Today, when your clients and prospects are on Facebook, it makes immense sense to market yourself intelligently on Facebook
Having a presence on Facebook has become an integral part of the marketing strategy for individuals as well as companies. It’s no surprise that Facebook is one of the most cost effective marketing tools for advisors to reach out to masses.
According to a report published in Hindustan Times in 2013, India had the second largest Facebook users in the world.
At a recently held Cafemutual IFA event, Sanjay Mehta, Chief Executive Officer, Social Wavelength explained how financial advisors can leverage social media to grow their business. He recommended advisors to use social media to connect with their target audience, provide timely inputs, build thought leadership, gain trust, and in doing so, take the client from a state of confusion to a state of composure.
We took some excerpts from his presentation to help you draw a Facebook strategy.
Make your Facebook page: A Facebook page helps you present yourself as a brand. Facebook page is different from your individual account. Moreover, this is free of cost. A Facebook page lets you upload photos, videos, create discussion group, start quiz and so on. Thus, a page helps you present your message in multiple forms. For instance, you can share your review of a new scheme, explain the importance of financial planning and so on. Sharing articles related to personal finance through your page is a good way to create engagement with clients. Make sure your content is relevant and timely. If you maintain a blog or publish articles on your website, you can share the link of that blog post/website through Facebook. Alternatively, you can also publish notes directly on Facebook page.
Use message to communicate: People may mark email as spam; however, they won’t mark your Facebook message as spam. People like to see updates from friends and family members. However, you would do well to refrain from sending product promotional material. Use this opportunity to establish a meaningful rapport with prospects/clients. You can also share interesting news, articles and education videos through message option.
Create a group: A group can have a lot of participants. Typically, the group would have participants belonging to an identical profession. It works like a forum and people can communicate with each other in a more democratic way. Just like Whats App group, you can create a Facebook group.
Event update: Facebook event enables you to send out invitations and get RSVP. Also, if you send an invitation to 100 people, you will be automatically connected with their friends. It helps promote your event in a cost effective way. So, the next time you plan to conduct an investor awareness program, try Facebook event to send invitations.
Cause: You can raise a voice for any cause. Even if the topic is not directly related to investments, it helps you interact or connect with masses and build a good rapport.
Quiz: You can start an opinion poll or quiz through Facebook. However, try to keep it topical and interesting like ‘do women make financial decisions better than men?’ or ‘If you are a young professional, where should you invest - mutual fund, insurance, share market, gold or real estate’ etc. Such polls help generate interest among people. Remember to keep it short and brief.
Presentation: A lot depends on the way you present yourself on Facebook. It doesn’t matter how big your business is, even a billion dollar firm would have similar resources as you on Facebook. Thus, you can become really popular if your content is interesting. For instance, you can market your business with attractive presentation by putting financial quotes, blog link with attractive headlines, educational videos etc.
We hope the above suggestions would be useful for you to engage with prospects using Facebook. Let us know your suggestions and experience on using Facebook.
