Social media content can be puzzling for financial planners. What should you be posting about? How often? What kind of content works?
The answers are made harder by the different types of social media platforms available – with their different algorithms and etiquette. What works on Twitter, for instance, may not necessarily work well on LinkedIn (and vice versa).
However, it is important for financial planners and advisers to have a presence on relevant social platforms. Many clients are active on specific platforms, and by publishing good quality posts on your accounts you increase the opportunity for valuable brand touch-points.
Below, our team at Clients+ will be sharing 7 types of social media posts that financial planners may benefit from using.
We hope this is useful to you. If you’d like to check out our content library at Clients+ (where we offer many of these types of content, ready-made) then please create an account to browse our content range.
#1 Infographics
An infographic is a special kind of image depicting an idea (or set of ideas) in a compelling visual format.
Various digital image libraries offer some ready-made infographics for financial planners. However, many of them are quite simplistic or geared towards other countries (where pension rules and other regulations are different).
Quite often, it is possible to make your own financial planning infographic using a free service like Canva.
The power of infographics is that they are highly shareable. People like to show them to their friends on social media, and other websites might choose to embed your infographic on their blog or other content (if you allow this) – providing more brand exposure.
#2 Pre-recorded videos
Financial planning videos – especially animated ones – are a great way to engage your audience on social media.
Social algorithms are increasingly prioritising video content in users’ news feeds (since this is the type of content people often like to consume). Here, you can offer how-to guides, market updates and educational videos on key areas of financial planning.
The main disadvantage of videos is that the cost scales quite a lot with production level. However, you can still access very good financial planning videos for your marketing using an off-the-shelf, dedicated service like our video range at Clients+.
#3 eBooks / flipbooks
An eBook (like a downloadable PDF) allows you to offer more content compared to a social media post. Moreover, you can brand it to match your logo, colour scheme and overall visual identity – allowing for a more prestigious presentation.
However, bear in mind that social media users are “fast food” content consumers, flicking rapidly down their news feeds. They may not want to stop an read an entire eBook. However, they might choose to download it to their device to read later.
A flipbook is a nice alternative to a PDF. Here, you provide a link to a “digital” version of your presentation where users can “turn” the pages using their mouse. This provides a lovely reading experience, but the main challenge will be convincing users to click away from the social media platform to access and read it.
#4 Live videos
Did you know that you can “live stream” to many social media platforms (e.g. Facebook)?
This allows financial planners to provide a “real time” presentation – or Q&A session – to their prospects and clients. It is a fantastic way to make yourself more accessible to people and provide valuable content that may not otherwise be possible from a blog post.
A good examine of this type of content is Ramin Nakisa’s YouTube channel, called PensionCraft. Here, Ramin often provides a live Q&A session with his followers to talk about the equity markets and how developments might affect investment strategy.
Of course, this is quite a scary step for lots of financial planners to take. It can take guts to put yourself out there on a live stream, where potentially millions of people could post comments about you.
However, if you can do it, this could be an amazing way to market your business!
#5 Written posts
Often called the “bread and butter” of digital marketing, blog posts (or “long form” posts on many social platforms) are a powerful way to write a longer exposition about a particular topic that is relevant to your audience.
Some channels, of course, are quite restrictive here. Twitter, for instance, is notorious for imposing strict character/word limits on how much you can post. However, you can often get around this by dividing up a longer post into separate “tweets” – and numbering them (so people know that each tweet is part of a longer thread).
The big drawback to written posts is that they often struggle to compete with other social media posts. After all, there is a lot of other content out there vying for your audience’s attention. As such, you need to build a strong following and take creative efforts to stand out.
#6 Shares
Not everything you post on social media needs to be your own.
One great way to offer value to your followers is to “share” or “re-tweet” another person’s post. This could be an infographic about pensions that particularly stood out to you, and which you thought would be interesting to your audience. Or, maybe it’s an informative video.
Your audience often appreciates this, as it sends the message that your social channel is not simply about “banging your own drum”. It can also build up productive, helpful relationships with other content creators (perhaps opening up opportunities to guest blog).
#7 Reviews & testimonials
Financial planners typically get a large portion of their clients from referrals.
If enough trusted people speak about your business in a positive way – sharing good past experiences of dealing with you – then this can give prospects that extra confidence to reach out to you. Here, posting good reviews and testimonials on social media can be a big help.
