Technorati Media is a leading authority on digital influence and social media with a reach of over 130 million unique monthly visitors. Recently, Technorati Media published their 2013 Digital Influence Report. The findings regarding the power of blogging were significant for financial advisors and business professionals.

If you’re a financial advisor and you’re not blogging, you may want to consider launching one. Blogging is the most superior form of digital marketing for building influence. Influence leads to growth in traffic, connections, relationships, and sales. Simply put, building influence through blogging builds business.

The Majority of Online Influencers are Bloggers

Let’s look at another reason as to why it’s important for financial advisors to blog. According to the Technorati Digital Influence Report, 86% of influencers blog. You may think of yourself as being influential, but if you’re not blogging in the digital age, you’re likely not going to be influencing anyone online.

It doesn’t matter how active you are on social networks if you’re not connecting people to something…like your unique, editorial content.

Influential financial advisors are and will be bloggers

Currently, less than 20% of financial advisors are blogging, but that number is going to grow as more firms open up to it from a regulatory perspective, and as more advisors realize that they need to be self-publishing to attract and retain clients in the digital age.

Blogs Have Significant Influence Over Consumer Purchases

The Technorati research report for 2013 also indicated that blogs have significant influence on consumer purchasing decisions. Blogs rank #3 behind retail and brand sites. What this means is that YOU can build your own brand through your blog. Your blog can be a credible resource for leading consumers to make better financial and wealth management decisions. More importantly, you can compete with the media giants!

Text-based Blogging Still Dominates

Although other forms of media such as publishing images and videos on your blog are gaining ground, text-based blogging is still the number one choice of influencers who blog. Video blogging and Podcasting are also becoming a more popular mediums for creating and publishing content to your blog, but nowhere near the popularity of using text.

Do You Want to Be an Influencer Online?

If you have no desire to be an influencer online, then perhaps blogging isn’t a good fit for you. Most of the financial advisors I know, however, pride themselves on influencing others. They lead their clients through good and bad times through their communications. As more and more of your clients and target audience are spending time online researching and learning, doesn’t it make sense for you to be there providing your insights as well? If you’re not, they are going to get their information from your competitors.

Think of blogging as a new platform for your communications and insights that can be widely dispersed across the web and social networks, rather than locked within the walls of your office.

Blogging isn’t difficult, especially when you leverage a powerful and flexible platform like WordPress. WordPress is the leading platform of choice for bloggers, and I don’t see this changing anytime soon. Proprietary software systems just can’t keep up with an open source platform where thousands of developers build new features and improve it each and every year. Want to create your online masterpiece? Make no mistake about it,  WordPress is the best self-publishing tool for financial advisors.

Blogging simply takes some time and discipline. It’s not anymore difficult than that. The benefits of blogging over time can create opportunities for your business if you make the commitment to build the asset.

If you want to become an influencer in a wired world, you’re going to have to blog. The sooner you start, the better.

The specific comments in the article about the use of social media in financial advisory practices was centered around fear, risk, and a very limited understanding of what social media really is. In fact, I believe the article completely misses the point on social media.

Social media is a tool that facilitates communication, engagement, and relationship cultivation with real people. It’s a tool that, if used correctly, can create significant trust and loyalty between you and your connections. What financial advisor doesn’t want to achieve that?

Social media makes your network more scalable

-Gary Vaynerchuk

Don’t ask yourself if you can benefit from social media “marketing”, ask yourself if you can benefit from developing new relationships and strengthening existing ones.

You absolutely need a professional online platform and presence that ideally showcases your unique thought leadership perspectives, but equally as important (if not more so) is what social media affords by way of relationship development. It’s not just a tool for sharing content, it’s a tool for building community. A focus on content AND community results in the potential to truly build online influence (Whether or not you reach that potential is determined by the true value that you add to your community.)

In this day and age, it’s the online influencers who are going to take market share. Resisting social media is only going to delay the pain, not eliminate it.

Think beyond using social media to educate (you still need to do this) and consider the bigger picture:  help your clients and prospects solve a problem, get smarter, and achieve more. That’s a win-win for them, and for you.

I was inspired to refresh this blog post that I’d written over a year ago after reading Brooke Southall’s post on RIABiz.com entitled “6 Ways RIAs Can Hone Their Expertise in Social Media by Acting More Like Journalists“.

He’s right. It’s true. We’re all self-publishers now. If you’ve been blogging for any length of time, you probably already understand the importance of self-publishing, but perhaps you can benefit from hearing it again. Think of this post as a little reminder of the importance of your efforts and a boost to keep you going!

Creating and self-publishing your own content is not necessarily difficult (thanks to WordPress), but it does take time, some creative thinking, a well-planned content strategy, and ongoing research. I believe it also takes some confidence and willingness to put yourself out there and accept that it’s not going to be perfect. Content creation (through blogging) is a craft, and you will get better with practice and time.

Keep in mind that I use the words “content creation”, “self-publishing”, and “blogging” interchangeably throughout this post and other related posts. The blog is the actual digital software tool that effectively formats, categorizes, and showcases your self-published content. A blog can be utilized alongside your website (or completely separate from your website). See “7 Core Elements of a Powerful Financial Blog” for more information on how to structure your blog.

A powerful and professional financial blog can help you enhance your online credibility, establish yourself as an expert with your target markets, develop relationships, and ultimately attract the right kinds of clients into your business.

Quality content generates visibility and builds online influence for financial advisors

The power of the influence will be in the hands of the quality content creators. These are the financial advisors who are taking advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity to build online equity through self-publishing their thought leadership insights. If you want to advance your personal or professional brand, there is no better way today than self-publishing.

Consumers are thirsting for knowledge.

Think about all of the low quality information on the web. Everyone’s looking for shortcuts and the quality of content suffers tremendously. It’s just hard to find trusted information, especially when it comes to financial insights and guidance. This means that there is a huge opportunity for financial advisor content creators!

What are the secrets to successful content creation? Quality and Consistency.

Developing and consistently publishing your own quality content that takes into account the unique needs of your target demographic, your geographical location, and your knowledge and expertise can establish you as the go-to authority online and help you get found by the right people. However, you also need to be interesting, relevant, and not afraid to share your opinions!

Self-publish high quality content that speaks to the needs, concerns, life changes, goals, and dreams of your clients. 

What questions are your clients asking? What trending topics are interesting, exciting, and perhaps relevant to their lives? How can you coach, support, and guide your clients through the maze of news, information, and garbage out there?

Ultimately, with all of the noise, YOU need to be the voice of reason that your clients and prospects listen to, and the media channel they tune into. You can accomplish this through self-publishing. Otherwise, your clients can potentially be persuaded by your self-publishing competitors who are showing up with answers, ideas, and help in the places where your clients and prospective clients spend their time online.

Leverage Blogging Technology

To facilitate the creation and self-publishing of your thought leadership insights you’re going to need to launch a blog if you haven’t done so already (at last check less than 20% of all financial advisors have blogs.) WordPress is an open source content management system that is by far the most recognized and respected platform for blogs. We’ve put together an online guide for why financial advisors should use WordPress.

Brochure-based, static websites just aren’t built to allow for simple media publishing and easy content distribution/discovery. Traditional websites are also for basic information about your business and client tools for activities such as logging into their accounts!  Most financial advisor websites serve as client portals, not tools for developing relationships.

A professional blog can become a piece of your digital portfolio. It’s time to move away from the concept that everything needs to live on your website. Blogging allows for your thought leadership to get out beyond your website, to where the people are. It allows your content to gain visibility in search, social media, and email inboxes. (See: The Power of Franchising Your Online Presence)

Blogging technology (WordPress) enables easy self-publishing for all of your content, supports multiple forms of media (text, video, images, pdfs, podcasts/audio), and integrates seamlessly with social media channels and email marketing platforms.

A professional blog site is a digital asset that can be built around who you are as a person, who you help, and how you help them. It’s focused on relationship development (helping) not selling products and services.

Content is the engine that drives influence.

Positioning yourself as a thought leader using the original content that you create from your knowledge, experiences, and insights is extremely powerful in building online influence. Influence builds trust, which is critical for financial advisors in developing relationships.

Building influence, by default, breeds business growth. It opens doors to new opportunities, from introductions and referrals to speaking engagements, media exposure, strategic business partnerships, and much more. Think beyond new clients. You can’t even imagine the opportunities that can come from establishing yourself as a financial planning thought leader online.

Blogs also make content easy for your contacts and social network connections to share. Want to get found by your ideal clients and prospects? Create interesting, insightful, entertaining content that is relevant to their needs. Teach them. Give them answers. Great content gets passed on and shared through email, social networks, and even through print.

Everyone has something worthy to share that can help others. You have a story and a message. You have a unique value proposition in working with your clients. Who is hearing your message currently? Instead of speaking to one client or prospect at a time, how about speaking to thousands?

Choose your content medium.

You don’t have to be a good writer to blog. It helps, and I would argue that good writers have a great opportunity to stand out. You can also improve your writing skills, or hire editorial help. Are you comfortable in front of a video camera? Do you take interesting pictures? Does speaking into a microphone and recording your own podcast sound appealing? What about recorded powerpoint presentations?

Choose one medium or combine many. Blogging technology allows for that flexibility.

Map out your content strategy.

If you’re serious about building a powerful and influential online presence, quality content is what works. But it won’t work without a well-thought out plan and strategy. Your content strategy should be unique to your knowledge and experiences, as well as the mediums you are comfortable with (don’t produce videos if you’re not comfortable on camera!)

Becoming a self-publisher is a way for you to lead, teach, inspire, and educate your target markets in a public setting and reach a bigger audience. As people get to know who you are and what you’re about through your blogging efforts, they will get to know, like, and ultimately trust you. That can and will lead to business opportunities.

Most importantly, don’t be boring and stale. This is the trap that so many financial professionals fall into with their marketing, both offline and online. You have to dig deeper to make your blog strategy soar! Show your personality. Show your beliefs. Show your life. Try to connect on a personal level with your readers. Blogging is both an art and a science. It takes time to find your voice.

Make the commitment to blogging.

You’re going to need a healthy dose of commitment to make self-publishing work for you. You can’t give up too soon. It can take anywhere from 1 to 3 years to start really seeing the impact on your business. Self-publishing through blogging is a long-term strategy. It’s like saving for retirement. You have to build your equity one piece at a time, but in the end, the rewards are great.

If you want to learn more about launching your own blog, you can go here to schedule a free assessment to determine if blogging is right for you. I’ve been blogging for 4 years, and within just a few minutes I will be able to assess if you’re a good candidate for self-publishing

What are your thoughts about self-publishing? Have I convinced you of the importance of self-publishing? Please share them in the comments below!

What works in social media (for financial advisors) is simple in theory, but more difficult in practice.

The reason it’s more difficult in practice is that to achieve meaningful business outcomes, social media requires your personal involvement, at least on some level.

Consider this:  Would you have an intern do your live, in-person networking for you? Would you have an intern deliver your presentation to a room full of qualified potential clients? Would you have an intern engage in direct conversations with potential clients? The answer is most likely “no.” I don’t know many (if any) financial advisors who would agree to being represented or replaced by an intern in these kinds of live, in-person settings. Perhaps, however, a trusted team member or members would be suitable to represent your firm and your messages publicly. Still, if it’s not you, there is a price to pay.

Being personally and genuinely engaged in the content development (your messaging) and building your community (online social networking) is the foundation for what works in social media. 

Don’t believe me? Just look around. Many highly successful business people who are leveraging content marketing and social media are not outsourcing or separating their personalities from their marketing efforts. Instead, they are deeply integrating these components. (see Michael Hyatt and Ric Edelman). Think Richard Branson and Oprah as well. These individuals have built their successful brands around who they are as people.

The Great Resistance

If you’re like most financial advisors, you might find that having to be personally involved in social media is a very painful truth. You don’t have the time to learn new tools and technologies, nor do you have the desire to. You don’t want communication to be more complex and networking to be more sophisticated (your cheese has been moved). You don’t believe in investing in something for your business that may not provide an immediate return (imagine if your best clients evaluated the value of your services based upon short-term performance).

If you want to be genuine, authentic, believable, and successful with a social media program, get personally involved in the content creation and social networking process. 

Get the coaching, guidance, and support you need, but don’t outsource your personality in the process or you will end up wasting even more time and money (it just doesn’t work). Instead, align your team (and/or outside partners) to support and facilitate your program as well as serve as amplifiers of your message. They can help you run your program as more of a “team effort.” Every successful leader has a great team in place, whether that team is internal or external.

Also, consider integrating social media tools into your business that can help automate the distribution of your messages (not the actual creation of your thought leadership). If you outsource your value messages, you may find that what’s being published on your blog and shared on your social profiles doesn’t really speak to who you are and what you stand for. It’s just not authentic and it won’t build trust.

The bottom line is, you need to learn the art of networking in the digital age. Infusing your personality into your social media program is extremely valuable in building trust. If you commit to being personally involved in social media, your true authentic self is going to shine through, and that’s what your ideal clients are going to be attracted to.

It’s your voice, and your original thoughts or opinions that are shared through your blog and on social networking sites that will lead to new and deeper relationships. That’s how you build a trusted and loyal network in the digital age. It doesn’t matter if you have a firm of 20 advisors who help contribute to the core thought leadership and social networking, or you’re a one man/women practice.

It’s the people and their respective personalities sharing the messages that facilitate relationship development opportunities and attract the right kinds of clients into your business. It’s you and your team.

Shift Your “Time” Paradigm

Want to find time to integrate a comprehensive social media program (blogging/content development, social networking, email marketing) into your business?

View your social media program as a replacement for your existing non-productive marketing, communication, and business development activities that you may currently be spending time and money on (you may need to do an honest analysis here).

If you make the time for a comprehensive social media program and make it a priority in your business, you will begin to realize that marketing and communication with clients and prospects can become much more cost efficient. Accelerate your knowledge and stay on the cutting edge by working with people who know the tools and strategies and are able to provide tracking, insights, analysis, and guidance.

The longer you wait, the more difficult and expensive it will be to catch up on building this digital equity that is there for the taking. Building digital equity is a bit like saving for retirement. It takes time to build that nest egg and you have to keep adding to it consistently. 

The secret to what works in social media for financial advisors is…YOU and your personal, authentic contribution. Whether your contribution is at a higher level or you are in the trenches, having your name, your messages, and your personality infused in the process will make your program successful!

As the internet continues to evolve with the advent of social media and increased content accessibility through mobile devices, it’s time to completely rethink your web presence.

Think Like a Basketball Coach

Think about a basketball team playing in a game (I was a point guard for many years and I’ve coached a few teams in my day). How many actions are taken on average by a team before a player actually gets the opportunity to shoot and score?  A smart coach is going to take advantage of the landscape and run plays that effectively outsmart the defense. Certainly there will be some wide open layups or scoring opportunities that circumvent running an offense, but typically the ball will be inbounded from the opposite end of the court, multiple players on the team will execute the offense through dribbling and passing (multiple touches), and ultimately the opportunity to shoot and score becomes available.

This is a great analogy for thinking about how many times a potentially qualified client might experience your presence online in multiple places before they are ready to “shoot”, or take the next step. Prospects who become aware of you online need multiple touches before they are ready to even think about taking the next step.

A prospect may need to see you 5, 7, 10 times online in the various places where they spend time before they are ready to have any kind of business conversation with you!  Where might they find you?  Google searches, blog(s), Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, smart phone/tablet RSS apps, email inboxes, and yes, your primary website can be in the mix as well.

Here’s the tricky part; each prospect who finds you online will take a different path…but patterns will emerge within your web analytics and it’s these collective data trends that can provide the most insight.

If you’re counting on a single primary website to create a multiple touch online offense for you, you’re making a big mistake. The goal is to be visible online everywhere that matters, attract your target audience, and lead them through a powerful influential process of viewing you as the right choice at the right time.

Moving Beyond the Traditional Website

For years you’ve been taught to develop a website to serve as the central hub of your online presence. The problem is, having a website in and of itself is not enough anymore. A website alone is not going to magically build awareness and drive qualified traffic and leads into your business. One digital asset only gives you one source for creating multiple touches with your prospects. Most likely, a website alone is also not going to be sufficient for your existing clients. As their expectations increase, they are going to want you to be visible and easily accessible to them in the ways that they prefer to engage and interact with you.

If your website is the only place you can be found or contacted, you will not be top of mind with clients, and prospective clients will likely forget about you when your omnipresent top competitor grabs and keeps their attention instead.

The next logical step for moving beyond your website is blogging. You could have a single blog or multiple blogs, depending on your target demographics and content marketing themes. Blogs are digital assets designed for “helping”. They are designed to inform, inspire, educate, and even motivate your prospects. Blogs allow you to separate your “helping” assets from your “selling” assets. There is no need to “sell” with your blog content. In fact, if you do, it will potentially backfire on you. Solely focus on providing your target audience with insightful tips that can help them achieve and improve. Help them get to where they want to go.

Throughout your blog(s) you should offer compelling calls to action to encourage prospects to provide their information to you in exchange for something of greater value such as a special informative report, ebook, webinar, or email coaching course.

I do not advocate putting your blog on your primary website. Don’t get so caught up in single domain thinking…this is not a linear world. If you are concerned about confusing your brand, put your blog on a subdomain of your primary website (i.e. http://blog.wallstreetadvisors.com). Remember, separate the “helping” assets from the “selling” assets. I believe that a single-domain web presence is no longer the best strategy in the age of a decentralized web. However, it’s still critical to have a hub and I would argue the hub should be your blog. It has the potential to generate the most traffic due to fresh content being added consistently!

Start thinking about creating multiple online “franchise” properties for your brand that integrate and work together toward common goals…digital franchising.

Here’s an example: Currently I have 3 online hubs that I own. Each hub has a different purpose, but they all tree up to my common goals of building online awareness and credibility, cultivating qualified business leads, and creating business growth/exposure opportunities. 2 of my online hubs are blogs, and their sole purpose is to provide insights, intelligence, and education to my target audiences. The other is a business website which is related/integrated with one of the blogs. The website is all about business and is designed to encourage a potential client who already knows, likes, and trusts me (through blogging and social media) to take that next step!  99% of the time, the new leads entering into my funnel have experienced the multiple touch process I’m implementing through all of my online marketing activities.

Owned Vs. Leased Digital Assets

Beyond the web assets that you own and control such as websites and blogs, social networks should serve as critical components of your digital portfolio. Your profiles on these networks are sometimes referred to as “leased” web real estate, because you don’t own them. However, by building out a presence on multiple social networks you can create awareness and earn the attention of the members in your target markets. Active social media profiles are an important part of the multiple touch equation. If your prospects don’t get to see you in these places where they may be spending their time, you’ve lost the opportunity to stay in front of them and work toward your multiple touch totals.

Social networks are going to change and evolve. In fact, there are even new tools that allow you to embed your social networking activity directly onto your WordPress blog! Perhaps a solution to the lack of ownership problem with social networks?

When advisors ask me which social networks are most important, I answer “all of them.” It is my experience and that of many others who are successful digital marketers that you never know how you’re going to be found online and who might find you. Every new connection in a social network is an opportunity to expand your visibility. If anyone can become or lead to a new client, and you never know when someone might need your expertise, why wouldn’t you try to build a robust and vast online presence?

Creating a plan, strategy, and system for managing your social media presence is going to also be necessary in order to maximize impact and minimize your time. You don’t have to be super active to achieve the goal of staying top of mind with clients and prospect. You just need to learn how to play the game and focus your efforts to achieve the best possible results.

Franchise Your Digital Presence

It’s time to start thinking more about how you can expand your digital presence beyond the traditional website. Expanding your virtual presence is not near as difficult or expensive as expanding your physical presence, just as online social networking is much more efficient than attending numerous offline networking events!

Providing your target markets with multiple opportunities to learn from you and engage with you is what is most important today in building online influence and developing the right relationships for your business. To get on a prospect’s radar 5, 7, or 10 times is substantially more accelerated than it was in the past. Think about how long it took before the internet to get in front of a qualified prospect just a couple of times a year? Now, those same barriers no longer exist.

The process drives the platform. In other words, you can’t really build your platform effectively until you’ve mapped out your process. Only then will you know which components and tools to utilize as you expand and franchise your online presence.

Once you’ve mapped out your value proposition, target markets, and thought leadership content, you can begin to franchise your web presence and across multiple channels. You can use blog sites, social media management tools, landing pages, and email marketing tools to accomplish your goals and web analytics to track, measure, and gather insights.

If it seems like a lot of work to franchise your web presence, but much of the work goes into building the system. From there it’s running the system.

Your Turn:

What do you think about franchising your web presence? Do you agree or disagree that we should virtually franchise? Does the notion of this sound frightening and overwhelming?

photo credit: bobert1980 via photopin cc