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- 1. Six Principles for Social Success in Financial Services: Case studies, Trends and Regulatory Requirements July 17, 2012 Joanna Belbey Social Media and Compliance Specialist http://www.linkedin.com/in/belbey @belbey https://about.me/belbey Confidential and Proprietary © 2012, Actiance, Inc. All rights reserved. Actiance and the Actiance logo are trademarks of Actiance, Inc
- 2. Agenda About Actiance State of the Nation Social Media Maturity Curve Social Media – a Powerful Marketing Tool The Six Essential Principles for Social Media Success Upcoming Webinars, Materials
- 3. Why are we presenting to you today? Joanna Belbey Social Media and Compliance Specialist FINRA Education Department Running training firm I help firms use social media while complying with the regulations Twitter: @belbey, @actiance LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/belbey About.me/belbey My biggest challenge?
- 4. About Actiance A decade of expertise, a history of firsts Global Operations • 3 US offices, three continents • 210 employees Dedicated Social Engagement Team • Partnering: networks, platforms, service providers • Regulators: FINRA, IIROC, FSA, SEBI… • Best Practice enablement, education Client Engagement • 9 out of the top 10 US Banks, Top 5 CDN Banks • 284 FINRA firms • 84,000 Social Networking users under license 3
- 5. Why Customers Select Actiance “We chose Actiance because they had the resources and partnering culture to help us with our long term strategy” – VP Technology, Interactive Marketing, Top 3 Wirehouse “Actiance’s platform allows us to execute our long term vision of integrating our internal social platforms with consumer networks” – SVP & CIO, Major Mutual Fund Company “Socialite Enable and Engage offer the best mix of compliance and marketing capabilities allowing our advisors to develop their personal brands” – Marketing Director, Top Regional Brokerage 4
- 6. 97.09% of people questioned in a survey said their buying decisions are influenced by social groups
- 7. Social media usage A majority of respondents indicate using social media for one or more business purposes. SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE For which of the following business purposes do you use social media today? Respondents under 35 are more likely to use social media for business purposes than those 55 or older (68% vs. 45%) Base: all respondents in 2012 (1,428) and 2011 (1,597); multiple responses.
- 8. Social Media Maturity Curve Early Majority Early Adopters • Corporate SM • Corporate Presence presence Early Consideration • Acceptable use policy • Social media usage • Some Corporate by distributed teams • Social media being Presence advisors used by distributed Pre-Consideration • Banned/ restrictive teams/advisors • Acceptable use policy policy in place • No Social Presence • Need to: use social to • Next step, use social • Pilot program for develop, strengthen to develop, strengthen • Restrictive social content distribution relationships, for relationships, for some policy might be in place some also as a sales also as a sales channel • No Social Tools channel • Need to: justify • Previous concerns • Need to: identify distributed teams about IIROC and/ or options, best practices usage impact of social media overcome by market acceptance and demonstrable results. 7
- 9. Case Study: Wealth Management Firm (NJ) Outline Real Results LinkedIn Only LinkedIn Connection retirement Listening is Key, watching status change = $2.75m account acquisition connections who matter – Job Change noticed on Using Social as an integral Status Update = 401k rollover element of communications mix – FA obtains 400 new to spot change prospects in Energy market – New Commercial Account Opportunity through colleagues LinkedIn Connections
- 10. Case Study: RW Baird Outline Real Results LinkedIn Already Available to @MaryS_rwbaird 1200 – 51 followers Veteran Advisers, tech savvy – 93 Tweets (at the time) Authentic Content – $1m prospect
- 11. Social Media – A Powerful Marketing Tool Proven to attract customer attention Promotes customer loyalty Enables companies to communicate with hundreds of thousands of people at once Increases opportunities for “viral” transmission of information about you or your services Allows companies to interact on a more personal level with customers 10
- 12. The Advantages of Social Media It’s free or relatively inexpensive It’s interactive It offers immediate, direct feedback It’s adaptable 11
- 13. e
- 14. Slow Adoption by Financial Services Firms Demanding oversight of online communications are required (SOX, FRCP, GLBA) Regulations governing electronic communications – FINRA, SEC, IIROC, FSA, SEBI (record keeping, advertising, suitability, supervision) Fear of data leakage, malware and viruses Banks, credit unions and brokerage houses are typically slow to change 13
- 15. 20% of enterprises that employ social Media beyond marketing will lead their industries in revenue growth by 2015. GARTNER, MAY 2011
- 16. So why is social important to us in Financial Services? In the USA Gen Y accounts for $2.4 trillion worth of personal income In 2025 Gen Y will account for 46% of personal income Source: Javelin Research http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/article_719f49d8-15e6-5c5d- 94b7-992ab12d9f97.html?print=1 Based on 26,749 online adults, USA, Source: Forrester Research, June 2011
- 17. The Six Essential Principles for Social Media Success
- 18. Principle 1: Strategy Social media is just another way to broaden your reach Companies are successful in their social media use when social networking is part of the corporate DNA – Executive sponsorship. Senior management embraces social media as a way to reach customers, prospects, and partners – Executive engagement. Senior management understands the value and they are enthusiastic about the opportunities – Part of the corporate culture – Eliminate politics and streamline “Social Media is a part of the content approvals mix, not the solution” GARTNER 21
- 19. Principle 2: Personal Brand You, Dear Reader, are my most valuable asset 17% of consumers trust a brand. 70% trust recommendations given by friends and connections Consumers are starting to purchase products through social media Movenbank requires individuals to register on Facebook ICICI Bank enables use of social to login in to one’s bank account Long-term objective: consumers and customers engage with the brand as embodied by individual employees 22
- 20. Principle 3: Relevant Content Content is King: use the personal approach Deliver compelling, informative and entertaining content Start with pre-approved content Develop a library of interesting insights, investment challenges, wealth management tips, etc. Strive for personalized, unique content that informs your connections about you. Don’t just broadcast a brand message 23
- 21. Principle 4: Crowdsource Empower the Social Consumer to work for you Convert consumers into evangelists promoting your products or services Before making buying decisions, consumers research online and seek recommendations from their network Provide useful information that establishes your expertise and is worth sharing 24
- 22. Principle 5: Education Key Elements of a Social Media Training Program Understand the role of social media in sales and marketing Establish your social media objectives Select which social networks are best for you Avoid regulatory pitfalls Build a network 25
- 23. Principle 5: Education (cont.) Follow best practices to build out and maintain your network Integrate social media activities with corporate systems Analyze metrics to assess engagement levels of network Adjust your social media program 26
- 24. Principle 6: Analytics Measuring clicks vs. measuring engagement Comments are more valuable than “likes” and shares are more valuable than comments The number of followers on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook is an important metric Active listening leads to effective engagement Create your own real-time data stream One measure of social media success is gamification 27
- 25. Six Social Principles for Success Create Integral Strategy Develop Personal Brand Crowdsource Content Leverage Customers Educate and Train Measure & Analyze Norv Leong Director, Product Marketing
- 26. Webinar Series for Marketers Marketers Guide to Social Media in Financial Services Financial Services Compliance Social Media Human Requirements The Risk of Doing Nothing Social Media Best Practices Checklist 29
- 27. Contact Information info@actiance.com @Actiance, @belbey Further reading: Marketers Guide to Social Media in Financial Services IIROC and FINRA requirements mapped to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter features Social Media Handbook Osterman Research: The Impact of New Communication Tools for Financial Services Firms Actiance Collateral Library http://actiance.com/products/collateral-library.aspx 30
- 28. Thank You Joanna Belbey Social Media and Compliance Specialist http://www.linkedin.com/in/belbey @belbey Confidential and Proprietary © 2012, Actiance, Inc. All rights reserved. Actiance and the Actiance logo are trademarks of Actiance, Inc
Editor's Notes
- Hello, my name is Joanna Belbey and I’m the Social Media and Compliance Specialist at Actiance. I’m an enthusiastic social media user as well having worked at FINRA for a number of years creating and delivering more than 350 educational events a year. Plus I ran my own training company for awhile. Here at Actiance, I help regulated firms deploy social media effectively while complying with the regulations. My biggest challenge is getting all the key stakeholder in the room – HR, Legal, Compliance, Risk, Governance, Investor Relations, Corp Communications, Marketing all the lines of business and IT and Security. And the getting them all to talk to each other so they can work collaboratively to create social media polices for their firms that Actiance can implement.
- OBJECTIVE:Show thought leadership and customer wins up front and personal.TEXT:That approach works whether our customers are large or small. I’d like to think that our customer says it better than we can….Let me call out some specific reasons that these clients selected Actiance.Resources – we have the critical mass to support YOU and your internal customers. CULTURE – a culture of partnering, this isn’t about a technology sale, this is about enabling individuals in your organization to utilize communications tools effectively and efficiently, whilst remaining secure and compliant. You have a vision, your vision isn’t about Facebook, its not about Jive or any of those speciifc platforms, because that’s the immediate, the here and the now. Your vision is about integration and communicating and collaborating with your clients, improving your business and increasing your bottom line, that’s what Actiance’s platform enables the execution of your vision and we bring the required compliance, plus the marketing capabilities to make that happen.SEGUE:Let switch gears. I want to talk to you about human behavior
- OBJECTIVE: Set the scene for the socialization of buying decisionsAs human beings our behavior hasn’t changed for centuries, for eons. As human beings we naturally socialize and have done throughout the years. Socializing our buying decisions is something that we have done for centuries. This is a given. This research from econsultancy references social groups. It doesn’t talk AT ALL about social media – but of course its true, that social media simply allows us to connect with those wider social groups, our ability to extend our social groups geographically makes our social groups more potent as our social interactions become public through social media.SEGUE: and we are doing that in financial services as well.
- OBJECTIVE: Show leadership in understanding the market and brand association with registered rep and wealth management magazine.TEXT:When it comes financial services, we’ve been working with the folks at registered rep magazine and wealth management.com. WE worked with them on a joint survey to nearly 1600 regulated users, asking about their usage of social media. This survey took place in September and to show the rate of change in the market, we re ran it in February of this year. You can see in just some of these results – as to how much this has changed. CALL OUT SOME OF THE DIFFERENCES> Respondents under 35 are more likely to use social media for business purposes than those 55 or older (68% vs. 45%). Those from insurance firms (67%) and RIAs (67%) are more likely to use social media than those from bank brokerages (35%) or wirehouses (48%). Advisors are more likely to use social media to network with other professionals than to stay in contact with clientsSEGUE: And here at actiance, we’ve taken this understanding of the market a step further..
- TEXT:We commissioned a third party organization to undertake some very specific research for us. They conducted 90 minute interviews with some 20 organizations to identify the stage of maturity that they were at when it comes to the enablement of social within the organization. As you can see, there is a continuum of progress in social media.Some firms have no social media presence at all and restrict all access. They may not be monitoring what others are saying about them.Other firms are in the early consideration stage, where they may have some corporate presence, and perhaps have a pilot program in place for their advisors or producers. Then, there are the early adopters, those are the firms who have a corporate presence, a Use Policy in place, plus distributed teams using social media to develop and strengthen relationships. And final the last group we’ve identified, these firms are what we are calling the Early Majority. Their successes and measurable results are overcoming compliance initial concerns. So today, we are going to see if we can help you move to the next level of social media use.
- - a FA noticed one of her new LI connections was retiring that led to a 2m account acquisition- a FA noticed on LI a client was changing jobs and captured a 401k rollover- a FA noticed a fellow FA was linked in to a contact at a company she was chasing that opened up a commercial account opportunity- a FA with existing ties in the energy market has linked in to 400 new prospects internationally that is expected to yield strong returns in AuM build - all FAs in the pilot use LI to research targets to see how they are connected before calling to increase their hit rates- ML also sees strong interest from their Institutional Research team who want to use LI to deepen their company information for the ones they cover
- Crop logo91 tweets, $1m prospectEngagement details1200 people live
- Companies are increasingly incorporating social media into their marketing programs because it has been proven to attract consumer attention and to promote customer loyalty. Social media makes it possible not only to communicate with hundreds of thousands of people at once and enlist supporters to spread the word about you and your services but also to combine the benefits of immediacy and the potential for the “viral” transmission of information. Social media also provides for a more intimate means of communication, which sounds counter-intuitive since we’ve just referenced communications with hundreds of thousands of people at once. Social media allows one-on-one interaction and the opportunity to comment on personal milestones, including notable events (e.g., a new job, the arrival of a new baby, the purchase of a new home, pending retirement). SEGUE:Compared to more conventional marketing tools, such as advertising and direct marketing, social media offers a number of distinct advantages, such as….
- • It’s free or relatively inexpensive. • It’s interactive, providing the means to communicate one-to-one as well as one-to-many. • It offers immediate, direct feedback from your target market. • It’s adaptable and can be readily refined to promote ongoing success
- So why haven’t more financial services firms embraced social media as part of their sales and marketing programs?Some of the key reasons are regulatory. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC), the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA), and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) each impose strict guidelines and rules on the use of all electronic communications, including social media for financial services, demanding careful oversight of online communications and activities to ensure that advisors and brokers aren’t using social media channels inappropriately and without records. Firms themselves raise concerns about the risks of data leakage, malware, and viruses, propagated through these popular Web 2.0 channels. New technologies have emerged to address regulatory and security challenges, but financial service firms are still slow to adopt social media within their distributed teams as a means to reach out to clients and customers.The adoption of social media has been challenging, to say the least. Banks, credit unions, and brokerage houses are typically slow to change, and while many embrace some form of social for corporate outreach and customer services, even more have yet to recognize the power of social media marketing or feel that the risks outweigh the benefits.
- When it comes to social media, financial services firms generally fall into five camps: 1) those whose social media policy is “no,” 2) those that choose to deliberately ignore social media and do nothing, 3) those that are experimenting with social media but fail because of a lack of commitment and user education, 4) those that are lurking, watching what others (especially the leaders) do, then finally, 5) those leaders, the brave innovators, who even while regulation and legislation is being ironed out, have taken a stance and are adopting. This final group is a growing minority of progressive financial service firms that are effectively using social media to stay current with their customers. These companies are outdistancing the competition by educating their marketing, sales, and distributed teams about the optimal approaches to social media and by finding new ways to engage clients online and measuring the results to refine their programs.
- This slide shows why it’s so important to get social…. research from Carol Rozwell of Gartner in May 2011…. identified that the 20 percent of enterprises that employ social media beyond marketing will lead their industries in revenue growth by 2015.
- Financial services companies are finding it easier to use social media channels for client outreach and marketing. New technology platforms are available to deal with common security and regulatory compliance concerns: mapping social media identities to corporate identities, controlling online activities, limiting Web 2.0 and social application access, filtering social malware and data leakage, moderating conversations, and logging and archiving social media content. These solutions provide protection from misuse and attacks and provide an assurance of regulatory compliance and governance. But protection is not enough. Financial advisors still need to be trained on how to make the most of social media and how to apply best practices.One of the key elements that makes social so effective is that you are using your personal contacts to carry your message to a larger audience. Social media works because your network of connections, who rely on you as a trusted resource to provide interesting information, find it worthwhile reading, and if you are strategic with your content, make it worth passing on. The challenge for most financial services firms is understanding how to effectively engage clients and prospects via social media and how to capitalize on the inherent trust of those shared connections.
- The concept of the trusted network is one element of what makes social media so valuable. There is a tribal aspect to social media - we “connect” on LinkedIn, we “friend” on Facebook, we “follow” on Twitter – we become part of a tribe, i.e., where all those who participate feel connected to other members of the tribe. This promotes a circle of trust; you trust those in your network, even if the connections are friends of friends, because they have been referred to you as a connection. By joining these networks, you become a member of the “inner circle.” As human beings, we are naturally social; it’s in our nature to socialize our decisions. We have done this for centuries. An eConsultancy survey showed that 97.09% of people questioned in a survey said their buying decisions are influenced by social groups. This survey didn’t ask about social media, but the natural social groups into which we fall. Social media simply allows us to connect with those wider social groups. Our ability to extend our social groups geographically makes our social groups more potent as our social interactions become public through social media.Savvy financial services advisors also have learned to use social media to track inflection points in their clients’ lives. If, for example, a contact posts on Facebook about a new job or a new baby, then that could provide an opportunity to discuss a 401K transfer or a new college savings account. Being connected provides an immediate alert about turning points in clients’ lives where a conversation about financial services could be appropriate and valuable.
- Ideally, as a member of your client’s network of connections, your client’s network potentially becomes your next best set of connections. Clients can carry your brand and message to their peers. Real social media success comes when social media communications “go viral,” spawning a sharing frenzy with members in your network, trending on Twitter, and being a top story on Facebook. However, to achieve success, you need to understand the basics of social networking.Social media needs to encompass the Four C’s:CONTENT -- Add to the online conversation with information that is relevant and valuable to earn the ticket to admission into the social media inner circle.CONVERSATION -- Use the content to stimulate conversation in strategic online locations.COMMUNITY -- Develop a following of people who matter to you and your business. Once you build a community of followers, feed that network with relevant content that stimulates meaningful conversation.CONVERSION --Convert your followers into customers. By engaging socially with them online over a period of time, some may eventually become clients, while others may become evangelists who can help expand your network.Measuring the results of your social media outreach is a critical part ofthe process. In order to develop a following, convert and retain clients,and create evangelists, you need to identify key influencers, enlist them as followers, and measure the results as the content you disseminate spreads. Measuring success is not necessarily a simple task, but in order to manage your social media campaign, you need a metric to measure engagement. Once you find the formula that works to build and maintain an onlinefollowing, continue to refine the program and repeat what works. Determine where you are most successful and pursue those avenues to continue to build momentum for your social media efforts.Given a better understanding of how social media operates,let’s review the six principles that are necessary to build a successfulsocial media campaign.
- So let’s review the six principles that are necessary to build a successfulsocial media campaign for your firm.This webinar will serve as a tutorial for firms seeking to incorporate social media into their client relations, sales, and extended marketing programs. We’ll be outlining the six basic principles that are essential for the success of any social media program, and we specifically discuss how financial service firms can adopt these principles to achieve their own social media success.
- Social Media Should Not Be a Standalone StrategyMarketing professionals are gravitating toward social media now because it’s “in.” Social media is the shiny new toy that everyone is talking about. Even in its earliest stages, it has proven highly effective for both one-to-many and one-to-one marketing, and it’s relatively inexpensive to boot. However, social media is by no means a panacea or magic bullet!If you look at social media as the centerpiece of your marketing program merely because it is in vogue, you are missing the point. Social media is a means to broaden your reach, but it really is just another channel, albeit a channel with some unique capabilities. You still need to understand how to make the most of that channel and what content to use to deliver a compelling message that your target audience will respond to and want to share. As social media continues to gain momentum, collaborative platforms, CRM tools, and sales tools are bringing elements of social media into the mix. Mapping your contacts’ social media activities to Salesforce.com records, for example, gives you a history of that prospect or client, including personal milestones. Connecting your interactions to your book of business gives a unique insight into influence. Those organizations who integrate social into their entire business will have greater business success. The key to success is making social media an effective communications channel, not a program in and of itself.Through Actiance research of banking, financial services, and insurance firms throughout North America and Europe, there is a common thread among companies that have been successful in their use of social media. Those that have found a way to make social networking part of the corporate DNA are those that are having the greatest success. Those companies that are integrating social into their corporate culture; those that find a way tomake social seamless are the ones that succeed. Note that I use the term “social” because social isn’t just about Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter; it’s a change in culture for most individuals and organizations. To make social part of the corporate DNA requires assistance to overcome four hurdles:Executive sponsorship – embracing social mediaExecutive engagement – seniorexces under the value and are enthusiastic about opportuntiesPart of corporate culture And finally,Eliminate politics and streamline the process ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~STOP HERE• Executive sponsorship – Social media needs to be acknowledged from the top down as an important part of the company’s client strategy. Senior management needs to embrace social media as a channel to communicate with customers, prospects, and partners. While individual financial advisors or brokers may decide on their own to start using LinkedIn or Facebook to connect with clients, without an executive mandate, social media won’t become part of an integrated program. Embracing social media as a broader strategy requires educating employees about the proper way to use social media channels and removing impediments such as regulatory concerns. • Executive engagement – Different from sponsorship, executive engagement is a commitment by senior staff to understand the implications and opportunities of integrating social media into the program. This doesn’t mean the chief executive needs to blog or tweet, but they should understand the direction that social media can take you. However, to have credibility in a social world, one needs a social profile! If the senior executives are enthusiastic about the implications of social media, then the changes have a better chance of becoming far-reaching and effective. If they are less enthusiastic, the process will take longer.• Part of corporate culture – It is always better to adapt a social mediastrategy to suit the needs of the corporate culture, not the other way around. Sandy Carter, VP of Social Business Evangelism at IBM andauthor of Get Bold is fond of saying, “Culture eats strategy for lunch.”You won’t succeed by forcing employees to adopt social media. In a large number of organizations, this won’t happen overnight. This cultural change can also be driven by the employees.• Eliminate politics and streamline the process – Particularly for highlyregulated industries like financial services, streamlining content approvals and providing as much latitude as possible for social media users will improve chances of success. As part of the integrated process, you need to make content approvals simple, safe, and timely. Educating your social media team as to what is and is not appropriate content will save the compliance team much approval headaches and promote more timely social media responses. Better yet, prepared, pre-approved content to help sales and marketing connect with clients will make the process more efficient and promote integrated messaging. Enabling individual users to tailor content gives them authenticity of voice, which is key for personal engagement. A successful, integrated social media program will include the tools necessary to communicate with clients and prospects on their terms, using their preferred channels, and it needs to work as a painless and logical extension of the rest of the company’s marketing strategy.
- You, Dear Reader, Are My Most Valuable AssetIn the realm of social media, I am the brand, you are the brand, as is your colleague and your teammate. Today, the vast majority of outbound social communications is between the brand and the consumer. However, while 17 percent of consumers trust a brand, 70 percent trust the recommendations given by friends and connections. That makes it more critical for the individual to connect in order to carry the brand message.U.S. One, an SEC-registered investment advisor out of Reno, Nevada, determined that Facebook Fans and Twitter Followers are 50-70 percent more likely to buy its product or service, and 80 percent are more likely to recommend it to others. We’re now seeing consumers starting to purchase products through social media. For example, In recent months, we have started to see the movement for integration between financial services firms and social media. Such is the proposition ofMovenbank, a startup which launched at Sibos with a tagline of “No Paper,No Plastic, No Hidden Fees.” It aims to be the first cardless and branchless bank in the world. Everything will be centered on mobile and social media. The tagline is catchyenough, but what’s really raising eyebrows is Movenbank’s requirement for individuals to register and log in with their Facebook accounts. ICICI Bank in Jauary of 2012 also launched a Facebook application, enabling the use of social to login to one’s bank account. We’ll see more moves in this space… and quickly, we predict, as financial services organizations seek to fight the challenge that could perhaps be Facebook itself offering financial services. With a community heading fast towards one billion, it would certainly be an obvious next choice of service for the behemoth social platform. The long-term objective for social enablement in businesses isto engage with the brand as embodied by individual employees. Every social media user brings a unique set of contacts to the table - those are my LinkedIn connections, my Facebook friends, and my Twitter followers – who are connected with the uniqueness that I bring as a human being (quirks and all) and those are the contacts to leverage. As each employee is given the opportunity to carry the corporate mantle as part of his or her personal brand, messaging and content will spread from one circle of trust to the next. It’s ultimately more valuable to create a feedback loop where the target market seeks the brand through individuals (because there are more of them with a social media footprint), rather than just using social media to broadcast to your target demographic.
- 3. Content Is King: Use the Personal ApproachTo gather a following, you need to have compelling content - information that is informative, entertaining, and worth sharing. In a compliance-constrained industry like financial services, delivering compelling content can be challenging, but it’s by no means impossible.Start with pre-approved content that has been reviewed by the company’s compliance team for both corporate governance and regulatory compliance. You can develop a library of interesting insights on investment strategies, wealth management, saving for college or retirement, and similar topics. These articles can provide a starter kit for social media newcomers who are looking to start building their online networks.However, you don’t want to equip your entire cadre of financial advisors with the same content. If you do, you will end up with an army of sales drones repeating approved company commercials. You also will have missed the point of social networking. It’s about personal engagement and interaction, not distributing a message from the sponsor.Being social is about sending a personal message, something that informs your connections about you. Social networking is a broadcast medium designed to distribute your personal information and messages. When you use social media solely to broadcast a brand message, you ignore the opportunity for interaction, i.e., the social aspect of social media. Viewing a commercial message is not how consumers engage.
- 4.Empowering the Social Consumer to Work for YouConverting customers into evangelists is the real payoff for any integrated social media program. Today, consumers are using the Web and social media to research goods and services. They not only use Google, Bing, and Yahoo to search for information, they use Yelp, Amazon.com, and BestBuy.com to read product reviews. Consumers are asking their network of contacts for advice about strategic purchases and investments.Engaging with the network to provide useful information is a key benefit of social networking. It’s not enough to connect with individuals in your target demographic. You need to engage with them in a way that demonstrates your domain expertise, that contributes to the body of online information, and that gives those in your network something valuable to share with their network of contacts. Successfully engaging with the social consumer is the best way to enlist new evangelists to disseminate your brand message. In other words, get your customer to promote and sell for you through social media.
- Education Enables EveryoneIn order to empower employees to share their own insights in their own voice, you need to educate them.Creating an effective sales team is never an accident. The best sales and client service professionals have to be trained. They are taught how to speak effectively, how to sell over the telephone, how to work with email, and how to work skillfully with clients. You need to teach them how to use social media in the same manner.That doesn’t necessary mean that social media is an extension of their Series 7 license or they have to be experts in FINRA 10-06 and 11-39 regulations for social media compliance. However, everyone who uses social media needs to understand what it means to be social.Basic social media training should explain the why and how of social media. What is social media, how does it work, and why should it matter to the individual and the company. As part of the basics of social media, training should include strategies to get the most out of Facebook, LinkedIn,Twitter, and other social networks, and how personal social activity promotes the corporate brand. The objective is to lay a solid foundation for social media use within the organization that is in line with the corporatemarketing and sales goals and the corporate culture.
- Education Enables EveryoneTraining also needs to encompass how to use social media to build business, including the nuances of social engagement, such as long-term relationship management, identifying key contacts and influencers, identifying newbusiness opportunities, and community management. Training couldinclude internal processes and best practices, such as using back-endinformation systems like CRM platforms, and integrating social mediaactivity with internal tracking systems.Training also needs to encompass how to use social media to build business, including the nuances of social engagement, such as long-term relationship management, identifying key contacts and influencers, identifying newbusiness opportunities, and community management. Training couldinclude internal processes and best practices, such as using back-endinformation systems like CRM platforms, and integrating social mediaactivity with internal tracking systems.
- Activating Actionable Analytics: It’s About Measuring EngagementAnd finally, Social media has redefined the rules of marketing, and it also requires a new way to measure success. When measuring the success of social media programs, the natural tendency is to apply the same metrics that operate in email marketing – how many clicks on material posted, how many updates get “likes,” etc. Measuring clicks is not the same as measuring engagement. If you simply try to measure how many users are exposed to your message, you’re overlooking something even more important. Comments have more value than “likes,” and shares are more valuable than comments. The metrics that matter show how connected you are to your network and whether your followers are sharing your message.The number of followers you achieve on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook is an important metric, assuming you are attracting the right kind of followers. If you have a network of a hundred contacts on LinkedIn, that may be all you need to successfully do business. If you have the right kinds of followers and you know those followers will share what youhave to say with their peers, then ten connections on LinkedIn could be more valuable than 1,000 friends on Facebook.To identify those contacts that matter, you need to see who is saying what and who is doing what. One of the greatest lessons you can learn about social media is that active listening leads to effective engagement. Listen to your contacts in real-time, assess their content, respond appropriately, and then formulate your actions or activity correspondingly. You also can use pre-approved company content and other material to create your own real-time data stream. Using pre-approved, suggested content makes the process relatively painless for all concerned, and you should be able to adapt it to your own “voice.” To be most effective, the process needs to be systemic, automated, and intelligent.For example, you have a client who loads a new “baby names” applet to his Facebook profile. He joins a group for “prospective grandparents,” and you see congratulations from various well-wishers in his Facebook comments. Take that intelligence, apply it to pre-packaged content, and tailor that content to provide a targeted message. For example, you can share some ready-made information about the tax advantages of a 529 college savings plan. Reaching out in this way should be seamless. Then you need to measure the results. Does this engagement spawn clicks, likes, comments, and shares? How does the engagement nurture the social media feedback loop? Does it promote more connections and make the engagement with current contacts stronger?And finally,One measure of social media success is gamification, i.e., how performance for each social media participant in the firm compares to his or her peers. How much outreach isengagement measure up between advisors?END OF PRESO each financial advisor able to build into his or her daily routine? What kind of responses are those social posts getting? How does the depth of
- Slide 10 “the Six Principles of social media Success”Here at Actiance, we have developed six principles for social media success!!!!!! Let me briefly take you through these. Firstly, viewing social networking as a point solution , is what is in vogue now, that is simply missing the point. Those organizations that integrate social into their DNA are the ones that will succeed. Gen Y is beyond socialized, and by 2024 will control 46% of the personal wealth in the USA. You need to communicate with the customer in the environment in which they want to communicate. And using the tools that they want to communicate with.SecondlyToday 17% of end users trust a brand. 70% of end users trust the recommendations given by their “friends and their connections. The challenge of the Chief marketing officer is not to enable another 10 marketeers on <Facebook> its about enabling You – who ever is in the room, all employees. Because your social connections is NOT the marketer’s social connections It’s the head of the social business unit at Gartner who tells us that those organizations who enable social BEYOND the marketing team , will be in the top 20% of their industry by revenue growth. Personal brand is what you need to enable for that success.Enabling those individuals effectively is our third principle – enabling the team to crowdsource content and share that effective, and engaging content is key to success. We know that popular content gets more shares. That if I understand that a piece of content is more successful, then I’m going to share it and the whole team has more success. That’s the third principle of social success. So crowdsourcing content, curating content is key to success. Pick what works and share it easily. This is the fourth principle (Leveraging your customers) use your existing client base for trying, and growing business, leverage their social networks for additonal clients. The fifth Principle is to Educate and train your team to use social and to make it part of your corporate DNA. I don’t just mean training them on what IIROC says and means. I mean the use of social networking, the use of the networks, the socialization of social. That’s the fifth princple for social success.Finally. We need to redefine measurement. When they’re looking at analytics and measurement, everyone likens social to the email world. How many opens, how many clicks, how many likes. That’s missing the point. Social isn’t email. A comment has more value than a like. A share has more value than a comment. The number of followers you have on twitter. Irrelevant if they’re the wrong followers. Tying this all back to revenue, to prospects, to the reduction in customer churn is key.
- So for those of you who found this webinar helpful, you may want to consider a series of webinars that have been developed by Actiance for the marketer in mind. You’ll find the upcoming dates on www.actiance.com
- We’ve come to the end of our time for today…..And for those of you who may be interested in in an evaluation of the Actiance platform, visit our website at www.actiance.com, give us a call at 888.349.3223, or email us at info@actiance.com, and we’ll make sure you get set up for an evaluation within 48 hours.And, for those of you that wish to do some additional reading on what we’ve been talking about today, especially some of the data that I referenced throughout this webinar, we’ll be sending you the above materials in a follow-up email.