Gave a presentation on the use of social media with CTA's at a Chicago Futures CTA Expo (Sep 19, 2013)

1. Building A Relationship With
Social Media

2. How To Find Me
• @pointsnfiguresTwitter, Stocktwits,
TradingView.com
• Pointsandfigures.comBlog
• LinkedIN, Facebook, Klout, About.me, Angel.co,
Snapchat, YouTube, Disqus, Foursquare, Tumblr,
Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, Kik, Skype,
TradingView, Stocktwits, LikeFolio
• BuiltinChicago.org, Hyde Park Angels
• West Loop Ventures (westloopventures.com)

3. Why is Social Media Important?
• The ability to interact and service your
customers on both a mass and individual basis
efficiently
• Spot trends before they happen
• Take care of problems as they happen
• Create a network for impact
• Build A Personal Brand
• Allow People to Get to Know You-Build Trust

4. Social Is Relationships
• Social Media allows you to develop real
relationships with people, virtually
• Same rules of etiquette apply
• Remember, even if you think it’s private, it’s
public (Don’t be this guy)

5. A Big Thought
• A business cannot ignore social media.
Businesses cannot afford to ban, or not use it.
As soon as you begin to use social media, it
opens your business up to new strategies in
how you execute business
• Once you ask, customers talk back
• They have a lot to say!

6. Social Media is “Listening”

9. Venting

10. What About CTA’s?
• A CTA’s value is based on its performance data.
• The CTA business is a people business. “An
individual or firm who provides individualized
advice regarding the buying and selling of futures
contracts or options on futures, or certain foreign
exchange contracts.” Therefore: CTAs can’t afford
not to engage with people and potential clients
on social media.

11. What’s Your Goal?
• Even though the platforms are commoditized,
each and every person in the audience has
different goals
• Use different platforms to engage different
customers to achieve different goals
• Social media can let you take mundane
practices and make them look tailored to
them

12. Clients Invest In You
• Clients don’t invest in things. They invest in
you.
• Social media opens a line of communication
and engagement for old clients, and allows
potential clients to develop a relationship with
you on their own terms.
• Builds a sales funnel

13. What’s Important to Clients?
• Trust
• Integrity
• {Insert Your Own Here}
• Clients that have a deep relationship with you
trust you and are stickier

14. Commoditized Relationships
• If all you can sell your client is rate of return,
you are competing on “price”. As soon as
someone creates a better price, clients are
gone
• Social media adds a new level of client
relationships forcing CTAs to compete on
service and personal relationships as well as
price

15. CTA’s Are In the Brand Building
Business
• View your CTA as a Brand
• What Do You Want Your Brand to Represent?
• Social Media Tools allow you to build the
brand you want to be at the pace you want to
build it

16. What’s In The ToolBox?

17. Popular Social Media Tools
• Email (The original social media)
• Blog (build credibility, create trust)
• Tumblr blog (andyswan.com-engagement)
• Facebook (Fun, way to engage people and get in funnel)
• Twitter (spread info, handle problems, engage)
• Stocktwits-focused twitter group that has info
• LinkedIN (form a private group available only to clients)
• Pinterest (creative photos that show fun stuff)
• YouTube (make videos and talk about issues, trades etc)
• US Mail
• eBooks (build credibility)
• All strategies should send them to the place you can sell
them.

18. Less Popular But Powerful Tools
• About.me (page so people can check you out)
• TradingView.com (publish ideas, build
followers)
• Klout.com (credibility, influence)
• Snapchat (stimulate ideas)
• Vine
• RebelMouse.com (compilation page)

19. A CTA Example
• In this example, we show how a CTA could use
Ycharts.com for research, then various forms
of social media to contact existing customers,
or get new customers.

20. Widening gap between Natural Gas and Crude Oil prices
since 2009 leading to more oil-focused drilling (EIA)

21. US Crude Oil Supplied

22. Increase in Bioethanol usage driving up corn prices over
the last decade

23. Idea
• Oil supplies look like they might go up in the
future-Buy out of the money puts in deferred
options at NYMEX
• Which Social Media Platform works to transfer
idea to your customers?

24. Which Would Be Best?
• Blog
• Email
• Facebook
• Snapchat
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

25. Use Of Platform Depends On Goals
• Each platform has a specific purpose and
should be treated differently
• Like brands, your personal brand will take time
and effort to build.
• Consistent and active engagement every day
will build your audience and thought
leadership
• Building trust and credibility brings you
business

26. Gold Idea
• Many of your customers see ads to buy gold
and silver all the time on TV. Should they?
• Let’s check out some Ycharts.com

27. Dependence of prices of Industrial Metals on the US
imports of Iron and Steel products.

28. On an inflation adjusted basis, Gold is still expensive
compared to historical levels even after the 30% drop.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1979
1980
1981
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
InflationadjustedGoldprice
Sources: Gold Council, BLS
Created using YCharts Export Center with Gold Price in USD / US CPI

29. Answer
• You might save your customers money by
advising them to do nothing.
• Earns you ZERO commission
• Earns you trust and credibility

30. Which is the Right Platform?
• Blog
• Email
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Snapchat
• Twitter
• Pinterest

31. Compliance: 1 Major Caveat
• Just because there are compliance regulations
limiting how you market your brand does not
mean that social media is irrelevant to your CTA.
Ways to abide by compliance within your
industry:
– Be an aggregator of information
– Use language allowed within compliance to share
your opinions
– You don’t always have to be talking about your market
insights to become a thought leader and expand your
brand’s relevance

32. Summary
• Find the right tools that fit the right channel
• Experiment: Try and don’t be afraid to fail
• Be Conscious of the Megaphone: LISTEN
• When A Person Reaches out to you, reach out
and touch them.
• Share, be genuine, and helpful

33. Great Books And Blogs
• World Wide Rave-David Meerman Scott
• Groundswell-Charlene Li
• Onemanandhisblog.com
• Questions?