How Investment Sales Teams Can Use Social Media to Grow Their Business

Social media might not be the first thing investment sales people think of when talking about their business. However, its importance should not be overlooked.

Investment sales teams can use their knowledge and skills to create an impactful social media presence for themselves and their clients. In fact, 92% of financial advisors who use social media say that social media has helped them gain new clients.

Companies use social media for a variety of purposes, but at the end of the day, it should provide content that keeps customers engaged.

At Dakota, we’ve used social media platforms such as LinkedIn and YouTube to enhance our company culture and figure out how to best reach our customers.

In this article, we’ll be touching on the importance of social media, the benefits of posting online and how companies should use social media to their advantage. By the end of the article, you’ll understand what to do next regarding creating a social media strategy that will deliver value to your company and your customers. 

First, let’s dive into why social media is important for any business.

Why is Social Media Important?

Social media is an integral part of any company’s success, and we’ve used several practices to help us build stronger connections with our customers.

The primary social media platform we use is LinkedIn, and as a result, we have increased our brand recognition using it. We try to build relationships by posting for our ideal clients. We post biweekly and our posts are geared toward our clients to get them excited about events such as Dakota Live!  

Speaking of excitement, there is nothing more exciting than working somewhere where everyone feels welcomed, and that is how we use Instagram. This is where we create our buyer persona to attract new customers.

We post on Instagram to show others what we do as a company and gear our posts toward potential new hires. Sometimes, you may even find some Instagram posts that feature our employees at our Dakota Cocktails events.

Showing others what you do and how you do it will go a long way toward getting people to know about your company. 

Another platform we use is YouTube. From teaching viewers investment sales terms to showcasing what it is like to work at Dakota, our YouTube videos have a wide variety of content that will engage our customers in what we do on a daily basis.

Engaging customers is vital for any business, and we love to connect to our customers using Twitter. Many financial advisors and companies are active on Twitter, and that is why we use it to promote Dakota Live and Dakota Cocktails events. 

At Dakota, social media allows us to track more information and gauge customer engagement. It paves the way for customers to easily reach us, and we want to keep them coming back.

This brings us to our next point: how to get started with your social media plan.

How to use social media to start growing your business

Starting to use social media is not easy for anyone, but here are some tips and tricks to help you get started.

Creating a social media action plan requires planning and preparation, and here are four steps that investment sales teams should use to do this:

This person should develop the social media strategy for the company and figure out how to execute it.

When it comes to social media, financial advisors use it differently than other businesspeople, so make sure you are compliant with rules and regulations.

Social media does not have to be run in a specific way. Make sure that you use social media to your company's advantage so that you can target potential customers and connect with your current ones. Instead of posting just to post, try to solve an investor’s problem!

4. Execute

Executing may sound like a lot, but using content tailored to your firm will help you achieve a successful social media presence.

Following the four steps above will help you get off and running with your social media plan. Over time, you can use social media to have engagements with customers so that they can access your website and other social media accounts.

At Dakota, we are figuring out when and what to post to best reach our customers. Posting on Tuesdays and Thursdays might be better than posting on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The content of each post should be geared toward customers, and we have demonstrated that through culture posts on Instagram, customer-focused posts on LinkedIn and promotional posts on Twitter.

Which social media platform is right for your firm?

A critical decision that investment salespeople have to make regarding social media is which platform(s) to use. Using one primary app might be beneficial for some, but others might use multiple platforms to reach different audiences.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is impactful because companies can connect with their customers with a simple tap of the connect button on the app. Also, companies can post original content and optimize their profiles to improve their chances of being seen by others. We follow these guidelines by posting content that gets customers excited about company-related events.

Youtube

Another way we get customers excited about our company is through YouTube. We post videos that display our company culture as well as teach others concepts from the investment sales world. It may sound daunting to shoot video and get viewers, but there are ways to make sure your content stands out.

Instagram

If you want others to visualize working at your company, using Instagram is the best way to do so. While we use Instagram for “culture posts,” there are other ways investment sales teams can benefit from using the app. Some guidelines for using Instagram include showing and not telling, posting at certain times to gauge the best audience and boosting engagement.

Twitter

While Instagram is great for visuals, Twitter is great for communicating short blurbs of information. Tweeting, retweeting, replying and mentioning are four primary ways to communicate on Twitter, and it contributes to a fast way of communication with your customers.

At Dakota, we use social media to strengthen relationships with our customers, prospects and everyone associated with the company. We want people to be in the loop so that they can feel a part of our company, and you should feel the same way too.