Financial institutions are experiencing unprecedented change. Economic uncertainties, emerging technologies and rapidly evolving client expectations are changing the way firms operate and connect with existing and potential clients. After all, client engagement and loyalty are no longer driven exclusively by the products, rates and services a financial institution provides. Instead, clients want to do business with firms that meet them where they are to provide helpful and personalised financial information.

One of the growing channels where this happens is social media. In fact, a recent study by The World Economic Forum found that more than half of U.S. adults go to social media for news and information on investing and banking. And this number is growing rapidly.

“As the power of social media continues to expand, firms need to offer technology tools that help teams meaningfully engage on these platforms in a compliant and relevant way.” – Kerry Ryan, CPWA®, Director Financial Services Marketing, Seismic

Shifting mindsets: the advantages of social media have evolved

To keep up with current and prospective clients, more financial institutions are turning to social media. And, even as more firms embrace social media, the way it’s used is constantly evolving. Originally, many firms thought of social media as a broadcast channel where they pushed out ads, promotions, news and other forms of branded content. But, people don’t have conversations with brands – they have conversations with other people.

“As often misleading and fragmented information on social media proliferates, respected firms can elevate their brand and capture new clients by showcasing their expertise, credentials and valuable insights.” – Kerry Ryan, CPWA®, Director Financial Services Marketing, Seismic

Now, financial services firms view social media as a way for their client-facing employees to have personalised conversations with other people. This does not mean that marketing teams only equip employees with branded posts or advertisements. Instead, they enable and empower their client-facing teams to be subject-matter experts who share unique content that resonates with their clients and their network in addition to some branded content. By sharing informative, inspiring, entertaining content, client-facing professionals build their personal reputations in a credible and trustworthy way that cultivates relationships over time.

“Modern client-centric social media is nothing like old fashioned pitching and promoting. It’s about your people showing up and speaking up in ways that strengthen reputation, nurture relationships and build trust at scale. Done well, over time, it’s incredibly powerful.” – Steve Watt, Director, Market Insights, Seismic

However, this doesn’t come without challenges. After all, financial institutions and their client-facing professionals have to worry about the credibility and accuracy of information, legal stipulations and compliance regulations. 

This presents a unique opportunity for firms that want to leverage social media to deepen existing relationships and forge new ones. In order to do this successfully, firms need to enable client-facing teams with tools and enablement programmes that ensure high-quality, accurate and compliant discussions around financial topics.

The roadmap to social media success

It’s important to understand that you can’t simply launch your social media strategy or implement a new tool and expect it to flourish right away. Here are a few strategies we’ve seen financial services clients use to launch their social media engagement programmes and encourage adoption with their teams.

1. Define – or redefine – your strategy: For firms that are just starting out, survey your client-facing teams so they can provide input on your social media strategy. Ask questions about content, formats and preferred social channels. For example, while some employees may prefer text-based posts on LinkedIn, others may be more compelled by video content on YouTube. Getting these types of insights will be helpful as you define your plan. If you’re redefining your strategy, look at all of the available data on your social efforts. This will help you analyse performance to identify what’s working and where there’s a new opportunity.
2. Outline roles and responsibilities: Most social media programmes should be a shared responsibility between sales, marketing and enablement teams. But, in order for this to work, there needs to be alignment and ground rules that are established from the start. Agree on the approach, identify key deadlines and goals and create a plan for moving forward.
3. Align with compliance and legal: Regulatory and legal compliance is critical for financial services, especially as new regulations like the US SEC Marketing Rule, come into effect. This requires organisations to think carefully about their goals for social media. Additionally, client-facing employees may be wary to embrace social media due to compliance concerns. By putting risk management tools, processes and platforms in place, everyone can rest assured that your social media programme is done right.
   
4. Regularly share tips and best practices: Client-facing teams are already busy, so employees may be quick to assume that this will only add to their already hectic workload. Therefore, it’s beneficial to provide tips and best practices for crafting the best social media posts, ideally from other client-facing advocates. By educating, empowering and enabling them, they’ll be more likely to see how this can fit into their daily schedule and be beneficial in the long run.
5. Give them tools for success: In addition to ongoing enablement and training on social media tips and best practices, look for tools that will make it easy and efficient for your teams to leverage social media. Social selling platforms automate content creation, enable authentic and personalised sharing and manage everything with compliance in mind.

Measuring success and effectiveness

Deploying a social media strategy for financial services is not a one-time launch event. Instead, it’s a journey that requires iteration and improvements over time. Here are a few helpful goals to consider when it comes to setting expectations and measuring success.

“Bad measurement and unrealistic timelines can be the death of social media programmes before they even have a chance to thrive. It’s a journey, so it’s important to devote the time, energy and resources to learn, grow and get it right.” – Steve Watt, Director, Market Insights, Seismic

Create quarterly milestones and goals

Social media is a long-term process, but firms can’t sit back and measure nothing. And while organisations won’t experience full adoption the week a programme launches, there are ways to track progress over time. For example, look to see if adoption and activity are better than it was in the first three and six months. Did adoption increase or decrease? Are employees sharing more on a consistent basis than they once did? Then, a few months after launch, begin tracking marketing metrics like traffic from social and increased company page followers. By looking at these metrics over time, you’ll easily be able to gauge if your social media efforts are resonating with your team.

Look for ways to encourage incremental improvements

We’ve found that when launching a new initiative or programme, employees usually fall into three buckets:

• High motivation & engagement: “Help me be excellent.”
• Moderate motivation & engagement: “Make it easier.
• Low motivation & engagement: “Show me why I should care.

While you likely won’t get an employee to move from the bottom tier to the top tier overnight, you can encourage them to get 1% better each and every day. For example, help the people who are consistently active with new, helpful content and data. Those who fall more in the middle may just need help building momentum. Map and plan your ongoing enablement efforts around these tiers and develop appropriate strategies for each.

Lead by example

Finally, financial services leaders who consistently engage on social media are much more knowledgeable and credible when they ask their client-facing employees to leverage social media. Instead of telling them what to do and how to do it, show them how you embrace social media yourself.

Final thoughts

An effective social media engagement program can create tremendous value for financial services firms. While it is an investment that requires thought and intentionality, it can deliver great returns over time. The financial services firms that empower and enable their people to embrace and engage on social media with confidence will deepen relationships, build trust at scale and create a competitive advantage over other firms.

How Seismic helps

Implementing a successful social media programme requires a platform that makes it scalable and efficient. Seismic’s enablement suite features LiveSocial, a social engagement platform that tens of thousands of financial service professionals use to foster authentic relationships and grow client trust. 

It’s the only tool in the market that provides a unique feed of current, relevant and compliant third-party content for each of your client-facing employees, in addition to the corporate content that your marketing team and partners create. LiveSocial also provides robust reporting and analytics so users know what content most resonates and drives engagement. Interested in learning more? Watch how client-facing professionals build trust online and meet clients where they are using LiveSocial.

The post How to improve client engagement through social media appeared first on Seismic.

This shift of consumers toward a more remote way of life has also pushed many businesses to pivot and follow their prospects and customers to the internet by becoming a virtual seller. Even now that travel and office restrictions are easing, many people have kept their preference for operating online over in-person options.

Unless you’re a global franchise like Walmart or Mcdonald’s, you won’t be able to survive long without an online presence. Even giant chains with fantastic name recognition have still adapted to the virtual environment because they realise this is how to sell in the new normal.

You, too, should adapt to a virtual selling market by getting the right tools, supplies and training to equip your business with virtual selling for sales professionals. Over 65% of buyers in North America work remotely most of the time, so why would they want to leave the safety and comfort of their own home just to hear a sales pitch? Help your sales reps succeed by encouraging them to join the 81% of sales reps that use video conferencing instead of in-person meet-ups.

Challenges of the virtual selling world

Virtual selling has become increasingly popular because it’s quick, convenient and safe. Still, sales reps, leaders and organisations experience virtual selling challenges. Before you begin moving your sales operations online, make sure you plan for these common challenges:

Maintaining your buyers’ attention

The internet is a busy place, with many things distracting potential buyers. They might find someone offering the same products as you and give them attention instead. Getting and keeping a buyer’s attention is easier at a physical store, where you can meet them in person, without advertisements from competitors, and they can’t click away. When working with a potential customer online, it’s a bit different.

Establishing trust and building rapport

When dealing with a prospect or customer face-to-face, a good sales rep can quickly gauge their mood, attitude and feelings regarding the pitch. Sales reps use this information to build a trusting relationship with the buyer. From there, they can steer the conversation in a direction likelier to close the sale.

Working with customers online makes it harder for the buyer and the seller to gauge each other’s tone. Lacking face-to-face interaction makes customers wary of whoever they’re talking to, especially in a sales setting.

Showing value

Working with prospects and customers online limits their ability to view, analyse and form opinions on a product or service. They can only see what the seller shows them, making them more sceptical of the pitched product. The most important part of a sale is convincing the other person that your item is their best option to solve a problem. Without examining the product first-hand, they may have a harder time discerning its true value. It’s on the sales reps to showcase products and convince the audience of their value.

Communicating clearly

It can be especially difficult to maintain clarity if the seller and buyer are communicating via text chats or email. Messages lack the nuance of inflection and tone of a real conversation, often leading people to the wrong conclusions and causing communication issues. In addition, people have an easier time offering and retaining accurate information when speaking to someone in person.

Virtual selling best practices

Selling your products or services and working with others online can be challenging, but it’s becoming increasingly necessary. If you can make it past the hurdles, you can gain many benefits from virtual selling. When it comes to selling virtually, best practices get everyone ahead. All you must do to get the results you want is implement the following virtual selling best practices:

Be prepared

Preparation is essential in any scenario, but even more so when conducting business online. Don’t stick a customer with a sales rep who spends the first five minutes of a call getting everything in order. Time is money, and it is more imperative now than ever that a sales rep do their research. They need to learn everything they can about their prospect, the organisations, their pain points, the product or service and anything else that helps make the sale.

Share materials before the call

Don’t wait until the last moment to give the prospect information and materials they need. Share them in advance and use the call time to discuss the things that matter. Giving prospects information in advance gives them more time to understand what they’re getting into before committing.

Explain the sales process

Selling in a virtual environment is different from doing so in person, and so is buying. Customers hate feeling bamboozled when considering doing business with someone. They want to be in the loop and know what’s going to happen before it happens. One of the best ways to increase the odds of them doing business with you is by explaining the sales process ahead of time.

Work with marketing

Partnering with your marketing team allows sales teams to acquire new resources and collateral. Both teams can benefit from this in the future, as it streamlines the selling process and makes everything more efficient. In turn, the marketing team can get the necessary data more efficiently than before.

Monitor interactions and relationships

Don’t turn a cold shoulder to your prospect or customer after they complete a transaction with you. Maintain the relationship by using what you’ve learned from previous interactions to your advantage. Stay in touch and follow up, so that next time the customer needs your company’s good or service, they’ll return.

Important virtual selling skills for sellers

Using these practices is an excellent way to skyrocket your sales team to the top, but you can always do more. It’s vital to provide reps with training and coaching so they develop the right virtual selling skills. Having these skills is a must for anyone wanting a successful virtual selling process. The right virtual selling skills training is vital to virtual sales success because it can help your sales rep develop the following essential skills:

Social skills

Without social skills, a sales rep can’t form a trusting, friendly relationship with their potential customers. There would be little to no trust between them, and the odds of a successful sale are significantly decreased.

Communication skills

Communicating the intended meaning can be more difficult online. The customer can’t analyse your facial expressions and body language. They can’t gather the nuance of your intention from your vocal tone, and the process can feel scripted or robotic. This impression leads to miscommunication and might offend the customer if they perceive the seller’s message in a way they didn’t intend.

Active listening

The sales rep must listen and respond to the customer’s comments, questions and concerns in any kind of sales. Doing business online makes this even more critical. The customer might already feel impatient, easily distractible and wary. A sales rep should pick up on this and steer the conversation, encouraging the customer to stay interested.

Demo skills

Unlike selling products in person, selling things online eliminates the customer’s ability to form judgments based on examination. When selling online, the sales rep must have the skills needed to display the product accurately while still keeping it in a positive light.

Virtual selling tools to turn to

In addition to skills training and best virtual selling practices, there are several virtual selling tools that a sales rep should know how to use before attempting a sale. These include:

Video tools

Synchronous and asynchronous video tools can significantly improve the virtual sales process. The former is a live video conference, and the latter refers to recordings. When completing a sale with a customer, text chat and voice calls alone are often not enough to push them to purchase. Using these video tools makes them feel a more personal connection to the sales rep and, therefore, the product.

Social selling tools

Social Selling tools include personalised content, activated sellers and risk mitigation. Creating a customised seller market lets people find what they’re looking for more quickly. Activated sellers reach an audience more deeply through a multi-channel approach, and risk mitigation helps eliminate security risks.

Online sales training

Online sales training is an essential tool. It gives sales reps access to all the means, learning materials and resources they need to succeed in the world of virtual sales. It teaches them essential skills like communication, social ability, active listening and more. It also enables them to learn these things remotely and re-access necessary information throughout the sales journey.

Preparing your reps for virtual selling

Virtual selling has been around for a while, and it’s not going anywhere. The process of virtual selling may be complex, but neglecting to do business online may herald the death of your sales organisation. Seismic’s Enablement Cloud provides the enablement, training and coaching your sellers need to succeed in the virtual selling world. Ready to learn more? Get a demo today.

The post Virtual selling best practices appeared first on Seismic.

The sales landscape isn’t what it used to be. With so many resources at their fingertips, clients can complete extensive research and compare different companies, products and services on their own. When they finally interact with an adviser, their first line of communication typically occurs through digital channels. To further meet the preferences of today’s clients, advisers need to find a way to engage with them early and often. 

This is why social selling is becoming increasingly important for every firm. Social selling leverages social media channels to improve engagement throughout the sales process. It embraces two-way communication in a more authentic and natural way instead of prioritising transactional conversations. This gives advisers an opportunity to build trust at scale and nurture relationships that may eventually turn into business opportunities. 

The benefits of social media for financial advisers

Some financial firms are growing their businesses faster than ever. Others are having a much more difficult time. One reason for this success comes down to how well they’re navigating the digital transformation and embracing new strategies that help them keep pace with the rapid changes taking place. One critical part of this digital world is social media. 

Social media has evolved beyond its origins as platforms for connecting with friends and family. Now, social media is where trust is built, conversations begin and business happens. And while more financial advisers are using social media, they aren’t using it in a way that brings them noticeable results. For example, many financial services firms encourage their advisers to share corporate content in order to extend their marketing efforts. There isn’t anything wrong with this strategy, but it doesn’t exactly help financial services firms stand out from their competitors. Instead, the firms and advisers who successfully use social media take a more human-centric approach that drives engagement, nurtures relationships and sparks conversations that lead to business success. 

Now that you have a better understanding of what social selling looks like in the financial services industry, let’s look at how advisers can leverage social media channels for their business. 

Build top-of-mind awareness

When potential clients search for financial advice, it’s important to be top-of-mind. People do business with those who they know and trust.

The best financial advisers can miss new opportunities simply because their competition has better name recognition. So the question is, how can you build your personal brand to stand out from the crowd?

Provide consistent value to your target audience

In order to provide value, you first need to understand your audience and its needs, and then match your content accordingly. For example, an adviser who sells to parents and mid-career professionals might publish content that aligns with their financial goals, such as:

• saving for retirement
• building a university fund for their kids
• budgeting their family’s expenses

To get a better idea of what this looks like in practice, follow Nina O’Neal who is a partner at Archer Investment Management. She provides financial advice to working mums and was recently named a Top 100 Financial Adviser. That’s because she continually contributes to critical conversations in the industry and helps educate investors by posting both personal and professional stories.

Remember to research your audience to learn more about their challenges and pain points. Sometimes, the easiest way to learn is to ask or even survey your social media followers. You can also look up your competitors or an account with a similar follower profile to identify which of their content most resonates with your target audience.

Share resonant, non-business content

Like Nina, your social presence shouldn’t be all business. Becoming top-of-mind is about capturing your audience’s attention and building an authentic connection with them. Educational content is the cornerstone of your social presence, but personal content helps your audience relate to your human side.

Not sure where to start? As you consider your own audience, take some time to make a list of your personal interests and experiment with sharing related content to build a personal connection with them. Maybe you have a unique skill, hobby or passion that drives you outside of your 9-to-5. Feel empowered to show your audience that you’re not just a work machine – show them that you’re a person just like them.

Foster deeper relationships

Clients are more likely than ever to go digital when it comes to seeking financial advice. And while social media has always been a conversation platform, the pandemic accelerated its adoption as a platform for businesses. 

Capturing your target audience’s attention and engaging with them where they already are is a great way to build new relationships and foster existing ones. Here’s how you can deepen your relationships on social media:

Participate in groups and forums

Getting your name out there is as simple as engaging online, and online groups and forums are the best places to get started. Explore communities that align with your expertise and find opportunities to add value to conversations through relevant content.

If you’re an adviser who helps clients plan their children’s university funds, you could participate and share insights in a group like the College Planning Forum on Linkedin. 

Be sure to read into and understand the group before diving in. Many groups have rules and guidelines that govern community discussion. For instance, some groups may allow you to share promotional content while others might strictly forbid it. Be sure to limit promotional posts, even in groups that allow them. The goal is to find and contribute to conversations so you can build relationships, not inundate groups with pitches for your business.

Once you’re clear on the rules, start by finding at least one post a day that you can contribute to in a meaningful way. Share your thoughts with the person who posted. And check the comments to see if you can add value to other responses.

Engage with posts from your network

Another way to expand your reach and impact on platforms like LinkedIn is to be a top commenter on other people’s posts.

No matter the size of your network, if you have the top comment on relevant posts, you’ll be noticed by the original poster and their network. When commenting on a post, be sure to:

• Be one of the first to react, or others may beat you to the punch.
• Share something relevant that adds to the conversation in a meaningful way.
• Use casual language (you’re speaking to another human, not writing an essay).

Just as with group posts, engage with the person who wrote the original post, as well as other people who commented. Each individual post becomes an opportunity to engage and strengthen relationships. This is also the best way to interact with people before asking them to connect directly. When you sincerely add value, they’ll be open to engaging with you later on.

Win and retain more business

When advisers leverage social media they can win more clients. In fact, studies show that more than 70% of advisers who use social media for business were able to initiate relationships with clients.

But advisers must remember that practices like spamming inboxes or constantly pitching products and services will do more harm than good. Here’s how you can use social selling to win and retain business win without being a nuisance:

Establish a social engagement cadence

The best social sellers have a consistent, structured approach to their social media strategy. Their followers can expect them to consistently share relevant content, engage with their shared posts and contribute to conversations in a meaningful way.

With a clearly defined social cadence, advisers won’t just post when they feel like it, they’ll have a purposeful approach to their engagement on social media, driven by goals and success metrics. To make this an easy process, decide early on if you’ll share educational videos or write blog posts. For example, if you plan on sharing two educational videos a week, then you’ll need to plan out eight videos for the month. Write down the topic for each video and a few key points you’ll discuss. This will help you produce a content plan that’s scalable and feasible for the future.

Choose the right social selling channels and tools

Part of creating the ideal buyer persona is determining which social media platforms your target buyers use most often. Social media trends for business show that LinkedIn and Facebook are used most widely by advisers because they deliver attractive prospects, clients and results. 

Once you’ve chosen the right social media platforms, consider putting tools in place to create a more seamless process. Instead of spending time searching social media for great articles related to their field of interest, social selling tools can help you source tens of thousands of pieces of relevant content that are pre-approved and ready to post, eliminating most of the legwork for advisers to share valuable content.

Getting started

You’re one step closer to building top-of-mind awareness, growing deeper relationships and winning new business on social media. The only thing left to do is get started. Here are a few helpful considerations as you create your plan.

• Ask yourself, “What are you all about?” Who are you, and who do you serve? Are you an expert in a particular region, industry or market segment? Do you solve specific problems for clients? Once you answer these questions, your social selling strategy will easily fall into place.
  

• Why should people trust you? What’s the foundation of the trust you build? Is it your years of experience, community involvement or network of existing clients? Clarify and centre your approach on this in order to stay consistent.
  

• What social platforms will you focus on? You don’t need to do it all, and you’ll likely be most successful leveraging one or two platforms consistently. Once you decide what platform you’ll use, research best practices and applicable forums to participate in and create a cadence on how often you plan to post. 

How Seismic can help

Seismic’s enablement platform is trusted by more than 250 financial services firms to deliver better engagement and experiences to their clients. Our social selling platform, LiveSocial, helps advisers foster authentic relationships and grow client trust. Get a demo to see how, or learn more about social selling by visiting our Social Selling Resource Hub.

The post The financial adviser’s guide to social selling appeared first on Seismic.