3 time-saving tips for financial advisors using social media
November 19, 2013 by Amy Mcllwain
It’s happened to all of us. You were just going to check your Facebook for five minutes and the next thing you know, it’s been an hour. Social media has a reputation for being one big black hole. It sucks you in and makes you lose all sense of time and any chance for productivity.
One of the big reasons advisors often hesitate when considering using social media is that they don’t have the time to dive into tons of different networks with all those tweets, friends, follows and likes.
I have to agree; sometimes it does pull me in and can be time consuming … but it doesn’t have to be. Using social media for your business can actually be a highly effective and rewarding use of your time. Here’s how:
Quality, not quantity
If your time and resources are limited, your first step should be to determine which social platforms are the most deserving of your time based on your marketing goal. It’s better to be 100 percent active on a couple of sites like Facebook and LinkedIn than to have incomplete profiles and zero activity on six different social sites.
Also, make sure what you’re saying is worthwhile. Don’t flood you networks with “word spam” just because you don’t think you have enough time to produce content. A few relevant articles or thoughtful questions are all you need to spark user engagement.
Create a schedule
One of the best pieces of advice I can give you for managing your social media marketing is to create a detailed editorial calendar. A social media calendar will help keep you organized and accountable, both of which are important for executing a quality social media strategy.
At the beginning of each week, either schedule out all of your activity or block out a small amount of time each day for social media. Use the calendar as a checklist of when to post and what to say on your social sites.
Take a look at “The financial advisor’s 3-step guide to building an editorial calendar” for more tips.
Use shortcuts
It can be extremely time-consuming to share your firm’s latest video blog or event invite on multiple social sites every single week. There are a few shortcuts you can use to save yourself some precious time.
- Use your editorial calendar discussed above to schedule all of your tweets, posts and updates in advance. This will give you the freedom to focus on the rest of your business all week long.
- Take advantage of dashboards like Hootsuite, that allow you to post content to multiple sites at once rather than logging into three or four different platforms to say the same thing.
- Search specific topics and keywords with Google Alerts. This way, you receive an email containing the content and conversations you are interested in, rather than sifting through endless social newsfeeds.
- Follow up on all your social activity in one place. After you’ve scheduled and posted your content, you can continue to use a dashboard site to keep track of user engagement and respond to any comments and replies. Here’s a run-down on the top social media dashboards your business can take advantage of.
Taking the time to get organized is going to be your biggest asset in the battle against the social media black hole. Once you have a clear plan, using social media for your business will start to feel more manageable and you will be on your way to seeing results.
