One of my primary responsibilities is to deliver financial education presentations to retirement plan participants on investments, savings strategies and behavioral finance. I don’t have a technology or marketing background, but, as a millennial, I grew up on social media.
Procyon Partners is a newly formed wealth management and institutional consulting firm.
As a new firm, our goal was to build brand awareness and increase positive visibility within the retirement plan market and high-net-worth space.
Prior to launching the firm, as a team from a large wirehouse firm, we were limited to a broad social media strategy produced by the bank, which was then automatically shared on employee accounts. We could not cater and customize to our specific client demographic and were restricted and bound by the firm’s intellectual thought leadership.
The messaging made it difficult to differentiate our team and promote our areas of specialization.
Following our launch six months ago, we created a new social media strategy designed to help increase our brand exposure by remaining consistent and tracking engagement.
Our team began with an editorial calendar containing themes relevant to our activities and the time of year. We began posting every Tuesday and Thursday, as we found that those are the best days to post for getting the most views, clicks and engagement on LinkedIn and Twitter.
I now allocate one to two hours a week to search our marketing platform for relevant and engaging articles.
We focus on three types of posts:
- Culture: What is going on within the firm, such as new teammates, activities, growth, and community involvement. We also engaged the local Chamber of Commerce to increase our exposure within the community.
- General financial education: Touching on topics to educate the general public, such as long-term savings, behavioral finance, life insurance, college savings, etc.
- What is going on in the world: We make an effort to stay current on world affairs our firm is passionate about. Examples include natural disasters and where/how to donate and the Equifax data breach and how to protect personal information.
Once the post is ready to go, I seek compliance approval and share with the rest of the team, encouraging everyone to also share to their LinkedIn accounts.
The results have been impressive. In the six months since launching our program, we now have more than 100,000 impressions of Procyon Partners and more than 1,000 clicks each month. We have developed market interest in our brand and have learned details about clients, centers of influence and prospects.
This entire program was cost-effective and efficient, resulting in positive visibility.
So, what are some tips? Make one person take ownership of posting and holding the team accountable to the social media strategy.
In addition, keep the team informed by ensuring that everyone understands the benefits of increasing the firm's visibility and brand exposure. It is important to communicate to the team that everyone should constantly think about how to get our name out.
For example, if anyone attends a networking event or is volunteering, make sure to take a picture and share it.
Ultimately, it is a team game. With a massive online universe of financial information, it is impossible for one person to keep up with everything.
We have made it a practice that if someone runs into a valuable article, topic or idea, they should make the effort to share with the entire team.
So, keep it simple and remain consistent. Find what works, test new ideas and track what is and what is not working.
Continue searching for other strategies and ways to streamline and leverage technology to make the process more efficient.
Finally, in this regulatory environment, compliance is your best friend. Make sure to seek approval and store all social media correspondence.
This story is part of a 30-30 series on how technology is changing your practice.
