For financial intermediaries only.
Not approved for use with customers.
Driving conversations through
social media
Start building conversations through
social media and grow your business
by sharing information/content
In recent years social media sites, such as Twitter, YouTube,
LinkedIn, and Facebook, have become part of our dayto-day life and business lives. Including these tools in
your marketing activity could help you reach a wider
audience than more traditional communication methods,
such as direct mail. Using social media is a great way to
raise awareness of your expertise and make contact with
potential new clients, professional contacts, nurture existing
ones and to engage customers with relevant content.
The term social media is used to describe a specific group
of websites and online tools where users generate content
in a spirit of engagement and collaboration. Contacts
can be both social and professional, so, for financial
intermediaries, social media can be a strong addition
to both your marketing activity and your professional
networking potential.
Keep in mind that the key to making the most of social
media marketing relies on you being able to engage people
in the conversation.
Getting started
Social media marketing can be cost-effective as it’s free to
set-up and can increase your overall reach. It’s all about
getting your message across online.
Finding your way around the
social networks
There are literally hundreds of social networks where you
can post content – but it’s important to choose the right
ones, for your business and your target audience.
Facebook
The biggest social network by far, with 1.65 billion monthly
active users of different ages, it’s a great place to start your
social media activity. You can set up a business page for
free and pay to advertise your services.
Twitter
With 310 million monthly active users, Twitter is another
enormous social network, where people can tweet
hundreds of messages within seconds. Each 140 character
tweet has the power to spread information around the
world in seconds – so imagine what it could do on a local
level? In many cases, Twitter feeds are subject to journalist
exemptions. However, for firms promoting their own
products or services on Twitter (and other social media),
normal financial promotion rules apply. To understand these
rules, guidelines created by the FCA (Financial Conduct
Authority) outline specific areas that firms need to consider.
Google+
Google+ is a social networking site encouraging the use of
social ‘layers’ to allow users to flexibly manage all aspects of
their communication with others. ‘Circles’, ‘hang outs’, and
‘huddles’ allow for far more control of content sharing than
most other social networking sites. Google+ may not have the
popularity of Facebook, but the option to send out specific
content could be very useful to your business. It means you
can control and use your network to your advantage, and
send messages only to the people that you want to.
It is vital that when you are planning and implementing your own marketing and promotional activity you
follow the rules and guidance set by the regulator or other relevant authority.
Call 0345 302 2287 or visit www.justadviser.com
Driving conversations through social media
LinkedIn
Blogs
Compared with Facebook, LinkedIn is mainly for business
people – so it gives you access to a potentially highly
lucrative group of contacts. It’s also a good place to share
information and ideas with other financial intermediaries
and industry professionals. LinkedIn can also be used for
B2B recruitment so make sure that you establish yourself as
an expert.
Relevant blogs are a good way to gather information,
network with other professionals and demonstrate your
expertise by answering questions posted by curious
potential customers. Running your own blog also gives
you an additional platform to talk about the services you
offer, industry comment and increase general audience
engagement. It is also a good way to improve your search
engine ranking as writing new and unique content will help
drive traffic to your website.
YouTube
You only have to think how often a video goes viral on
YouTube, with people sharing it via email, news reports,
Facebook and other networks to appreciate its significance.
Google owns YouTube and videos rank in the search results
so this could help increase traffic to your website.
Think of it as ‘social video’, which you can use to boost
interaction with your customers. Amazon’s use of video
customer reviews is a good example of ‘social video’ –
where people can participate, change or comment on a
topic through the same channel.
Online forums
An online forum consists of groups of members who
gather in an online space of particular relevancy. Message
boards offer a great opportunity to see what questions
are being asked by customers, giving you an idea of great
future content for your own articles. Becoming a respected
member of a message board can also open up new
opportunities with other professionals and potential clients
who value your contributions.
Top tip
• Use Google Analytics to measure your website
advertising, as well as track your video and social
networking sites and applications.
• Analysing your results is a good way to know if your
pages are working or not.
• You can check the traffic referral section to see if
your social networks are driving traffic your way.
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Call 0345 302 2287 or visit www.justadviser.com
Driving conversations through social media
Creating a social media
marketing strategy
What social media marketing can add
to your marketing mix
Decide which social media sites you want to use and
decide how you’re going to use them to drive traffic to
your website.
By understanding the various social networks, you can
devise a strategy that will increase traffic to your website
and grow your business.
This is when you need to understand your customers
thoroughly. Think about your typical client, including sex,
age, profession etc. Once you know who you need to
reach, target the social networks they use the most and
build your content strategy around this.
Here’s how it works:
Top tip
• T o keep people interacting and sharing your
content, engage them with interesting and relevant
information, such as blogs and facts.
• If you come across an interesting financial news
story or article, share it.
• Ask people for their views and keep
conversations going.
• Have a goal in mind for what you want to get from
your social media marketing – more sales, increased
awareness? Make sure that you share content that
will help you achieve this by commenting on other
stories and contacting useful local contacts
in relevant industries. This will help to establish
you as an expert in retirement planning.
• Build relationships with key influencers in your
market by sharing links and liking their content –
it can be reciprocal. Keep it genuine, if your liking
and sharing becomes overkill it may appear that
your actions are purely for personal gain and can
be off-putting.
• Social media marketing can help build your reputation
and create a buzz about your business. The more
people talk about your business on Facebook to their
friends, tweet about you on Twitter, share your website
on LinkedIn or pin your work on Pinterest, the more
awareness of your business will grow. More mentions
will also increase your search engine ranking. Think of it
as word-of-mouth via the internet!
• Compared with traditional marketing channels, social
media marketing is relatively cheap. A well produced
YouTube video could create lots of publicity.
• Social media lets other people market your website or
company for you, for free.
• You can use social media to connect directly with
potential clients and form a relationship with them.
For example, you could use Facebook and Twitter to
promote new products, talk about changes to financial
legislation, or showcase new services.
• The social reach of networks like Facebook, Twitter
and LinkedIn is phenomenal, with the potential for
quite advanced data-gathering. For example, you can
use Facebook targeting features to pinpoint users using
specific criteria such as age or location – effectively
creating instant market research.
Call 0345 302 2287 or visit www.justadviser.com
3
Driving conversations through social media
Get your message across effectively:
• Think before you tweet. Consider your comments
carefully – and always be professional. Remember there
is a 140 character limit.
• Your online profile should reflect your business profile.
Steer clear of too much personal information.
• Update your tweets or posts regularly – at least once
a week, but ideally every day.
• Images and video can help to increase engagement.
• Promote your social media activity through your website,
your blog, your e-comms, your press ads, PR, and direct
marketing – add links to your Facebook, Twitter, or
LinkedIn wherever appropriate.
• Treat all your contacts as potential clients. Treat everyone
with respect.
• Make sure you proof read what you’ve written, don’t
overuse abbreviations and avoid capital letters.
REMEMBER:
Once you put content on a social media platform, you have
committed to that message. Information online can spread
very quickly, enforcing the need to fully think through every
message distributed and every response – this includes
negative comments to anything you post.
In addition, social media may date more quickly than
traditional channels, so regular reviews are required to
ensure that information is kept up-to-date.
For more marketing guides and free sample
marketing material, visit:
www.justadviser.com/support/
guides-and-templates/
marketing-guides/
• Before you send, double check what you’ve written –
reading it out loud can help.
• Respond to comments from other people and engage
with other influences in your market. Show interest in
their views and opinions, start conversations, use ‘likes’,
and share their content.
• Always ensure your tweets are compliant and in line
with both the FCA guidelines and the rules of the ASA –
Advertising Standards Agency. You can find out more at
www.fca.org.uk and www.asa.org.uk.
• Don’t be afraid to re-tweet, ‘favourite’ and share
other tweets.
Remember that all marketing material should be fair, clear and not misleading to comply with the
Financial Conduct Authority rule requirements and ensure that you continue to treat customers fairly.
You can find out more about both of these requirements at www.the-fca.org.uk/firms/fair-treatmentcustomers.
Just Retirement Limited. Registered Office: Vale House, Roebuck Close, Bancroft Road,
Reigate, Surrey RH2 7RU. Registered in England Number 05017193. Calls may be monitored
and recorded, and call charges may apply. Please contact us if you would like this document in
an alternative format.
14787.5
07/2016