In The Social Media Age, It’s Who Knows You
May 18, 2015 by Cyril Tuohy, cyril.tuohy@innfeedback.com
Many veteran financial advisors looked at Ted Jenkin with a hint of envy as he pointed to a LinkedIn page with the click of a mouse.
Jenkin is co-CEO and founder of oXYGen Financial in addition to being a blogger, Wall Street Journal columnist and avid social media user. His social media numbers sounded impressive: Virtual introductions from social media platforms netted him and his firm 1,250 in-bound leads last year. In addition, the 400 new clients gained in 2014 each brought with them an average of $350,000 in assets.
And Jenkin wasn’t shy about promoting himself, “being social,” as he called it. He left his post as a group vice president with Ameriprise Financial several years ago after having moved beyond — way beyond — the hidebound cultures of legacy institution and distribution models.
Those business cards wrapped in an elastic band? Toss ‘em, he told the audience. When was the last time you went through those cards on your desk, he asked rhetorically.
Jenkin, who spoke on the topic of social media marketing during a clinic held by the Society of Financial Service Professionals in Philadelphia, had a point. Why collect cards when you can simply log onto Facebook?
Here’s how you network in the age of social media.
You see that little button on the top right corner of the LinkedIn page? Just type in a phrase — American Express employees, for example — and the website will return the names of dozens of company employees working within a radius of your location.
That particular algorithm is a premium service offered by LinkedIn, but it costs only a few hundred dollars a year. It’s not very expensive to have access to powerful analytics networking tools that would have cost thousands of dollars a decade ago.
Jenkin has learned to pay a different game. While old-line advisors are still used to the “it’s who you know” model, Jenkin’s turned the paradigm around. “This game is not who you know, it’s who knows you,” Jenkin said.
Perhaps that explains Jenkin’s enthusiasm about blogging, tweeting and everything else connected with social media. He’s a “social media ninja,” self-appointed, of course.
The lead headline on the Journal’s “The Experts” blog under Jenkin’s name is “Why You Should Consider Investing In Europe.” Two posts down, Jenkin tells readers why a child needs a domain name. Further down still, finally, a blog about a topic germane to financial advisors: “Why Guaranteed Annuities Belong in 401(k)s.”
You could almost sense advisors’ mix of awe and apprehension. What game is this advisor, who gave birth to an independent broker/dealer six years ago and is now responsible for $200 million in assets under management, playing?
As advisors in the audience began to probe a little deeper, the “loose ends” of social media marketing began to unravel, but just a little.
When one member of the audience asked, “What do you tell people what you do?” Jenkin said he uses the blog to “convey my personality.”
“I don’t mention I do financial planning,” he said.
Well, why not? Because social marketing isn’t really the place for that, he said. Social marketing is about attracting eyeballs, about communicating, about being social.
He said advisors need to imagine themselves at a party or at a social gathering. Listeners perk up at the mention of whether Tom Brady is guilty of deflating game balls, not whether it’s best to take out Social Security withdrawals at 65 or 67.
“Asset allocation — nobody cares about that socially,” he said.
Wait a second, what happened to financial advice, fiduciary or suitability standards of care, long-term retirement planning, guaranteed income? Isn’t that what financial service professionals and advisors do? Yes, but not necessarily, Jenkin said, and not always when it comes to social media.
“Social media isn’t about financial planning,” Jenkin said. Social media is about being social and topical, even superficial.
Save the heavy lifting for after you’ve tweeted out the congratulations on a client’s promotion, which you’ll be reminded of because the client’s posted it on a social platform, which reminded you of it as it showed up in your social platform calendar.
Then, he said, offer — in 700 characters or less — to meet over coffee to discuss moving that extra 15 percent in the paycheck into an individual retirement account.
One thing’s for sure, Jenkin understands how to be social in a virtual world. Surveys show many advisors are interested in social media, particularly as a way to gather referrals, but using the huge databases and the analytics that social media platforms provide still elude many advisors.
Even the basics — making it easy to connect and be social — are not necessarily grasped by many advisors, although, to be fair, heavy compliance measures prevent them from it.
But take, for instance, financial advisor websites or even LinkedIn pages. Many of them are filled with what used to be called “brochure ware,” narratives of the advisor and his or her academic and professional bona fides.
Yet the very connection tools, the buttons inviting you to connect to the advisor, are small, off to the side, down at the bottom, hard to see.
In a social media environment, the buttons need to be up top, right below the advisor’s name and title. In addition, the site needs to make it easy to click to set up an appointment. Whitney Lee on oXYGen’s website is an example of one advisor who doesn’t even list her phone number when you click on her face on the company’s “meet the team” tab on the home page.
Under Lee’s name are the “seven sisters” of social media iconography, passports to online connections: the telephone receiver, the envelope icon signifying email, the “f” for Facebook, the bird for Twitter, the “in” for LinkedIn, the g+ for Google hangouts and YouTube.
“The puck is coming,” said Jenkin, a reference, perhaps, to hockey great Wayne Gretzky’s about his ability to skate to where the puck is going to be. Advisors also need to be where they Gen X and Gen Y are going to be.
They are going to be connected, that’s for sure.
InsuranceNewsNet Senior Writer Cyril Tuohy has covered the financial services industry for more than 15 years. Cyril may be reached at cyril.tuohy@innfeedback.com.
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