Social media marketing for financial advisors can be an extremely effective way to connect with potential clients and build relationships with them. But to get the most out of social media, you need to use it in the right way.
Social Media for Advisors: The right vs wrong way
If you’re short on time, here’s a quick summary on how financial advisors can use social media to get results:
The right way
The wrong way
Want to learn more about the right way to use social media?
Click here to watch my free Masterclass training which explains how financial advisors can use social media to get 10, 15, 30 or more high-quality appointments each month with your ideal clients by focusing on RESULTS (not vanity metrics).
7 Social media marketing tips for financial advisors
Here are seven of my best tips for using social media effectively:
1. Ignore the social media ‘busywork’
Most financial advisors today are busy posting every day on social media and focusing on metrics such as:
- Getting more likes
- Getting more comments
- Getting more shares
- Getting more engagement
But how much of that activity actually contributes to leads, appointments or clients? In my experience, it’s very little (if anything at all).
I have clients who (before working with me) were posting every day on social media for YEARS and didn’t even get one single lead from it!
But after they stopped focusing on vanity social media metrics and started focusing on lead generation for financial advisors, they got completely different results (almost overnight!).
The lesson?
Focus on the social media activities that get RESULTS (leads, appointments and clients) and ignore everything else.
If you’re wondering what strategy we use with financial advisors to get results, then watch this free training here which explains how it all works.
2. Use the right social media platforms
Financial advisors do not need to be on every social media platform.
The key is to focus your efforts on the social media channels that will actually get YOU the best results.
In my experience, the best social media channels for financial advisors are (in order of best to worst):
- YouTube SEO (The best for FREE leads)
- Facebook & Instagram (The best for paid leads)
- TikTok (Starting to overtake Facebook… Keep an eye on this one!)
- LinkedIn (good for some niches)
- Twitter (meh… Not great, but not the worst either)
- Pinterest (I wouldn’t even bother with this one)
- Snapchat (I wouldn’t even bother with this one)
- Pinterest (I wouldn’t even bother with this one)
Here’s a more detailed overview of each social media channel:
YouTube
YouTube is a video social media platform. Video is the most powerful form of content on social media today because it’s highly engaging and people love to watch videos.
In fact, YouTube is now the second largest search engine in the world (after Google).
This means that if you’re not using YouTube as part of your social media strategy, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.
The best way financial advisors can use YouTube is by creating helpful and informative videos that potential clients will find useful.
You can also use YouTube to drive traffic to your lead generation funnel to generate leads, appointments and clients.
Watch ‘Step 4’ of this video to learn how to do this.
Facebook & Instagram
Facebook & Instagram are great platforms for financial advisors to connect with potential clients.
Meta owns both Facebook and Instagram – which is why I include these social platforms together.
Facebook is one of the largest social media platforms in the world with over 2.9 billion active users. And Facebook is the social media channel with the largest demographic of older people on it too (making it perfect for advisors).
However, just posting on Facebook or Instagram each day won’t work well. Organic Facebook reach is practically dead. And Instagram’s organic reach isn’t amazing either for the financial services niche.
The only way to get real (and fast) results with Facebook these days is through financial advisor Facebook ads.
See ‘Step 4’ of this video to learn about the strategy we use for advisor clients to do this.
TikTok
You might be surprised to learn that TikTok has over 9 million active users over the age of 55+. What does this mean for you?
TikTok can be a great way to advertise your financial services – either through TikTok ads or by organic TikTok posts.
For the quickest results, I recommend just using TikTok ads.
The advantage to using TikTok ads when advertising financial services is that you can specifically target an audience based on age, income and different interests (for example, people interested in annuities, Universal Indexed Life Insurance, wealth management and more).
Here’s a screenshot of one of our financial advisor clients getting leads from TikTok ads (the campaign was launched just a few days ago as I’m writing this article):
As you can see, this advisor has spent less than $200 and already has 29 leads with a cost per lead of less than $8!
If you want help with financial advisor TikTok ads, you can learn more about working with us by watching this video.
LinkedIn isn’t the best social media channel for financial advisors because it’s harder to target an older demographic.
Even so, LinkedIn is still a LOT better than sending cold emails using cold email software or going to networking events to try to find prospects.
Also, if you’re using LinkedIn lead generation to target people based on job titles, industry, people changing jobs or other B2B criteria NOT based on age then LinkedIn can work well.
Here’s an example of how to target people changing jobs for 401K rollover leads on LinkedIn.
Other social media channels
There are of course other social media channels on this list that I have included, such as Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat etc. But I didn’t include these channels because I haven’t seen any financial advisors get consistent and profitable results on any of those channels.
3. Optimize social media profiles
In today’s social media-driven world, it’s more important than ever for financial advisors to have an optimized social media presence.
Why?
Because social media provides a powerful platform for building relationships with potential clients and any retirement leads you get will most likely check you out on social media.
By carefully crafting your social media profiles, you can ensure that the people you are targeting will see the value in working with you.
What are some things you can do to optimize your social media profiles?
First, make sure that your profile photos are professional and up-to-date (seriously, I know one financial advisor who had an unprofessional picture and it was affecting his conversion rates. He changed the picture and conversion rates instantly increased).
Next, take the time to fill out your bio completely, and be sure to include keywords that relate to your niche.
By following these simple tips, you can make sure that your social media presence looks good to anyone who checks you out on social media. The same principles can also apply to your financial advisor website.
4. Follow your target market
When thinking about which social media platforms to use for your financial advisor marketing, it’s important to think about your target market.
Who are you trying to reach with your social media marketing and where are they hanging out?
No matter who your target market is, there’s a social media platform out there for you. The key is to figure out which platforms your target market is using and then focus your efforts on those platforms.
5. Don’t limit yourself to social media only
While social media is a powerful marketing tool for financial advisors, it’s important to remember that it shouldn’t be your only marketing strategy.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak.
The reality is that social media should be just one part of your overall marketing strategy.
Other financial advisor digital marketing channels such as email marketing and SEO for financial advisors also work very well.
The bottom line is that you need to have a well-rounded marketing strategy that includes multiple channels to succeed.
6. Stay compliant on social media
When using social media for financial advisors, it’s important to stay compliant and follow the rules and policies of the firm you work with.
In my experience, some financial advisor firms are a lot more strict than others when it comes to their social media policies.
So, you’ll need to double-check the policies for using social media in your firm FIRST before using any social media platforms.
In many cases, you can use social media without any issues as long as you get anything you post approved by compliance first. It’s also a good idea to keep a record of your social media posts for archiving purposes.
Marketing for financial advisors: Next steps
There are a lot of good and bad ways advisors can take advantage of social media to grow their business.
The key is to start by understanding your ideal client, then craft a social media strategy that will generate leads, appointments and clients (not likes, followers and engagement).
To learn the best strategy to do this, watch this free training here.
FAQs
Ashley Davis (or ‘Ash’ for short) is the CEO & Founder of Skyline Social. For over 15 years, he has been helping business owners with lead generation. Ash specializes in helping businesses get high-quality leads, appointments and clients each month in an automated, scalable and profitable way. You can watch his free Masterclass training to learn more.
