5 tips for social engagement

03 May 2017

Adele Martin

Adele Martin CFP® is the Managing Director and Senior Wealth Adviser at Firefly Wealth.

Adele Martin CFP® provides her top five tips for improving a financial planning practice’s social engagement.

Newcastle-based Adele Martin CFP®, from Firefly Wealth, is adamant you don’t need to be an expert to implement an effective social media strategy for a financial planning practice. She admits be being on a constant learning curve, discovering what works best for her and her business. The following are her top five tips that are easy and cost-effective for any planner to apply to their business.

TIP 1: Video

Adele’s first tip is – video, video, video. Online users love watching short videos and they have a much higher engagement with them than static text pages.

“Facebook is on record saying it wants to take over YouTube for the delivery of video content online, so video is only going to become more important in any social media strategy,” she says.

Adele adds that online videos should also include captions, as they help to reinforce what is being said in the video.

“There’s a great website called Rev (www.rev.com/caption) where it will do your video captions for $1 a minute. When I introduced captioning on my videos, my audience reach increased massively.”

TIP 2: Ownership

Adele warns that business owners should not delegate responsibility for social media to the admin team or office juniors, and then expect that posting a graphic or image will be enough to generate interest in a post.

“It’s a common mistake I see planners make all the time. When it comes to Facebook, you have to be yourself and you have to be authentic. So, just having a meme1 on the page, or some pretty image, is not you being authentic.

“I’m ‘friends’ with most of my clients on Facebook, so they understand my world and what I’m doing. And importantly, it also helps me to understand my clients better,” she says. “I know what is happening in their lives. I know when they just had a baby or have been made redundant. This allows me to respond straight away and better help them.”

“I know Facebook provides a level of intimacy that might freak a lot of planners out, but my clients actively message me on Facebook, and they tag and post me on Facebook. They feel connected with me as their trusted planner. Not only do they help spread my professional profile, they are my referral network. Now, that’s powerful.”

TIP 3: Believe in it

For any practitioner without a presence on Facebook, Adele advises them to get on board – and do it quickly!

“I hate it when I hear planners say, ‘My clients aren’t on Facebook’. When I hear them say that I think, well, my mum is 71 and she’s on Facebook. There’s 15 million Facebook users in Australia. So, when I hear a planner say their clients aren’t on Facebook, they actually are. The people you are targeting are on Facebook.”

And Facebook users typically spend about 13 hours a week on there, which Adele believes is a wonderful opportunity for planners to connect with consumers in a non-threatening and easily digestible format.

TIP 4: Understand your audience

For planners using Facebook, they need to really understand and know their avatars2 and the person they are talking to.

“Once you understand the type of person you are talking to, you’ll be able to use that to refine and target your audience better,” she says.

As an example, Adele’s audience has many of the same characteristics as personal trainer, author and TV personality, Michelle Bridges’ audience – predominantly women who are in their 30’s.

“So, knowing that, I actually target Michelle Bridges’ audience on Facebook,” Adele says. “Or if I know that a lot of clients approach me after they turn 30, then I provide content of value on Facebook that just targets people who are about to turn 30. So, if you understand your avatars, you can effectively target them on Facebook.”

In fact, the level of user detail on Facebook that is available to planners is extraordinary, and is widely considered to be better than Australian census information.

“You can target somebody who has just got engaged, you can target somebody who has just turned 30, you can target somebody in a particular income bracket – it’s really remarkable the level of detail that’s available to practitioners,” Adele says.

Importantly, Adele says ‘targeting’ is not about showing an ad or an offer to the Facebook user. Instead, she says it’s about showing the user something of genuine value, such as a video, and then building upon that trust.

Interestingly, Adele is currently doing a series of videos that not only provides value but is generating trust within her audience groups.

She explains: “You start with a big audience, like Michelle Bridges’ audience. I target her audience with a video that I think will resonate with them. I know that the people who watch the video are interested. I can then retarget the people who have watched that first video and then continue that retargeting for as long as my target campaign goes for.

“Effectively, what I’m doing is building a funnel. So, I might have an audience of one million people for my first video, with only 10,000 people watching it. Then maybe 8,000 people who watch the second video. With these two videos, I’m providing value to my audience. It’s only at the end of my target campaign, not during it, do I make an offer regarding my services or invite them to join the Savings Squad.”

TIP 5: Get active

Adele’s final tip is for planners to “get active” in other online groups.

“Not to sell or promote your services, but by adding value through supporting these online communities with your expertise and capability.

“These could be groups where your key clients or potential clients hang-out. By opting in and providing valid support to these groups, eventually users of these groups will click on your profile to check you out. It’s an easy, interactive and cost-effective way to attract new clients.”

  1. A meme is used to describe a thought, idea, joke or concept thats widely shared online. It is typically an image with text above and below it, but can also come in video and link form.
  2. An avatar is an image or username that represents a person online, most often within forums and social networks.

 

Adele Martin CFP® is the Managing Director and Senior Wealth Adviser at Firefly Wealth.

To read more about Adele and her approach to targeting the 20-40 year age bracket, click on this link.

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