Five steps to becoming a thought leader on LinkedIn

Recently, I spoke with an experienced adviser who was frustrated that his clients often base important financial decisions on random articles or pieces of information they read online, rather than consult with him for advice. I reminded him that educating his clients is a necessary step in establishing a relationship of trust — a relationship where his clients turn to him for their greatest financial questions and decisions.
The more clients trust you, the more likely they are to work with you for the long term and the more likely they are to recommend your services to their friends and family. One of the greatest ways to capitalize on this is through consistent and regular blogging. LinkedIn offers a great opportunity for advisers to do so.
SOCIAL BLOGGING
In early 2015, LinkedIn expanded its original content efforts by developing a publishing platform that allows users to self-publish content they can share with their connections. To say the platform is successful is an understatement. Still in its first year, more than 1.5 million posts have already been published on the platform, with around 100,000 posts being published each week, according to TechCrunch. Despite such significant numbers, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Both blogging and LinkedIn are two key marketing tactics for businesses and professionals, including financial advisers.
(More: More advisers are gaining new clients through social media)
First and foremost, blogs saturate the Internet. Seventy percent of consumers learn about companies through articles rather than ads, and 61% of U.S. consumers have made a purchase based on a blog post. Regardless of the industry, small businesses with blogs generate 126% more leads, according to Social Media Today. For financial advisers, blogging can help gain more prospects, maintain relationships with current clients and establish trust more than outbound marketing tactics such as advertising and direct mail.
According to a two-year study by Econsultancy, LinkedIn is the top social referral source, accounting for 64% of all visits from social media platforms to business websites. By comparison, Facebook accounts for 17% of visits and Twitter 14%. Forty-one percent of millionaires use the platform regularly, and more than half of all users have household incomes of over $100,000, according to AdWeek.
LinkedIn’s publishing platform is an ideal space for financial advisers to amalgamate these two key marketing tactics and maximize results: connect with prospects and clients, create meaningful conversation, encourage interaction and establish themselves as a thought leader.
(More: Revamp and refresh your online presence)
The platform is simple to use and only requires a few steps to draft and publish a post.

ESTABLISHING YOURSELF
Once you’ve published your first post on LinkedIn, it’s time to set up an action plan to transform yourself from casual blogger to industry thought leader. Get started with these five steps:

Step 1: Determine your focus
Ideally, you will be using the publishing platform to post content continuously. The best way to establish yourself as a thought leader is to narrow your focus and create a series of posts that touch on a consistent topic such as financial planning for women, investing as a millennial, or retirement planning tips for business owners.
Step 2: Create a schedule
Consistency is key. The best way to build a readership is to publish a new post on a regular basis. When getting started, start slow. Consider posting once or twice a month. Then, as you start getting more into a writing mode, increase to once a week on a specific day. LinkedIn users are most active morning and midday, Monday through Friday, so consider posting within this time frame.
Step 3: Monitor analytics
LinkedIn has significantly increased the value of its publishing platform by adding an analytics feature that allows you to view the results of your posts from the previous six months. With this tool, you can see each post’s statistics, including how many people viewed, liked, and shared the post, and which specific LinkedIn users took those actions. A week or two after you publish a new post, take a look at its performance. If certain posts aren’t getting as good of a response as others, consider writing on a different topic or posting on a different day.
Step 4: Cross-pollinate
While LinkedIn automatically notifies your LinkedIn connections and followers when you publish a new post, don’t stop there. Alert your Facebook fans and Twitter followers by linking to the LinkedIn publication and including a brief announcement. This can be as simple and keyword-friendly as, “Check out my latest post on financial planning for medical professionals,” or something more enticing, like, “Five little-known ways to maximize your Social Security benefits.”
Step 5: Network, network, network
The larger your LinkedIn network, the more traction your posts will gain. Spend at least 30 minutes each week networking on LinkedIn. Search for new connections, ask current connections for an introduction to prospects, and join relevant groups. Make sure you also regularly contribute to these groups. Answer other members’ questions, comment on posts, and, if allowed, post a link to your latest published piece and invite other members to comment with their own insights.
Original, engaging, and informative content is king when establishing yourself as a thought leader. By coalescing the power of blogging with the clout of social media, LinkedIn’s publishing platform offers financial advisers the opportunity to sharpen their marketing chops and connect with clients and prospects in a new way.
Craig Faulkner is chief executive of FMG Suite. Follow him @fmgsuite on Twitter.