Financial planners must take advantage of social media to combat negative consumer perceptions about the industry and make Australians realise the value of advice, according to social marketing expert and managing director of SRS Coaching and Consulting Rachael Staggs.
Speaking to a packed audience at the Financial Planning Association conference, Staggs said not enough people value advice, trust advisers, or even understood what they do, and social media provided a big opportunity for advisers.
Using social media also improves relationship building with clients and other advisers, and could help advisers promote their services and new products.
Social media was also an inexpensive market research tool to learn more about clients and their needs, Staggs said.
Advisers could also connect with existing and potential referral partners through social media, she said.
General manager of Easywebtech Owen Cope said social sites such as LinkedIn could be used to create networks of clients who could converse with each other.
Creating a business page for a planning practice on Facebook could also let potential clients learn about that financial planner and give them an incentive to contact the planner, rather than the other way around.
That would make that consumer already predisposed to becoming a client without the financial planner needing to spend hours trying to draw them in, Cope said.
Advisers could also create question and answer sessions on LinkedIn to find out what issues clients are talking about and learn about their problems, he said.
