We talk about the “new normal”, yet we don’t quite know exactly what that means, other than we realize we must do things differently than before to move forward. That is certainly true for our personal lives but even more true for our businesses.
Social media likely plays a significant role in your digital marketing. Your business can thrive using digital channels to communicate with your clients, and it allows you to get more personal. It’s important to be active on social media, and you can use it to your advantage to gain influence as a thought leader and an expert.
Why is this so important? Investment News recently published their 2020 Study of Pricing and Profitability where more than 300 firms of various sizes and affiliations provided their 2019 to help establish some interesting benchmarks.
Inside this study, we found that second to increase in performance of portfolio, referrals from your professional network are one of the strongest ways to grow your firm’s AUM – this may not be a surprise to you. But, if this is the second highest way to grow your business, then having a strong digital strategy is going to be key continuing to drive your professional referrals. As much as you want everything you do to present a professional image to your clients, your professional network wants to ensure that the firm they are referring clients has their act together and can take care of the clients they might be sending your way.
#1. Ask Your Network for Guest Content
Business relationships have always been focused on commitment and communication. That doesn’t change when we shift to a digital discussion. In fact, it’s a way to enhance your business relationships. Just like you, your network is looking for ways to promote themselves and establish their brand.
A great way to build your brand is through asking those in your network if you could be a distribution channel for their content. This gives you fresh content. It’s content that you don’t have to write and a way to help a fellow colleague.
#2. Promote Your Network’s Content
Another great way to build your digital brand is by promoting your network’s content. This goes beyond just giving an article a “like” or “thumbs up”. Take the time to thoughtfully respond and comment to the content in a way that promotes the topic as well as your colleague. The goal is to spark a conversation amidst your broader network thereby helping your colleague’s brand and giving you the benefit of being the author of additional thought. The result is building your own level of experience and insight within your advisor community.
#3. Share Your Own Content to Your Network
Having strong content on your website is a great start to establishing your brand but taking the time to share your content across social media either directly or asking colleagues to host your content as a guest rounds out your business relationship strategy. Building your network requires a little “give to get” and “pay it forward.” These are the best methods of building your digital presence with content. The great thing about this is that you are making direct contributions to your audience, and it forces helpful content to be shared. All this helps build a personal brand of being a thoughtful expert.
Sharing Knowledge Meets Sharing Success
Doing these simple steps allows you to provide more substance to the relationships you have within your professional network. And the content that gets created is providing more “helpfulness” to your clients and the clients of your professional network – a win-win for all parties involved.
