LinkedIn vs. Facebook As a Financial Advisor

This is the year to go digital. Do you have accounts on LinkedIn and Facebook? With the death of the dinner seminar due to COVID-19 and social distancing requirements, a lot of financial advisors are having a hard time finding new ways to market their business to new prospects. How are you supposed to meet new clients if you can't see them face-to-face? If you are asking yourself this question, you are not alone. In fact, with everything going on in the world, there is actually a lot of do's and dont's to keep in mind when it comes to COVID-19 and your strategy. But first things first - are you on social media? And if not, where do you even begin?

Some of the most popular questions we are asked are "Do I need a LinkedIn profile?", or "Do I need a Facebook profile?". In today's post, I am going to show you everything you need to know about LinkedIn and Facebook as a financial advisor.

Who is Your Ideal Client?

While you may think that you need to be on every social media platform out there, you actually don't need to focus on creating a presence everywhere. For instance, most financial advisors can not be on Instagram due to regulations from their broker-dealer. There are benefits to being on both LinkedIn and Facebook, but we'd recommend making one platform your primary focus for your lead generation campaign. But to generate leads, you need to make sure that you are looking in the right places. If you are looking for those individuals nearing retirement or small business owners in your area, social media is the place to be, as both Facebook and LinkedIn offer great targeting tools to find the right people and get in contact with them. Let's walk through which platform makes the most sense for your firm in more detail.

Why LinkedIn?

Linkedin is the world's largest professional network with 706+ million users. There are many opportunities to create meaningful relationships with other professionals. Below are some of the most popular campaigns we run within our LinkedIn Lead Generation service. This is where we send out customized connection requests each week to your target audience to initiate an introduction and get a meeting scheduled for you to learn more about each other:

• Small business owners
• 401(k) Rollovers
• Self-Directed Brokerage Accounts
• In-Service Distributions
• COI opportunities
• Media spotlights (Where we message reporters on your behalf to promote a potential segment
• Pre-retirees
• Webinar/event promotion
• Employees at a certain company

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

One of the best recommendations we can make to finding leads on LinkedIn is to upgrade your LinkedIn account to Sales Navigator. Sales Navigator is LinkedIn's recruiting platform that helps us find the strongest prospects for your business so that you can make a strong introduction. Within this upgrade (that costs $79.99 with your first month free), you are able to refine your search by some great filters. In fact, you can get really specific with who you are looking for. Here are just a few of the filters you can use to your advantage:

• Company name
• Job Title
• Years at current company
• The years spent in current role
• Their years of experience
• Industry Number of Employees

Within this platform, you are able to save audiences for the next time you hop into LinkedIn. You can also keep track of the new users in your audience as they change their titles. It helps you get more specific and will save you time in the long run because you'll be finding people that you know will already be a good fit for your business. For instance, if you're looking for someone who works at a certain company that offers a self-directed brokerage account, you can look for individuals who work at that company with a certain title for a significant amount of time. You can also search for people who have been business owners at their company for over 10 years with 11 to 50 employees. This person will most likely be a better fit for your practice than someone who may be listed as a "Business Owner" on LinkedIn, but really just have a side hustle.

Networking

LinkedIn is a great place to network. That's actually its sole purpose! One of the best features this platform has to offer is the way you can be personable while still building up your business. While you can not message someone as a business profile on LinkedIn, you can as a personal profile. We recommend messaging your prospects with an eye-catching intro. One that still seems genuine and helps solve an issue the current individual is facing. For instance, have they been laid off from their company recently? Try messaging someone about rolling over their 401K on LinkedIn to let them know that you would be happy to help them answer any questions they have during this difficult time. This helps them tenfold because now they don't need to search for help in their situation. All they have to do is let you know when works best for them to have an initial meeting.

If you want to start direct conversations with users based on pre-qualifying criteria you know is a good fit for your business, we recommend LinkedIn! Especially if you are looking for a C-suite executive, business owner, or a young professional.

Why Facebook?

Facebook is a great place to post, advertise, and grow your business' brand awareness. Most people turn to social media before Google nowadays. Being on Facebook is not really an option anymore actually. It's the new age of Yellow Pages, and we highly recommend creating an account.

While you may think that Facebook is a place set aside for a younger crowd, you could not be more wrong. In fact, our best Facebook Ad campaigns target people in or nearing retirement. A lot of people in this age range are getting online so that they can keep in touch with their grandkids and family. Typically, they are also really responsive to marketing efforts, too. While it is important to be active on Facebook and post frequently to keep an online presence against your competitors, Facebook is also a great place to be if you'd like to target people who need help forming a retirement plan.

Boosting

Posting on social media is a waste of time if no one ACTUALLY sees your posts. Effort matters, but so do results. One great feature Facebook has to offer is boosting posts. Boosting on Facebook is a great way to make sure you increase your reach or the number of people who view your posts. This feature is available to anyone with a business page. Simply put, it is paying to get your content seen by more people. You can boost almost any post from your page and this will help increase your engagement, or your reactions, shares, and comments. You will want to make sure that it is a post that has a call-to-action so that you can accomplish your goal for that post. The great thing about Facebook boosting is that you can select which audience sees your posts before. This is where you can really specific with interests, location, age-range, and more.

Want to learn more about boosting on Facebook? Check out this blog post to learn step-by-step what you need to know when it comes to getting your content to perform well on the platform.

Facebook Ad Campaigns

Boosting is a great way to get your traditional posts seen by more people, Facebook has a great ad platform. Facebook ads can help you capture more lead info and book appointments. We often run lead generation campaigns with attention-grabbing copy and an image that resonates with the users we are trying to reach. Whether the offer is for a free consultation or a free eBook, users are prompted to fill out a lead gen form with their contact info and areas of concern so that someone from that business will reach out to schedule an initial meeting. You need to have some phone stamina to follow-up with leads. But, these individuals are expecting to be followed up with!

Should I Have Accounts on Both LinkedIn and Facebook?

Yes! Why not? These accounts are free to make and will help your name rank higher among search engines, such as Google. Plus, you never know who may stumble across your name online on the platform. Most of our clients have accounts on more platforms. At Hyperchat, we choose our lead generation campaigns based on your ideal client.

Here at Hyperchat Social, we can help you start meaningful relationships on both LinkedIn and Facebook! Want to learn more? We'd love to hear about how we can help you start turning Social Into Sales TM. Go to tryhyperchat.com to schedule a consultation with us today!