By John C. Drachman

From Sugar Land, Texas to Atlanta, Georgia, financial advisors like Curtis A. Smith and Russ Thornton are finding that attracting new business in cyberspace can be as carefree and neighborly as Facebooking friends about the local sports team.

FAs Are Making a Bigger Splash with Social Media

Advisolocity President and CEO, D. Bruce Johnston interviewed the two professionals recently for a BrightTalk webinar on “Linking Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to Maximize Business Growth.”

The two said they have attracted new business to their firms by successfully building out their local presence with social media over the past two years.

For Curtis, the stated goal in the beginning was to achieve a #1 Google page presence for his products and services in the Sugar Land Texas region. “I found that Facebook friending in my community was very important,” he said. By knowing more about a prospect’s background, interests and hobbies, he has been able to achieve more relationship depth faster, he added.

Russ Thornton said, “Social media helps you better identify the people you should be talking to. It also provides you with more information about them to better prepare for a meeting.”

“However,” he added, “It’s important to remember you can’t just stay online. I believe strongly in getting out in the community and meeting people.”

Making client contacts outside of a community is possible, Russ noted, “as long as your client has some flexibility as to how much of their business can be conducted over the phone and online.”

To Bruce’s question about how important maintaining a structured marketing plan was to their efforts, Curtis said, “I don’t need a big, elaborate marketing plan. Social media levels the playing field and creates your presence just by you using it.”

Russ added, “It’s hard to know where to spend your time and money. Social media is proving to be the low cost dynamic way to put yourself out there and raise your profile.”

What about industry colleagues who are not ready to try social media? “They are making a big mistake,” Curtis said.

IPads are popping up everywhere you see a financial advisor these days. There’s nothing quite like replacing piles of paper for  a sleek electronic presentation when showing “what if” scenarios to a client.

The iPad should dramatically curb situations where advisors have to run back to their office to run a set of potential outcomes for clients. Such efforts represent a loss of all-important face time moments with the client.

The iPad makes the documents that somehow “didn’t make the meeting” a thing of the past.

Meanwhile, tasks that often require follow-up after the original meeting now can be accomplished during the meeting. Additionally, if access to prior meeting notes via an advisor’s CRM or a future appointment needs to be made, iPads allow advisors to do so in the moment.

Although some may view early adopters as jumping on a “fad,” there are indications that access to this new technology may change the way client communications and meetings are handled in the future.

The latest data available from Resolve Market Research, Citrix, Yahoo and others on iPad usage reports:

• Broad appeal Early adopters of the iPad tended to be young professionals; between the ages of 22 to 45, with the next group of adopters being much older then might be expected, 45 and older, according to Citrix. The latter segment is crucial for advisors as they make up 56% of iPad users.

• Affluent tilt Yahoo has reported a high usage of Flickr, as well as Finance, News and Sports sites with iPad users. Additionally, 94% of iPad users are more likely to be affluent consumers with solid wealth and strong incomes. This is an audience ripe for investment commentaries via streaming video, blogs and commentary.

• Stimulates more browsing Whereas publications such as GQ.com and Vanityfair.com are viewed from desktops from two to four minutes per month, viewership times increase with an iPad. These same titles’ iPad Apps are seeing up top 60 minutes worth of online browsing.

Ultimately, the iPad is a global phenomenon that is already revolutionizing online reading, browsing and viewing habits. This is good for clients — and advisors.

By John Drachman

“I don’t understand  about contact capture — I just need client acquisition.” (Overheard from a discussion between two financial advisors.)

An important part of any growth strategy is having the capability to reach out and attract new interest.

To promote products and services through traditional marketing venues, marketers face a task that can be time-consuming, expensive and perhaps annoying for recipients of a message. Think of paper-based direct mail.

Client acquisition's new best friend: Social media

On the other hand, social networking, participation in blogs and discussions groups are easy for prospects to engage in without having to make a commitment — until they are ready. Meanwhile, the link between a prospect and a product has a chance to strengthen over time. The decision to receive a message is elective; the prospect has a choice to engage in the communications — or opt out.

Simply put, low cost social media efforts act like a 24/7 business development machine for financial advisors and money managers on a budget.

If you are thinking about setting the stage for undertaking your own social media initiative, Advisolocity’s latest webinar, “Where Social Media Meets Client Acquisition,” can help. It aims to answer questions like these:

• What’s the minimum effort required to undertake a social media effort?
• What is the single best social media thing  you can do to improve client acquisition?
• What are the steps that lead from capturing contacts to actually acquiring clients?

To see  how easy-to-use, low-cost social media programs are helping asset managers and advisors stand out in a crowded market, view “Where Social Media Meets Client Acquisition.”

By D. Bruce Johnston, President and Chief Executive Officer, Advisolocity

There is good news about social media for smaller fund managers and advisors ahead.

Smaller Fund Managers Can Stand Out with Financial Social Media Marketing: Johnston

The new media platform has enough history to prove its cost-efficiency and value over traditional methods.

According to SocialWare’s Guide to Embracing Social Technologies in Regulated Industries, “The Altimeter Group found that companies with the highest levels of social media engagement increased revenues by 18% in the last 12 months, while the least active declined by 6%.”

While this alone doesn’t prove that all social media strategies have delivered, it does remove one of the barriers to trying a social media effort: social media has been proven to increase business.

A number of investment service providers and publications have been tackling the implications of the growing realization that revenue growth likes social media.

On August 3, Huntington Asset Services, formerly known as Unified Fund Services, will sponsor its first webinar on the topic of Using Social Media to Build Investor Awareness.

Interested investment industry professionals are invited to participate in the webinar by registering here.

The business-building implications of social media for liquidity-pinched financial services firms are growing larger. For example, recent data from marketing firm LederMark Communications underscores the growing popularity of these tools among financial services professionals.

According to that survey, up to 40% of all users say that social media strategies are helping them build new business. Research from Spectrem Consulting Group last spring delivered similar findings:

• 63% of Twitter users read tweets that offer financial advice
• 46% of YouTube users and 41% of Facebook users seek information from social networking investment forums

In addition to offering some practical guidance on how to use social media, the August 3 webinar also intends to feature insights on regulatory trends and archiving solutions.

Huntington Asset Services will continue to expand its social media marketing focus during its annual client meeting to be held September 12-13 in Indianapolis.