Despite significant barriers to use, not the least of which is the
compliance office, three-quarters (76%) of financial advisors now report
using social media for business-related purposes. Only 7% say they do
not use social media at all, while an additional 17% do so, define social media marketing
but for personal reasons only. These and other findings are currently
posted in Advisor Media Consumption™, an online data collection and
reporting tool that continuously tracks advisors’ media consumption
preferences and behaviors. Advisor Media Consumption™ and its
companion—Investor Media Consumption™—were launched in January of 2015
by Cogent Reports™, the syndicated division of Market Strategies
International. According to Cogent Reports, among all advisors, about
one-third (34%) of total time spent on social media relates in some way
to their profession, a figure that increases to 41% when isolating
advisors who report using social media for business. Furthermore, on
average, business users access more platforms than personal-only users,
2.75 platforms versus 1.5, respectively. “We know that use and reliance
on social media has been increasing among advisors for years, but it was
surprising even to us to learn that today there are over 228,000
advisors actively using social media for professional reasons,” says
John Meunier, managing director at Cogent Reports. “Even more surprising
is how representative social media users are of the total advisor
population. This is not just about younger, tech-savvy advisors.” 74% of
advisors report using LinkedIn for professional reasons, and a majority
(59%) consider it their primary social media platform for accessing
business and financial news and information. And while fewer consider
these other platforms to be their primary social media source for
business and financial news and information, social media marketing plan pdf
significant proportions of advisors are also leveraging YouTube (75%),
Facebook (65%) and Twitter (32%) in some professional capacity. “As a
prospecting tool, networking platform and online business card, LinkedIn
has long been a favorite of advisors,” continues Meunier. “But with
half of Twitter users now identifying that platform as their primary
social media business and financial news and information source,
Twitter, to use social media parlance, is definitely trending.”
How much time and money should a business spend on social media? Here are a few guidelines for defining your company's social media strategy and budget. Social experts will tell you that you need to truly engage in social to be successful. If engaging actively in social works for you, then that's fantastic advice. If you don't get much from social, however, then put into it what you get out of it -- and don't believe people who say you only get how to social media marketing out of it what you put into it. Set up some simple auto-posting and go back to higher-ROI marketing tactics. You can always come back to social later and try some new pilot programs to see if social has metamorphosed into a productive marketing channel for you. Social is not one big thing. It's a lot of things. It's LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Quora, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ and a bunch of other things. So don't "invest in social." Instead, invest in specific social platforms where your people are. No sense for a B2B professional services firm to waste time on Twitter and Facebook if it would be much more productive for them to spend time on LinkedIn and Quora. Everyone thinks they need to be active everywhere. Not true. Pick the social platforms that will have the highest yields and work on those first. Ignore all the other social media platforms while you perfect your execution on the most promising platforms. So, if a B2B company tells me they are investing in social, social media marketing 2014 I'm skeptical. But if they say they are trying to get leads via LinkedIn by using LinkedIn Sales Navigator and LinkedIn sponsored posts, then my reaction is "These guys get it. They're not just throwing time and money at Social without a smart strategy that is based on who their prospects are and what they need." Which social media platforms are your prospects on? If you don't know, ask them. Don't ask the social media ad sales reps because there answer inevitably is "Yes. We've got that audience here in spades." It bears repeating: the best person to ask is a potential customer, not an ad sales rep.
Social Media tips for your business
The primary aim of social media platforms such as Google+, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook is to facilitate communication among people with a shared interest. However, the story only begins with the creation of social media accounts for your business. Once you have social media marketing best practices the accounts set up, you need to understand what they offer, how each differs and what they can do to help grow your business. To maintain social media engagement, it is imperative to regularly post fresh, relevant content. If you fail to do so, people quickly become bored with your content and are quite likely to stop following you on social media – and you’ve lost them for good. Remain constantly engaged with your audience/clients by responding to messages, commenting on feedback, replying to questions and addressing complaints. If you don’t, you are wasting your time (and theirs) and money. It’s also equally important not to inundate your followers with loads of spam or useless information just for the sake of posting content. This is guaranteed to result in a flood of unlikes and un-follows, and has the potential to damage your brand and online reputation. Rather opt for a middle path and post regular, juicy content that followers will find value in. And the rapid growth in mobile technology is changing the mix. Among smartphone owners, 78 percent report using their device to get news in the last week. Seventy-three percent of tablet owners use their device to get news. And people with more devices tend to enjoy following the news more. News consumers who use more technology are more likely to report that they enjoy keeping up with the news and are more likely to say that it’s easier to keep up with the news today than it was five years ago. At the same time, these tech-savvy news consumers continue to use traditional platforms as well. For example, they are no more or less likely than everyone else to use print publications, television, or radio to access how to start a social media marketing business the news. But there is a strong correlation between mobile technology and social media and various other digital activities. Smartphone owners, for instance, are two and half times as likely to get news through social media as those without smartphones, twice as likely to use search engines and aggregators for news and to get news alerts, and more than twice as likely to share news. Patterns are similar for tablet owners as well.How To Approach Social Media
How much time and money should a business spend on social media? Here are a few guidelines for defining your company's social media strategy and budget. Social experts will tell you that you need to truly engage in social to be successful. If engaging actively in social works for you, then that's fantastic advice. If you don't get much from social, however, then put into it what you get out of it -- and don't believe people who say you only get how to social media marketing out of it what you put into it. Set up some simple auto-posting and go back to higher-ROI marketing tactics. You can always come back to social later and try some new pilot programs to see if social has metamorphosed into a productive marketing channel for you. Social is not one big thing. It's a lot of things. It's LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Quora, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ and a bunch of other things. So don't "invest in social." Instead, invest in specific social platforms where your people are. No sense for a B2B professional services firm to waste time on Twitter and Facebook if it would be much more productive for them to spend time on LinkedIn and Quora. Everyone thinks they need to be active everywhere. Not true. Pick the social platforms that will have the highest yields and work on those first. Ignore all the other social media platforms while you perfect your execution on the most promising platforms. So, if a B2B company tells me they are investing in social, social media marketing 2014 I'm skeptical. But if they say they are trying to get leads via LinkedIn by using LinkedIn Sales Navigator and LinkedIn sponsored posts, then my reaction is "These guys get it. They're not just throwing time and money at Social without a smart strategy that is based on who their prospects are and what they need." Which social media platforms are your prospects on? If you don't know, ask them. Don't ask the social media ad sales reps because there answer inevitably is "Yes. We've got that audience here in spades." It bears repeating: the best person to ask is a potential customer, not an ad sales rep.
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