4 Types of Social Content RIAs Should Promote  

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By devoting just 15-30 minutes of your time each week to your firm’s social media accounts, you can easily and quickly demonstrate thought leadership, showcase expertise and establish credibility for COIs vetting you online. And you may find your business grows as a result.  

If you’re currently taking a passive approach with social media, then you’re missing out on opportunities to leverage platforms to gain new clients. According to Putnam Investments’ Social Advisor Survey, advisors on average gain nearly $5 million in assets through social media use. But high achievers (those who used social media to grow their AUM by 10% or more) reported gaining $15 million in assets. 

Advisors recognize that social media is changing how they interact with clients. They report that thanks to social media, they communicate with clients more frequently, it’s easier to share information, and they are more attuned to major events in their clients’ lives. 

We find that advisors often are using LinkedIn for referrals and Facebook for communicating with clients. When sharing content on social media, consider which platform or platforms your COIs, current clients and prospects use so that you reach them where they already are.  

So, once you’ve established your platforms, what content should you be pushing out? We suggest you focus on these four types of content:  

1. Lifestyle.

As an advisor, your followers engage the most with lifestyle content. What do we mean by lifestyle? Think of your target audience and what they like to do, then create authentic content that sparks their interest – without a call to action. To generate some ideas, ask yourself the following about your target audience:

  • How do they like to feel?  

  • What do they like to do for fun? 

  • Are there any common experiences or pain points you can address? 

  • How can I show more of my personality in “behind the scenes” footage? 

  • What resources can I utilize from RIA thought leaders? 

  • What questions can I ask to learn more about them? 

A study by Hearsay Systems in 2018 analyzed the performance of various posts by advisors. Corporate marketing teams often push to publish corporate content (branded posts intended to sell or educate consumers on a firm’s products or services) and industry content (non-branded content meant to educate consumers more on general financial matters) over lifestyle content. Advisors, on the other hand, tend to promote industry news and lifestyle posts over corporate content. 

What did Hearsay Systems find as far as content performance?   

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The advisors’ audiences prefer lifestyle content.  

As you can see in the chart above, advisors post industry content the most (41%), but it’s the content with the least engagement (27%). Lifestyle posts are suggested the least by corporate marketing teams (23%), yet those posts have the highest engagement rates from advisors’ followers (48%). 

2. Community. 

Does your RIA firm give back to the community? Perhaps your team participates in the Alzheimer’s Association 5k every year, or you host a holiday coat drive. Whatever it is, show your involvement in the community! You can accompany these posts with hashtags, location tags and tagging the organizations involved. 

3. Team members. 

Make it a point to weave in posts that highlight your team. It’s an all-around win for your firm because:  

  • prospects and COIs can get acquainted with different personalities and get a feel for how your firm jives together, 

  • laterals and new hires can get a glimpse of what it’s like to work at your firm, and 

  • employees will appreciate the recognition.  

You can pull employee profiles from your website and include fun facts, congratulate them on their work anniversary, and celebrate certifications or other notable accomplishments. 

4. Corporate. 

You’ve put a lot of hard work into developing your marketing materials – an e-book, blog series or compliance-approved white paper. Of course, you should share it on social! Break your long-form content into different topics so you can utilize segmented pieces of content in your social strategy. Link back to the original piece on your firm’s site. Remember in the social world, it’s important to follow the 80-20 rule: post 80% helpful content and only 20% self-promotion. 

Your Social Calendar 

Thirty-five percent of advisors say they just “get by”  when it comes to social media fluency, but 60% plan to go deeper and expand their social strategy. What does your current social content mix look like? 

Do you need help figuring out what content to promote and when? Download our RIA marketing ebook to discover more social tactics that can help you accelerate growth. Need help creating content specifically for social media? Reach out to us today to learn more about how our team can help you. 

FinanceKatie Gilmore