What’s your social media plan? More importantly, are you using social media to showcase your services, build your credibility, and boost your lead generation? Even more importantly, do you know which social networking platform is the #1 for your business? In his first year as a financial advisor, Brandon Moore took in $23,000,000 in assets under management (AUM). His secret weapon? LinkedIn. “We need the credibility in this day and age,” says Brandon, “because everything can be found online.”

Elevate Your Professional Credibility on LinkedIn

We sat down with Brandon Moore after his stunning first year in business. We wanted to know what he credited his success to. As a Millennial, it’s not surprising he uses social media. But what surprised us most is the value he put on the LinkedIn lead training he received through Advisorist. It turns out that a powerful system proven to deliver leads is valuable to financial professionals at every stage of their career. What’s more, if you still think that having a LinkedIn profile is just an item on your to-do list that you need to check off, you’re missing your biggest opportunity. Here are some of Brandon’s key takeaways when it comes to why you should be using LinkedIn:

• Prospects of all ages (even older clients) will look you up online.

• Having an online presence actually boosts your personal brand.

• Think of your LinkedIn profile as a “portable resume” that helps to pave the way for a successful first meeting.

• LinkedIn is so much more than a place to list yourself as a financial planner.

• It’s a platform where you can actively present your skills, ongoing education, and the ways that you service your clients.

And that’s just the beginning of the value LinkedIn brings to the table for financial and insurance advisors.

Google Loves LinkedIn

We may spend time on Facebook, but we invest time on LinkedIn. In 17 minutes (the average length of a visit) we can see what’s going on in our network, check out some industry news and scan the top posts in our feed. More important is what other LinkedIn users can learn about you. Try Google-ing a business colleague’s name. Most likely LinkedIn will come up as the first or second listing. That’s the first reason why you need to be focusing on using LinkedIn effectively—and taking full advantage of your profile. Like Brandon Moore, you need a “portable resume,” so that prospects who receive your seminar invitations or are coming to you for a consultation can learn about you in advance. Your LinkedIn profile and posts strengthen your credibility and can warm up a prospective client prior to a first meeting.

LinkedIn is the Hottest Social Networking Platform for Financial Advisors

If you want to reach highly qualified prospects, look no further than LinkedIn:

• 41% of millionaires use LinkedIn.

• 38% of Millennials—your next generation of clients—use LinkedIn.

• LinkedIn reaches more than 61 million senior-level influencers, 40 million business decision makers and 10 million C-suite executives.

• 44% of LinkedIn users take home more than $75,000 (national median wage in the US in 2019 is $47,060)

But it’s not enough to have access to highly qualified, high net worth prospects. You need to generate leads that will convert. According to statistics from several different marketing studies, LinkedIn outperforms all other social networking platforms:

• 80% of business social media leads come from LinkedIn; Facebook just 6.73%.

• LinkedIn is 277% more effective for lead generation than Facebook or Twitter.

• 82% of B2B marketers credit LinkedIn with providing their greatest success.

• 97% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for content marketing.

• 46% of social media traffic to websites comes from LinkedIn.

How To Integrate Linkedin Into Your Digital Marketing Strategy

You can build your presence organically by… 1) Building a professional profile that showcases your accomplishments relating to client work and ability to help others with financial issues, and 2) Posting your original content—presentations, videos and blog posts. LinkedIn also offers a wide range of tools you can use to reach your target audience, find your best prospects and boost your content to a larger, more targeted audience. Digital marketing and social media are critical to your business-building strategy. “You have to step out of your comfort zone to get to your next level,” says Brandon. “Anything that I’ve ever done in my short time as an advisor that was uncomfortable, has made me stand out and gotten me to either a higher production or a higher point of credibility with even my highest net worth clients.”

Swipe This Social Tactic to Use on LinkedIn

Back around 2010 or so, Tippingpoint Labs and the Content Marketing Institute starting talking about a formula for lead gen and nurturing on Twitter. They called it the 4-1-1 Rule. The idea was to break up your company-centric tweets with a little variety by focusing on relevant content from other sources that your followers would value. In other words, instead of blasting followers with a constant barrage of your self-serving messages, mix it up a bit. This works well on LinkedIn too. For every video about your financial seminars or blog you write about tax strategies or retirement planning… Share ONE relevant post you find on LinkedIn…and link to FOUR pieces of financial content you think people would appreciate. The point is to demonstrate your commitment to helping your audience (and not only in return for their business) by aggregating useful information along with your own content. Best of all, you become the recognized and TRUSTED resource for bringing genuine value to your prospects and clients.

One Last Quick Tip: Learn to #Hashtag on LinkedIn

All roads may lead to Rome, but you can use #hashtags to lead interested prospects directly to your profile. One of the advantages in the way LinkedIn works is that everything you post on the platform is tied directly to your profile. Now if you include a few hashtags (e.g., #retirement planning, #financial freedom, #tax planning tips) you create extra paths back to your profile so you can reach even more people. In other words, hashtags make you more searchable—and findable—by anyone interested in your field of expertise. [cboxarea id=”cbox-6oZB80P30XkoJRkx”]