A big thank you and shout out to Julio Varela for today's post on AdvisorBlogger. Julio is a good guy and fun to follow on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/julito77. Check out his thoughts on his blog at http://www.juliovarela.wordpress.com. He is an passionate Red Sox fan and secretly roots for the St. Louis Cardinals (not really). Thanks Julio.
Julio Varela's Blog is a Great Read
Are you feeling like this when it comes to your social media efforts?
This Social Media Thing is Too Much!
Yes, you have done it all. You have your Twitter account, you have your Facebook account, you are on other sites, you are writing great blogs, and you have a gazillon friends. You are raring to go, ready to conquer the world and get your pages and your business up the rankings.
Weeks pass, you tweet all the time. You get tons of @. Your FB fans love you. You made connections with every country in the world. This is going great.
You check your stats. Traffic hasn’t changed much. You check your sales. Still the same. All you keep thinking is: all this tweeting and posting and status updates have done NOTHING. You feel like doing this:
Well, we are here to help. Here are 5 “big picture” tips to make the best of your Social Media Expectations, with the understanding that you should ALWAYS follow the #1 Non-Negotiable Rule of Social Media: Always be yourself, don’t stop being yourself, genuinely connect with others, andNEVERjust shout out your awesome business opportunity 24/7. People will tune you out immediately.
Here goes:
1. Start small, stay focused: Target one thing. What does your business want to do online? Launch one product? Shout out a new announcement? At v5, we went into social media with one goal: promoteFernando Varela. That is it. And we because of this focus, we have just begun to grow and expand to other parts of our business, after 9 months of just focusing on Fernando.
2. Social Media Time = Appointment Time: Treat your daily Social Media like a business appointment. Treat it like a client. Add it to your calendar and work it. Rinse, repeat, and do it again the next day.
3. Engage, engage, engage: Remembering the #1 Non-Negotiable Rule of Social Media, submerge yourself and interact with your base. Be friendly, positive, initiate the conversation, push your stuff authentically and with honesty. You would be surprised what happens when you reach out in a geunine way, and not in a “check out my business now or else” way.
4. Be social, but not always: Saying hi and saying “this social media thing is awesome, I have met so many people” can only go so far. Start understanding what your different groups need and then provide that need. For example, when we launchedPublishon@PublishGroup, we focused on the book publishing community, who are struggling to understand how the digital content movement is disrupting their world. So, what we do everyday is find relevant links about these challenges and tweet about them. We believe this adds value to that community.
5. Find a purpose and refocus: Yeah, we know this sounds like the first one, but it is an important one: if you find yourself just laughing and joking and having fun with your groups (and that is not a bad thing) and feel your work is being ignored, stop, and say: “My next tweet/post/update is going to add value to my online world.” Find something interesting (news, blog, event) that pertains to your group and post it. Redirect yourself, and then have fun after you feel this ship is right.
Pretty soon, you will be feeling like this. Hit it, JB!
I have received many comments and questions regarding the post by Scott Gottlieb, President of U.S. Compliance Consultants. Scott has provided some additional thoughts on the compliance dangers of financial advisors using social media.
Since my original post regarding compliance dangers for investment advisers using social networking web sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter, both readers of this esteemed blog and clients of my esteemed employer, U.S. Compliance Consultants, LLC, have raised questions about other, more specific internet/advertising scenarios.Rather than respond to each individual real or hypothetical situation, I would like to posit a rule of thumb to help guide advisors with determining what may or may not run afoul of the advertising restrictions of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.Of course, I must first offer a caveat that a “rule of thumb” has all the legal significance of “cross my heart and hope to die” or other such dictums and it is not meant to be strictly accurate or reliable for every situation.
The responses offered to the earlier post can be divided into two very broad categories. The first category covers those instances wherein the investment adviser takes no affirmative action to interact with the web site or the information in question. The second category covers situations wherein the investment adviser does have some interaction with the web site that contains the potentially prohibited material.
Clearly, an investment adviser would not to be held liable for content on those web sites that the adviser neither controls, nor is in some other manner an active participant in the life of the site.If I had to offer an analogy, this situation is akin to a magazine or newspaper publishing an unsolicited article about the adviser.Not much anyone can do about that except hope that it is positive and, if it is, frame it and put it up in the foyer of your office for all to see.However, if an adviser either controls the web site (e.g., controls the content of the site) or tacitly approves of the web site (e.g., by having an active dialogue with others through the web site) or in some other way endorses the content posted on the web site (e.g., by linking to the web site), then that is a different matter entirely. I would surmise that in such cases, regulators would be more likely to hold the adviser liable for any prohibited material posted on any such site.
Today's post is written by D. Bruce Johnston, President & CEO, DBJ Associates.
As a full-service integrated strategy, sales and marketing resource, DBJ Associates is a Transformational Distribution Strategies firm focused on developing Social Media distribution solutions for Asset and Wealth Management firms, RIAs and Independent Financial Advisors. Our primary goal is to introduce them to the competitive advantage that leveraging Web 2.0 and other social networking technologies will provide.
D. Bruce Johnston, an industry veteran who’s 25+-year career is distinguished by an impressive record of contributions including winner of the Institutional Investor Fund Marketer of the Year award, DBJ Associates provides our clients with the writers, researchers, planning strategists, designers and web developers to help them succeed. Our specialty is providing our clients, regardless of size, the benefit of speed to market.
Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of having lunch with Jason Heinhorst, Partner at FUSE Research Network. The purpose of our lunch was to discuss asset and wealth management firms’ various approaches to incorporating social media and social networking technologies into their business models in order to enhance client acquisition and retention.
The topic at hand certainly jumped to a new level when returning to our respective cars we found on our windshields postcards that read: IS YOUR 401K HAPPY?
A big Thank You to Kristen Luke of Wealth Management Marketing for providing today's post at AdvisorBlogger.
Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, a consulting firm which provides a full spectrum of marketing services for independent financial advisors. Working exclusively with small Registered Investment Advisors and Independent Brokers, she collaborates directly with clients to develop and implement marketing strategies and supporting infrastructure to ensure consistency and efficiency in the sales, marketing and business development processes. Her specialty is working with advisors to help grow their business by leveraging existing client and business partner relationships.
Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Kristen served for three years as the Senior Manager of Business Development & Marketing for a boutique wealth management firm specializing in coordinated planning for high net worth clients. Her philosophy is that the most effective way for wealth management firms to grow is by leveraging existing relationships and by consistently providing an exceptional client experience.
Kristen received a B.A . in Business Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an MBA with an emphasis in Marketing from San Diego State University.
Kristen sits on the Board of Trustees for the Tariq Khamisa Foundation (TKF) where she heads the Marketing & PR Committee. She is currently spearheading TKF’s cause marketing campaign, Stop Kids from Killing Kids, which is scheduled to launch June 26, 2009. Kristen also serves as Vice President of Public Relations for Pacific Beach Toastmasters and is the immediate Past President of the club.
Until recently, social networking websites were viewed as a pastime for teenagers and college students. Now, websites like Facebook and LinkedIn have become valid marketing mediums for companies of all sizes. I too was skeptical of the effectiveness of such sites, but I have since become a believer. Social networking websites enable you to reach a very specific target market without costing you a dime. I have seen my clients achieve great results from marketing on Facebook and more specifically on LinkedIn. Since most advisors and small business owners that I speak with aren’t familiar with the concept of marketing on LinkedIn, I have decided to write a series of articles specifically on that topic.
Friday, August 21, 2009 at 8:55AM 
