple Twitter IDs – personal and business. Is your Twitter feed going to be about multiple topics, or focused on a specific audience?

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Social-infused Digital Marketing for Financial Advisers

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Among wealth managers/ financial advisers, there remains skepticism about using social media and a digital marketing with a stronger online presence. As I prepare for an updated “Day-in-the-life of an adviser” talk next week with Schwab RIAs (clients of Schwab Advisor Services), I created a summary slide to serve as an abstract for the talk. The slide sums up the key messages for me:

  • While digital marketing will not and should not replace personal 1:1 relationship strategies, it can help you grow your practice and deepen existing relationships – particularly among your increasingly connected client base.
  • A good online presence can help you shift your business mix from traditional “outbound” activity to “inbound” – lowering cost of client acquisition.
  • But, as content proliferates, clients will increasingly use “relevance filters” – using search, influencers and their human “social networks” for trusted answers. It is hard to “game the system”
  • And, for advisors, regulation and changing technology add risk and confusion.
  • So, what should you do?
  • Today more than ever, firms need an effective digital marketing strategy and plan that aligns with their target client strategy.

The follow-on question is what makes up that strategy?

We focus on the three elements of the Revenue Architecture – keeping it simple, breaking it down:

1 Revenue Strategy

  • Set your ambition
  • Segment your audience & define long-tail positions
  • Build value propositions
  • Measure capability and gaps
  • Envision creative strategies

2 Revenue Systems

  • Design a solid website for brand experience
  • Configure and deploy foundation technology / services for digital marketing
  • Establish digital/social outposts

3 Revenue Programs

  • Design creative multi-touch campaigns
  • Develop a month-to-month/ week to week calendar
  • Create multi-media content
  • Publish and engage
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Thanks Reid Hoffman and LinkedIn – from User Number 104,302

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Today I received this nice letter from Reid Hoffman recognizing me for being an early adopter. Too bad I wasn’t an early investor!! I remember while at PA Consulting Group in 2003, I wrote an article and started working with clients around the concept of using “relationship intelligence” for business (sales) advantage. The ideas stemmed in part from my excitement over the early stage company and service called ” LinkedIn” and my work building digital businesses at Viant. I have been a user ever since.

Here is the letter I received today.. I guess I was user number 104,302 on LinkedIn and now they have reached the 100M user mark.

LinkedIn100M

Fast forward. Today we work with relationship-centric clients like Blackrock, Putnam, MFS, HighMark Funds and Wasatch Funds, ConRes, The First Group along with a range of mid-market clients, financial advisors and RIAs to develop personalized revenue strategies that use social media.

Why do we social tools are so valuable for business?

To me it boils down to TRUST and TIME. With so many people jumping on board and in many cases “gaming” the SEO system with content marketing strategies, buyers like you and me increasingly rely on our HUMAN network to get our answers. Our human network IS our social network. Our social network is our business network, we buy from people we know and trust.

Two recent examples:

Just yesterday, I networked in and met with my former colleague, Pierre Loic Assayag, at Traackr and gained lots of good advice on potential partners, tools and systems. He also shared with how the culture in California – where they are moving – is very much about human social network that drives business success. Perhaps we in Boston-Cambridge need to learn a lesson here and get out into the cold and network more so we can keep up. I trust Pierre to give me good input. Nothing has changed. What has changes is that I can in seconds search my LinkedIn network for people I know that can help our business.

A month ago, I was going to share Emily Guertin’s LinkedIn profile with a business colleague… but the profile did not say “Registered Dietitian” so I had her add that in. Within a week, she was contacted by another former Viant colleague and offered a fantastic new position. The hiring manager was looking for a “Registered Dietitian” within his personal LinkedIn network. She was right there. Now, Emily, there is a lot more you still need to do on your profile, so let’s talk. 🙂

Soon we will be starting with our human network first and using tools like LinkedIn and other social and business networks to support most every business and personal buying decision. I know I already do. Perhaps it is time I dust off and re-launch one of our projects – Goodasitgets – the social ranking system to support buying experiences. Thanks, LinkedIn for making a good product and also for reminding us how impactful social media has become.

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Too Social?

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I gave up Facebook for Lent. The funny thing is, I’m Buddhist. Well, raised Buddhist. Anyways, as I was trying to get my kids to eat their dinner, I was on Facebook reading about what my friends were feeding their kids. It suddenly occurred to me that I had been spending too much time there and needed to prioritize. So, I instantly deactivated my account.

I felt completely liberated the first day without Facebook. I was free of the need to come up with witty status updates, free of the ‘obligation’ to share good information, free of the curiosity of what my friends were up to.

The second day, I still didn’t miss my friends. I missed the information I get from the pages I “like.” I never realized that Facebook had been my primary source for the news and topics I cared about. Right after I deactivated my account, I read an article that Facebook was now the biggest news organization in the world. Great. I gave up Facebook for Lent and won’t be signing in again until Easter. What was I to do?

I turned to my Twitter account. It had been a while, since Facebook was all I “had time for.”

Immediately, I was overwhelmed by the many 140 character bits of information from the 89 people, companies, groups that I had initially started following. Was I following too many or were too many Tweeting too much? I cared about all of them, but who do I stop following?

John Stone wrote, “think quality versus quantity” when it comes to blogs. Truly, the same applies to Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites. Especially for business and organizations, the quality of the posts and the information shared needs to be thoughtful and valuable to maintain the interest and keep the trust of their followers. Too much information creates follower fatigue. That’s what happened to me on Facebook. In one day, I was beginning to happen with Twitter.

I like my news. I like getting them via social sites. We advise our clients to value an editorial perspective and a careful selection of relevant posts. I hope the companies and groups I follow on Facebook and Twitter do the same.

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Your Blog: Quality over Quantity

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There are likely different schools of thought on this and there are SEO metrics that can prove or disprove the visibility impact of more posts vs. fewer posts, but in my opinion less can be more and quality beats quantity. As the cobbler’s children, we are still enhancing our blog post capacity and shortly, our core team will be more consistently writing posts. But our objective is not to game the SEO system with inbound leads. Our goal is to share articles and perspectives that we think might add some value to our readers and continue the conversations we have every day.

With the increasing spamming of the social web, we are in danger of losing site of the true value of content. I get very concerned when clients consider mass article writing strategies – particularly those clients that market and sell a complex product or service to a sophisticated buyer. These readers know when they are being trapped with content proliferation. Now the buzz is content curation – we need to be careful here too. We don’t need someone to simply compile articles, but we do value an editorial perspective and a careful selection of relevant posts. If I trust you, I will trust the links and content you collect and share.

So, rather than stuff your website with trash blog posts and articles every day, if you are trying to reach a more discerning audience, think quality over quantity.

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Why You Should (re)Tweet

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Successful tweeting is about focus. Numerous companies small and large have shown that diligently writing a few tweets with content their customers want to read can greatly increase connection that a person has to the company. Even more common are twitter feeds that are rarely read and pretty much irrelevant. The difference is focus. Treating a feed like it is business will go unnoticed. Treating a feed like a friendly conversation will get noticed. Think of it as telling a friend “I liked this article and you probably will to.”

By doing something as simple as tweeting news articles or retweeting other’s valuable tweets that your firm’s clients want to read makes your twitter feed worth reading. The simple truth is that most people don’t want to spend their time finding news that directly pertains to them in the vastness of digital information.

The number of news outlets has risen exponentially in the past decade. Just as books became significantly cheaper and more available after the Gutenberg press, the internet has again dropped the cost of publishing to a new level. One of the numerous side effects is that the amount being published has risen and, because content is king, newspapers have been publishing more because their main reason for not publishing has all but disappeared: Cost.

The cost of publishing, as Clay Shirky has told us, was the main deterrent for publishing articles that consumers wouldn’t read. Publishing too many unread articles would lead to decreases in readership then subscriptions and eventually profits. The cost lowering effect of internet media has removed that physical barrier on printed page real estate. It is this cost reduction that has lead to a decrease in the inherent filtering that newspapers perform and hence an increase in total articles published. This has lead to the popular notion of “Information Overload.”

This impression isn’t exactly accurate because since shortly after the Gutenberg press was invented there were more books than a human could physically read in a lifetime. The difference between printed and e-newspapers eras is a question of filtering. Trusted newspapers became trusted because filtered for to find the best of “all the news that’s fit to print” and printed quality, vetted news that their readership wanted to read. By becoming the filter for your audience you become the source. Using the retweet function can increase your Social Capitol because you are the filter. As any retailer will tell you, being the source is good for business.

Retweet – and be the filter – so that you are the source.

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Wikipedia – Getting to Yes!

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Wikipedia is amazing: a plethora of information at your finger tips. Let’s face it, my kids will probably think an encyclopedia is a large coaster by the time they are in middle school. A client had asked us to submit their business to Wikipedia. I knew this would be a challenge as most businesses on Wikipedia are the large corporations like Coca Cola, GE, Ford, etc, you get the idea. Wikipedia is a lot like Facebook, getting a straightforward answer on how to do something is difficult. Essentially, you search Wikipedia to find out how to use Wikipedia and then click though from one link to another until you have found the answer.

Submitting this was tricky, it had to sound authentic and like an encyclopedia entry, straightforward, and unbiased. They had their PR company write up the entry, I figured out the convoluted coding system and we submitted it for approval by users. It was declined again and again for a total of three times. What makes this entry complicated is that it is technically a business, but more than anything it is a location. Not like Starbucks on 3rd Ave, but an entire community. So how does one make an entry similar to this one and have it approved?

Here is what we learned:
  1. Do your research- find similar people, topics etc on Wikipedia and learn from them, hey, if they are posted, they were approved!
  2. Use references- entries are approved by other users, you need to show that what you are posting is legitimate. Link to articles, press releases, etc.
  3. Don’t use adjectives- any words describing a person, place, or thing in a positive of negative way can come across as promotion (or sabotage), either way, it will be declined.
  4. Use links to other Wikipedia topics
  5. Follow their format- there is a format/language to Wikipedia. It is not unlike HTML, but it is easy to learn, you just need to take the time to read the articles on Wikipedia to figure out how to do it.
Bottom line, our next try will have no adjectives, lots of references, and a celebration at the end when it finally is approved!

 

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PLANADVISER National Conference

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John Stone will be a panelist at the PLANADVISER National Conference scheduled September 21, 2010.

More information can be found here: https://www.planadviser.com/PANC2010/

Topic: Technology and the Modern Adviser

How to use social media, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and blogs to better promote yourself and your practice.

Moderator:

  • Jaime Benedetti, Owner/Financial Advisor, Benedetti, Gucer & Associates (Ameriprise)

Panelists:

  • Jim Stueve, President, Ridgeworth Investments
  • John C. Stone, III, Founder and President, Revenue Architects
  • T Henry Yoshida, Retirement Plan Advisor, The Maresh Yoshida 401k Group

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How a Consultant Can Use Twitter: Coffee with Nat

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I enjoyed a Harvard Square coffee visit at Peet’s the other day with Nat Welch, a consultant at CFAR: Center for Applied Research.  I checked in on Foursquare of course 🙂

Nat and I used to work together at Viant and it is always good to catch up. Nat is already an expert in collaboration and in particular in helping people impact change in organizations.  Naturally the conversation led to marketing digitally and using social media. I was giving Nat a few of my headline perspectives on why he might want to use Twitter to establish an online presence.  There is a lot written about this already and for many of you this is “101”, but here are some of the points that I shared that I think might provide a summary framework for management consultants and business professionals on how to think about using Twitter vs. other tools like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Summary takeaways – for those of you getting started:

  1. Pick your place on the long tail. Clarify your unique position and area of expertise. Identify your perspective and core messages. It is hard to track all the conversations that may interest you – the more focused your area of expertise or offerings, the easier it is to follow and be followed in the space.
  2. Set up your Twitter account and link it to your LinkedIn and Facebook accounts
  3. Use nice tools like Tweetdeck where you can set up columns for the areas you like to follow. HootSuite is good for team collaborative tweets and managing multiple identities.
  4. Set realistic expectations. Most of your clients are not looking for you on Twitter, but over time a presence will reinforce your credibility in the space. Think of Twitter as another outpost in your digital presence.
  5. Listen and follow. Find people talking about and sharing information about your area of interest, follow them,  Retweet the good ones, click on and follow the blogs that interest you. Very quickly, you will have a mosaic of content and people that surround the subject that you are focused on. Good etiquette suggests we do not use Twitter as a bully pulpit, but rather add to the conversation. Ask yourself if your tweets are adding value and adding content. Twitter is not for direct self-promotion.
  6. Weigh in on the conversations – offer your perspectives
  7. Set up a Reader account and follow the blogs.
  8. Syndicate your own blog. If you don’t have one, it may be worthwhile to set up a blog where you can share your content and articles about your area of expertise. Blogs use RSS standards that make it easy to share through tools like Google reader. You don’t have to write something every day- even once a month would be valuable from a presence and credibility perspective
  9. Maintain presence. LinkedIn is particularly valuable for the management consultant and business user. Facebook extends your personal networks online.
  10. Do what I say, not what I do. I wish I had more time to follow and engage in the conversations. Pick a window of time each day or two to follow the conversations, people, and weigh in with your comments, share your posts and find the valuable expertise that you can bring to your clients and enhance your value.
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