14 Professional Tips to Effectively Leverage Social Media as a Financial Advisor

Spotlighting comparable insight for valuers.

As seen in Forbes featuring 14 members of the Forbes Finance Council.

In recent years, businesses across industries have been exploring ways to reach their target audiences through social media platforms. Social media can be an especially effective tool for financial advisors to build one-to-one relationships and share content that helps them better serve and build their client base. A 2020 survey from Putnam Investments revealed that 89% of financial advisors who responded said they had gained new clients through social media activity. Furthermore, social media can be a strong tool for connecting with and learning from others in the industry, especially on professional sites such as LinkedIn.

Whether a financial advisor is looking to build their client base, make professional connections, stay on top of industry news or all of the above, social media can be an invaluable tool. Below, 14 members of Forbes Finance Council share tips to help financial advisors leverage their social media presence to benefit their clients, their firms and themselves.

1. Post Every Day

Post daily content around the questions, challenges and goals of your ideal clients. LinkedIn is a great place for this; I’ve also seen it work on Twitter. The key is showing up consistently and building authority around three to five topics that are relevant to your audience. Speaking from experience, a well-thought-out social media strategy can help advisors at any level grow a virtual client base. – Anthony Carlton, Farther Finance

2. Tell Thought-Provoking Stories

People love to follow personal stories. Even though you cannot share personal information, you can share success stories and anecdotes that can motivate and inspire others to reevaluate their financial situation. If you build an ongoing storytelling pattern on social media, the public will return weekly to see how you manage your clients. This method will increase followers and clients organically. – Crystal McCullough, The Spearhead Group Inc.

3. Educate Your Client Base

B2B platforms such as LinkedIn are where your clients are already spending time. Instead of pumping time and money into cold outreach, focus on building an audience for your personal brand by educating your client base on how you can help them and thoughtfully engaging with relevant industry leaders’ content. Don’t be afraid to share personal stories that align with your brand mission and offers. – Amanda Dixon, Barney

4. Curate Consistent, Relevant Content

Consistent, relevant content is critical to add value to the client experience. Years ago, we hired a specialist marketing firm (with the approval of and ongoing oversight from our compliance department) to provide curated post links to news articles that are typically only available to paying subscribers. This has elevated our client education and interaction in a substantive way. – Ivan Illán, Aligne Wealth Preservation & Insurance Services, LLC

5. Focus On Younger Clients

Many advisors focus on clients who have high net worths, but there has been a trend of reaching out to Millennials who are on Instagram and TikTok. Taking on clients most advisors neglect creates opportunities to focus on the parents who have issues regarding financial planning, estate planning and legacy play. These younger clients may be able to help you with your creative content on social media. – Tayvon Jackson, New Perspective Financial Solutions

6. Show Your Human Side

Financial advisors can use social media to connect on a human level with their clients. People want to do business with people they know. Leverage social media to show your human side—your likes and dislikes. Let your customers know who you are and why you do what you do. Share relatable and shareable content. Answer questions and respond to comments made on your posts. – Jared Weitz, United Capital Source Inc.

7. Share Content That’s Relevant To Investors

Social media is an excellent venue for sharing content that is directly relevant to investors. The power of the medium is in the leverage it offers when the financial advisor shares the content to entire networks, rather than one-on-one. – Dr. Philip Fischer, Micro Macro Infinity

8. Promote Your Unique Self

Promote you. Financial advisors are a dime a dozen, and they’re all basically going to tell you the same thing. You are unique, and when someone chooses to work with you, it is typically because they like you personally. So share your life with posts, stories, videos and reels. This also keeps you out of hot water with compliance because you aren’t giving financial advice. Build a following that way! – Jerry Fetta, Wealth DynamX

9. Track And Follow Up On Engagement

Post interesting articles on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Establishing or reinforcing familiarity and trust with your prospects and current customers by value-added information sharing can only help your business. Astute advisors create interesting content to post on social media. They then track and follow up on engagement, thus accumulating golden clues to help them build one-to-one relationships. – Sean Brown, YCharts

10. Back Up Opinions With Relevant Data

We’ve always prioritized creating relevant and insightful content on various financial topics and using social media to share that content with a wider audience. We’re not afraid to take a stand or have an opinion and then back up our opinion with data. Along with creating content, we’re consistent about sharing it on social media. – Bill Keen, Keen Wealth Advisors

11. Build Community Awareness

Stay relevant, consistent and frequent. Don’t try to send too many different messages to gain attention; you will get washed out. Also, focus on your first-connection audience to build awareness in your community. In a business built around trust, outside of your own trusted network, it is not only hard to attract new business, but it is also difficult to retain it. – Robert Mascia, Green Ridge Wealth Planning

12. Become An Authority In Your Space

Create content that provides free value. The more you do that, the more you become the authority in your space. When you provide value in the form of education, entertainment and inspiration, people will grow to know, like and trust you. That is how business is earned on social media. – Daniel Blue, Quest Education

13. Don’t Overook TikTok

Recently, TikTok surpassed Google and Facebook as the world’s most popular Web domain. That’s because people are flocking to TikTok for more than cat videos and funny dances. TikTok has become a valuable search engine for helpful videos on a variety of topics, especially finance. When it comes to building a client base and an audience for your content, do not overlook the power of TikTok. – Kathleen Craig, Plinqit

14. Post Company Updates When integrated with direct communication, such as email, social media is an effective way of communicating with existing clients. We like to use social media to highlight staff successes, birthdays and community involvement. – Trevor Wilde, Wilde Wealth Manageme