I’ve written a lot about these strategies right here on Financial-Planning.com and I invite you to visit the Marketing Maven article archive to learn more there.
“What people see when they search can impact trust,” Kelly said. “So make sure to register your locations, set up a Google Profile, leverage Google and use relevant keywords on all of your online profiles, articles, blog posts, and so forth.”
Sixty percent of search results contain video, according to Kelly, and video can play a big part not just in search but also in how we influence perception. YouTube is still the second most popular search tool (next to Google), so producing and posting short videos to YouTube—along with the transcript of the video—is important.
Have a theme and stick to it, Kelly urged.
Beware the Sloppy Post
Touryalai shared a couple social media horror stories and reminded the audience that posts are not only public but can also be permanent.
“If you pitch me or I’m interested in learning more about you after a meeting at, say, a conference, the first thing I do is do a search online for you,” Touryalai said. “Be smart about what you post; your reputation depends on it. Think twice before posting—especially when posting from your mobile devices and when you are away from your normal office. Have fun but remember that there is still a line,” she cautioned. “Would you want everyone you work with to see this?”
Getting an Edge on Facebook
Facebook is all about the news feed. The algorithm determines what you see on your news feed. While the Facebook EdgeRank algorithm changes over time, the trick to being more visible is to get people interacting with your content.
“Engagement changes with who you interact with,” Kelly said. “15-20% of your content is seen based on the engagement—if they engage with your content, share it, like it, comment on it, then that improves the likelihood that your content will be seen in future news feeds. When you are putting content out there and it is not engaged with, but simply posted, the ranking goes down.”
Social Media Strategy
It’s important to think about your social media strategy, Kelly said. One sample approach:
- Use Twitter to engage with influencers and thought leaders in your space.
- Use LinkedIn to build relationships and offer or ask for introductions.
- Use Facebook to build your brand by leveraging your existing clients on Facebook—get people to share your content with their friends.
- Use YouTube to tell a visual story. Record webinars and videos for the story and the value of the content—but optimize the posts for search. Remember that YouTube is the second most popular search tool next to Google. It’s easy to use Flip cams, iPhones and webcams to record events—not everything has to have high production value. It’s easy to use the video editing tools.
- Don't forget about Google as it is important as a search strategy.
Creating/Curating Good Content
Few create content. Most curate and share someone else’s content with others. So you can set yourself apart by actually creating and sharing original content.
But serving as a content curator is also a good strategy to embrace. Be a resource; curate content worth sharing. Only 9% curate, leverage and share information; 90% simply consume it.
“If you have the content, you can drive the engagement,” Kelly said. “Content is the fuel that powers our stories and creates the most impact.”
What's Ahead
In my next installment, I’ll provide some of the comments related to implementing a strong online presence that advisor Jim Bell shared with us during the Schwab IMPACT conference. I’ll also provide some of the insights from my double-decker social media presentation at the Barron’s Top Women Advisor’s Summit Nov. 29 in West Palm Beach (ladies—if you still have unanswered questions from the Barron’s conference, post them here and I will answer them on the Discussion thread below and/or in my next article for Financial Planning magazine).
And I have some really great notes from attending the first-ever Ladenburg Institute of Women in Finance in Miami Nov. 1-2. I’ll find time over the holiday break to sift out golden nuggets from the Women Entrepreneurs panel and the Women of the Ages panel—both of which produced lots of laughs, nods and ah-ha’s for the audience.
