Social Networking And Advisors

Financial Advisor Magazine

Advisors are barely scratching the surface in their use of social networking.
By Andrew Gluck
Of all the social networking Web sites, LinkedIn is the one financial advisors use most. …
Not a lot of reliable data are available yet on the business use of social networking applications. We don’t have much demographic data about who is on each social network or the business benefits of tweeting on Twitter versus connecting on LinkedIn or friending on Facebook. But here are some thoughts that might be valuable as you decide which sites to use for growing your advisory firm and exchanging ideas with other professionals.
They’re Not Just for Kids. According to a study released by Anderson Analytics, SPSS and LinkedIn, the number of C-level executives on LinkedIn numbered 2.2 million worldwide last summer, while there were 1.9 million executive vice presidents and senior vice presidents on the network. Some 4.5 million users said they were senior management, while 5.2 million said they were middle management. About half of the users worldwide are in the U.S., and the base was growing last year at a rate of 2 million a month.
By contrast, Twitter users are overwhelmingly young, according to a study by Pew Research Center released in February. However, … Twitter is not dominated by the youngest of young adults. Indeed, the median age of a Twitter user is 31. In comparison, the median age of a MySpace user is 27, while it’s 26 for a Facebook user and 40.5 for a LinkedIn user, according to the Pew study.
… In the U.S., users between the ages of 55 and 64 made up 10% of Twitter’s total, which is nearly the same figure for those users between ages 18 and 24, who accounted for 10.6%. So you are seeing older Americans adopt social networking at an astounding rate.
Say Something Nice. Unlike traditional marketing, social networking is totally based on being nice to other people and not just selling your services. The key to successful marketing is giving valuable information to your target market. For instance, an advisor trying to market to doctors might post a blog offering a case study of changes he made to a doctor’s financial plan after the market meltdown of last year, and then tweet about that. … Another nice thing to do is establish a group on LinkedIn for doctors in a particular geographic area in need of financial and business management advice. …
Target, Target, Target. Just as the old adage emphasizes “location” as crucial to real estate values, it’s also crucial to target your marketing when you’re social networking. The more focused you are, the more likely you are to find an underserved niche that needs you and the less likely you are to encounter competitors. …  I recently gave a Webinar in which I explained how to automatically tweet your Google alerts. It makes sense to tweet such information because Twitter is good for distributing news. LinkedIn, meanwhile, is better for networking and creating groups.
Find Prospects. Both LinkedIn and Twitter are good ways to find prospects, and though one fishing strategy is not very nice, you should know about it anyway—and that’s looking into your competitors’ networks. While LinkedIn lets you hide your own network from the public and Twitter lets you block people you don’t know from receiving your tweets, the public (and competitors) can still see who is in your network even when you make your updates to Twitter private. So you may want to avoid connecting with clients on Twitter and only use it for prospecting.
To find prospects on LinkedIn, you can search its vast database, clicking “search,” and then narrowing that search on the pull-down menu to “search companies.” …
To find prospects on Twitter, you can search site profiles using some of the new Twitter search engines popping up, including: Tweepsearch, Twellow, Twubble and Mr. Tweet. Also check out a promising new registry for business-to-business searches on Twitter called Twibs. …
 
Compliance. Regulators offer little guidance about how advisors can use the new tools of social networking, apart from referencing existing advertising rules. …
To be sure, existing regulations are clear on many aspects of social networking. Still, it could save broker-dealers and RIAs a lot of money if the SEC and FINRA would offer more guidance, because then technology systems could be built to accommodate the rules. …
In the meantime, registered reps are clearly at a disadvantage, since some B/Ds are simply banning the use of certain social networking sites. Many have forbidden the use of Twitter or blog-writing by their reps.

3 Technologies to Help You Take Advantage of the Economic Recovery

Business.Gov

08-17-2009 04:38 PM

By smallbiztrends

Twenty-seven economists polled by the Wall Street Journal said that the Great Recession is over*. …

I don't know whether these economists are right or wrong.

But I do know this: ALL recessions eventually end. At some point I assure you there will be an end ... and customer demand will pick up. …

When the recovery happens, you want to be ready to jump on opportunities. If the recession's been tough on your business, consider the recovery a time for a reboot. With that in mind, here are 3 tools that can help your small business sell more and do so profitably, as the recovery takes hold:

1) CRM Software

CRM stands for "customer relationship management." … The real question is, what does customer relationship management add to your bottom line? How important is it?

Let me drive the point home in dollars and cents. It's a lot cheaper to retain existing customers and sell more to them, than it is to go out and find new customers. According to Brent Leary, Principal of CRM Essentials*: "Even in good economic conditions it can be 10 times more expensive to bring on new customers as it is to keep the ones we have. Small businesses are turning to CRM applications to help extend relationships with current customers, while increasing opportunities to connect with prospects more efficiently."…

One of the key metrics I urge you to start tracking if you don't already, is "customer acquisition cost." Know what it costs you to get a new customer. When you start tracking that metric, you will begin to appreciate the dollars-and-cents value of CRM.

2) Email Marketing Solution

Email marketing is a fantastic way to market to existing customers - at one-fifth or less of the cost of direct mail (snail mail). …

There are many email marketing software solutions on the market today that automate the entire process -- from signup, through managing your list database, to designing and sending bulk emails. A key advantage of using an email marketing software solution is that it saves a lot of time and labor, versus sending out emails on your own, managing your subscriber list manually through a spreadsheet, etc. …

However, I caution you not to assume that email marketing is right for every situation. Paper direct mail still is a far better way to get NEW customers. … Prospecting for new customers is one situation when email marketing has not replaced paper direct mail - here are some other situations*.

3) Website Analytics

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that putting up a website is a one-time event. …

Websites are living breathing organisms. In fact, today you can think of your Web presence as an ecosystem. You have a presence in microcommunities (i.e., other websites, including social media sites) and those presences work together with your website. And then there are the search engines, which index your website's pages for various keywords, and bring potential customers to your virtual door when they search for those keywords. It's all dynamic and constantly changing and evolving.

It is crucial to know about your website traffic, if you want your website to help get sales. Because if you don't know what's happening on your website, how can you know what to improve?

Install a good analytics package. Google Analytics is free and is a solution that many small businesses start with. Examine the data it generates, regularly. It's a goldmine!

(1) It tells you where your traffic is coming from. You will see which sites or search engines are sending visitors; which keywords or search terms people used to get there; the links they clicked on. This can tell if you need to develop more inbound links, or do a better job with content for more relevant search terms, and so on.

(2) It tells you information about your visitors. You'll learn which countries they come from; which days and times they like to visit; which browsers they use; even what screen resolution they have. This tells you who you are appealing to, and provides design considerations for your website.

(3) It tells you what's working in your website - and what isn't. You will see how long people stay, which pages they abandon, or whether they are converting to paying customers from particular online ads but not others. This will help you improve your website, your graphics and content, and your online ad campaigns. Sometimes a small change (moving a graphic from one spot to another, or a change in wording) makes a big improvement.

In conclusion, the above 3 tools are not the only ones, but they are worth their weight in gold. They will not only help you sell more, but do so cost effectively and efficiently.

*This hyperlink goes to a non-governmental web site.