Do you have a business goal for 2012? We'll get to the ways you can incorporate social media into those goals in a minute, but having clearly defined, written goals is the first step.
And there's more. Go a few steps beyond simply identifying your goals on paper; take the time to outline the strategies you will employ.
These strategies could involve advertising, holding seminars, creating client loyalty initiatives or using social media. Finally, define the specific steps you will take for each strategy, including the “what” as well as the “for whom” (clearly stating your target market) and the “how often.”
Here's a hypothetical example of what I mean by a complete statement of strategy and steps: “Host one seminar per quarter for parents of middle- and high-school students on the topic of college funding.”
Of course, since we must not forget to incorporate social media in our plans, here are a few steps that can help you get started:
Review your goals. If your strategies center on prospecting, there is no better tool than social media to research your target market and see who in your network can make an introduction to the prospects you'd like to meet. If, on the other hand, your strategy is to educate clients and prospects through published articles or seminars, social media can be a tremendous and very cost-effective way to get your message out to lots of people in a broad way.
Use the right tools, not all the tools. When it comes to building a financial services practice, social media is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. While the steps in creating a strategy may be the same, advisers should develop a plan that is unique to them and their practice.
Take a close look at your practice and target market — and employ a strategy that fishes where your fish are. If you work with high-level executives, LinkedIn may be all you need. Alternatively, if your market is women or couples with young families, perhaps a Facebook or Twitter strategy is more appropriate. You don't have to be everywhere.
Take time to determine which social-media tools would work best for you, and start there. You can always add other tools as your social-media strategy begins to take hold.
Develop a social-media calendar. Social media can become a huge time waster if you do not approach it strategically. Once you determine which tools you plan to use (or use already), outline the specific steps you'll take, and when and how often you'll initiate a specific task.
There typically will be tasks you complete daily or a few times per week, such as responding to in-quiries and posting status updates. While some tasks even might be done weekly, such as researching your clients to develop prospecting feed lists, other efforts may require only monthly or quarterly attention, such as writing e-newsletters, or composing and posting articles.
Whatever action items you employ in your social-media efforts, create a calendar that outlines how often the task is to be done, as well as the person responsible for the task. Laying it all out helps create practice efficiencies.
Use social-media tools to pros-pect. This item bears repeating. Social-media tools present a tremendous prospecting opportunity. Unless you actively don't want new clients, don't go another day without using LinkedIn to help you hit your new- client goal. The site's advanced search feature will unearth your targeted prospects because it will reveal those people who can introduce you to them.
Track your results. As with any marketing initiative, you will want to know whether your social-media efforts are paying off. You will want to know how many new clients or how much in assets you have attracted as a direct result of your social-media efforts. Did your efforts help get you introduced to prospects who became clients? Tracking the source of new business will help you determine if more energy should be put into social media and let you see if the strategies you have implemented are efficient and effective.
So here's to a prosperous 2012 and to leveraging the increasingly not-so-new world of social media.
Kristin Andree, who can be reached at kristin@andreemedia .com, is president of Andree Media & Consulting.
