Think about how much of your life you spend online. Between catching up on your favorite podcasts, checking out influencers on Instagram and TikTok and reading the latest on Twitter, it’s probably more than you want to admit.

Your clients and prospects are doing the same. In 2021, Americans spent 4.8 hours a day on mobile apps, with social media accounting for about 70% of that time.

Social media marketing for advisors has never been more important. If you want to get in front of your clients and prospects, social media is key to highlighting your knowledge and thought leadership on the issues that are important to them.

 Advisors have gotten the message, with the vast majority of advisors using social media either personally or professionally. Social media is also becoming a way to grow an advisory business. According to Broadridge’s 2023 Financial Advisor Playbook, 41% of advisors have landed a client through social media, which is significantly more than was the case just three years before. What’s more, 54% of advisors who define themselves as growth-focused advisors (those who are actively adding new clients and spending $5,000 or more on marketing annually) have converted a social media lead into a client.

But not all advisors are making the most of their social media presence. With the right approach, advisors could be gaining additional leads and convert more clients. Follow these six best practices to learn how to improve social media marketing for financial advisors.

Tip 1: Add social media to your financial advisor marketing mix.

As any advisor knows, marketing is a multi-pronged effort. An omni-channel approach lets you engage individual prospects and clients throughout the investor lifecycle through their preferred channels.

That’s especially true of Millennial and Gen Z investors. These investors are moving into their peak earning years and they’re ready to tackle their biggest wealth-creation challenges. An advisor with an active social media presence is able to communicate with this key demographic in their preferred channel, helping to be seen as relatable.

In addition, social media has these advantages:

Cost-effective: Compared with traditional marketing channels, posting on social media costs significantly less. Even if you choose to upgrade access on a platform or use a service to help you produce and automate content, these costs are still less than other marketing channels such as advertising or email.

Super-fast: When the Federal Reserve raises rates or Congress passes a new budget, you don’t have time to write a lengthy report to give clients your view. Social media is a great medium for fast takes to drive engagement.

Builds trust: As you share your insights and thought leadership, your clients and prospects will begin trusting your expertise. Not only that, you can start to build trust with them on a personal level too. They’ll see that there’s a real person behind the investment talk.

Tip 2: Learn what you can and can’t say.

For years, financial advisors shied away from social media because of FINRA and SEC regulations. That changed in 2020 when the SEC loosened some of the rules. The biggest change is that financial advisors can now promote client reviews from third-party social media sites like Google Reviews.

Advisors still can’t use testimonials in advertising, but they can provide links to the websites where the reviews are. The SEC’s stance against soliciting or paying for positive reviews on advisors’ own social media pages still stands, though.

Another significant change is to Section 206, which governs advertisements made by financial advisors. Advisors can now interact with clients and prospects in the comment sections of social media posts. Before, advisor comments were seen as a way of giving advice and a violation of Section 206. You still can’t give advice in comments, but thoughtful engagement with your clients and prospects is a great way to stay top-of-mind.

Tip 3: Define your social media strategy.

Social media marketing for financial advisors must start with a well-thought-out strategy. The first question to ask is: “Who is my target audience?” This will drive not only the type of content you produce, but will also help you decide where you want to concentrate your efforts.

If you’re new to social media marketing, start small. Figure out what platform your target market is using and get comfortable posting there before venturing onto other channels.

Aim to create content around three areas:

Educational: Think about the challenges and concerns your best clients come to you with. Produce content that explores these topics and demonstrates your understanding of them and how you can offer solutions. Use a calendar to help you identify areas of interest for your clients, such as tax

Personal: Social media is a great way for clients and prospects to get to know you on a more personal level—professionally. Share news about your team, pictures from industry events, your volunteer work, and ways you’re active in the community. People want to do business with other people, and this type of content helps them make a more personal connection.

Offers: Promote webinars or in-person events on topics that might be of interest to your clients and prospects. Consider offering free one-on-one consultations to introduce your practice to prospective clients.

Tip 4: Tailor your message to the platform.

Because there are so many types of content, no one social media platform can do it all. To know where to concentrate your efforts, you must first define your target audience because different social media channels appeal to different demographics. You don’t need to be active on all the platforms, just the ones that work for you and your business.

LinkedIn: Because LinkedIn is used as a professional network, it’s often the first place prospects will go to validate your experience. According to the Broadridge 2023 Financial Advisor Playbook, LinkedIn and Facebook are the most effective platforms for converting clicks into clients. LinkedIn makes it easy to share long-form content, so you can drive followers back to your site to see any blog posts or articles.

Facebook: With 1.98 billion daily active users, Facebook is far and away the biggest social media platform. As a result, it gives you the ability to advertise directly to your demographic. What’s more, older users are very active on Facebook, with 73% of U.S. adults aged 50 to 64 active on the platform. If retirement planning is your core service offering, being active on Facebook is a must.

Twitter: The lifespan of content on Twitter is just a few minutes long, it’s the most conversational of social media platforms. Because of Twitter’s 280-character limit, you don’t have to write a lot to get into the conversation. Make sure to use one or two relevant hashtags so your content gets noticed by people looking for posts on that topic.

Instagram: Photos are the main staple on Instagram, so your followers can get a visual view of you and your firm. Instead of describing your company-wide volunteer day, post pics of your team rolling up their sleeves and getting to work.

TikTok: This is the platform of choice for young people. In fact, 34% of Gen Z respondents to a GoBankingRates survey said they learn about personal finance from TikTok and YouTube. If you’re trying to reach them, try posting short, educational videos.

YouTube: People are consuming more videos every day. Video generates 12 times more shares than text and images combined. Building out a library of educational videos that help clients understand markets, retirement planning, or a current event can highlight your expertise as a trusted source of information. Aim to go narrow on your topics so you’ll have less competition and optimize your videos with the right keywords.

Tip 5: Post no more than once a day.

Social media marketing for financial advisors is all about consistency. You want to give your followers a reason to keep coming back and stay top-of-mind. Posting too often, however, can have the opposite effect. It can leave your followers feeling overwhelmed or worse, annoyed.

Once a day is a happy medium on most platforms.

Tip 6: Automate your social media marketing.

Producing financial advisor social media marketing on a regular basis has big upsides—but it’s also time-consuming. Experts say that social media marketing should take a financial advisor no more than 10 minutes a day. In the beginning, though, it might take significantly more time than that to iron out all the kinks.

A turnkey social media marketing solution can help you get to the finish line sooner by automating your content. AdvisorStream’s automated system allows you to tap into the largest multi-media library of highly engaging, shareable, FINRA-compliant content. Once you start posting and sharing, AdvisorStream “learns” how your followers interact with your content, continually honing the relevancy and appeal—without you having to do the heavy lifting.

Next Steps

Social media marketing for advisors comes down to strategy and consistency. Choose the right social media marketing partner to provide customizable automation to the effort so you can focus your time on what you do best: working with clients. Request a demo to find out more about how AdvisorStream, a Broadridge company, can take your social media marketing to the next level.