Hearsay Systems launches program to help advisors level up on social media

As a financial advisor, knowing whether or not your social media approach is attracting or repelling clients can be difficult to determine. But a new wealthtech offering from Hearsay Systems aims to give financial pros the metrics they need to level up.

The San Francisco-based firm that crafts client engagement software this week announced its User Maturity Model, a program designed to evaluate and quantify advisors' social behaviors, and help firms improve their social selling programs. 

Pulling from a data sample of more than 200,000 financial professionals across the wealth management, insurance and banking industries, Hearsay provides firms guidance to get more from their social selling programs. 

Hearsay says the model shows organizations where their individual team members are on their respective social selling journeys and offers targeted guidance and training on how they can be more effective through specific actions they can take to improve results. 

The program arrives as advisors cry for help online. Less than 10% of surveyed wealth management professionals across the industry see their firms as "very successful in leveraging social media" for customer acquisition, according to a recent report by Arizent, Financial Planning's parent company. 

Only 24% said they relied on social media to generate new leads, reflecting the industry's long-standing tendency of relying on word-of-mouth and old-fashioned referrals for new customers. 

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"For social programs to have meaningful ROI, there must be measurement. Which activities correlate to greater engagement? What moves the needle with clients?" Leslie Leach, the chief marketing and strategy officer for Hearsay Systems, said in a statement. "Our team has worked closely with customers to test and refine our model to demonstrate the correlation between social media usage and key business metrics, such as new leads, quotes issued, and AUMs/premiums."

Upon customer request, the Hearsay User Maturity Model scores specific social behaviors such as adoption of multiple social channels, amount of network growth, user-created published content and 1:1 engagements. The program then ties those behaviors to business results.

Hearsay's User Maturity Model includes the following six tiers:

Tier one - consistently mature: Users who reach tier one consistently score high across all key social selling dimensions, resulting in the best social performance across all key behavioral indicators.

Tier two - high Interactor: At this level, users are aware of the value and power of social media. They leverage publishing and nurture their networks to maintain a strong presence, albeit inconsistently.

Tier three - social networker: These users maintain strong social networks, consistently growing their reach and connections but with minimal social activity.

Tier 4our - set it and forget It: Users in this tier primarily utilize campaigns to maintain a presence. They need help creating personalized content. They also have little to no social interactions, resulting in limited if any engagement.

Tier five - on-brand presence: Users have connected social accounts with approved profiles, but there is very little publishing or any form of social interactions.

Tier six - connected account: At the base level, users have workspaces with connected accounts but no approved profile and no publishing or interactions on social media. 

Based on which tier advisors/agents fall into, Hearsay can provide specific education, training and guidance to advance to the next level. Hearsay tailors its program to the organizations it works with, re-evaluating maturity at regular intervals. In doing so, Hearsay hones in on where positive progress is made, as well as where individuals could use additional help.

The new maturity model follows the spring release of a fresh AI offering from Hearsay Systems. In April, the frim celebrated the launch of Content+, a tool that lets advisors design, manage and curate compliant third-party content collections within Hearsay Social and Sites. 

The tool relies on artificial intelligence to enable program administrators and marketers to tailor content to the specific needs of an organization. Administrators determine their content approach and define topics and parameters important to their business, including hierarchies, geographies, customizable compliance rules and more. All content collections are exclusive, and users are free to create as many collections as they choose.

Along with launching Content+, Hearsay has improved its content recommendation offerings for advisors. Users can now use AI-powered, personalized "Netflix-style" recommendations that learn from inputs such as audience engagement, peer success and user interests to curate the most impactful content for each user's specific social audience.