Social media a 'stab in the dark' for financial advisers

While institutionally-aligned financial services providers are increasing their budgets for online marketing activities, most financial planners are struggling to adequately track the use of social media by their clients.

The Humble Investor director Colin Williams said while the majority of social media users do generate new sales and increased brand awareness, planners need tools to adequately equate the use of online communication with a tangible sale at the business end.

According to Marc Fabris, national manager, sales strategies and research life risk for Zurich Financial Service, there are client relationship management (CRM) systems that allow advisers to identify new sales as a direct result of social media but most of them are used by larger financial services providers.

"There are advisers who have had good success through Twitter presence where they can actually show where they've added business to the books but that's generally slightly larger business that are taking a more consistent approach," he said.

Williams said web services like Google Analytics can easily track new website visits made via a search engine enquiry or a link on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

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"This shows whether the business is getting some cut through from their web and social media activities," he said.

"They can measure direct contacts made via the web and social media and determine how those contacts progress to a sale using CRM software - mostly all done for free."

Despite this, Fabris and Williams both said they doubt there are many advisers that maintain a database of their social media use.

Williams said that it was important to set goals for brand awareness by increasing visits to a business' website or growing the number social media contacts.

"A lot social media tracking tools are coming to market piecemeal to a degree but it doesn't mean it's an excuse to hold back," Fabris said.