At SunStar’s Virtual Small Funds Conference, Strategies to Engage Advisors & Attract Assets, D. Bruce Johnston, Founder of Two Dogs Social, shared industry insights to help advisors harness the power of social media to build their brands.
Social media is best known for, well, being “social.” Financial advisors may question whether it’s worth the effort of jumping through compliance hoops just to post pictures or share content.
Bruce suggests looking at your firm's website as the hub of your distribution and messaging strategy. Social media platforms are the spokes. While there are many platforms to choose from, LinkedIn tends to be most popular with 85% of asset managers reporting regular usage. Some report also using Twitter and Facebook, and a very small number use Instagram.
Repetition and consistency
To make the most of LinkedIn, you must be repetitive and consistent in delivering your message to gradually capture mindshare of your target audience.
Identify your target audience and solidify your message. What’s your niche? What’s your messaging concept?
Post regularly and consistently to LinkedIn to deliver that message. Remember, LinkedIn acts as an algorithm based scrolling feed – just because you post something doesn’t mean it’s seen by everyone. According to LinkedIn, if you’re posting 3-5 times per week or 20 times per month, you’ll “touch” 60 % of your connections.
Bruce shared insights garnered from his years of experience in the industry. He discussed curating content, hashtags, posting, and how best to utilize LinkedIn’s direct message feature.
Want to learn more? You can find the recording, transcript, and slides here.
Johnston, D. Bruce
Social Media Educator, Speaker, Advisor
Two Dogs Social
Recognizing the impact social media would have for Financial Advisors and RIAs I have spent the past ten years perfecting how they can compliantly leverage LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and now Instagram, to acquire and retain clients.
Traveling extensively in the field, I have educated over 20,000 financial services professionals on the power of LinkedIn and other social media platforms as efficient brand building, retention and acquisition platforms. Most of those meetings have taken place at the desktop!
Additionally, in my role as #SocialMediaAdvisor to Two Dogs Social, I have witnessed first-hand how they work closely with Financial Advisors to provide the strategy, planning, management, execution and training for LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. The Two Dogs Social Team can assist Financial Advisors and businesses of all types in creating an effective social media strategy or fine-tune and take their current strategy to the next level. Their main focus is to help business owners develop strategies that allow them to acquire and retain clients.
My ability for "early trend recognition" was instrumental in me being recognized as Institutional Investor's Fund Marketer of the Year.