4 LinkedIn Tips for Financial Advisors (Plus 3 Things They Should Be Tracking...)

NOTE: If you’re a new financial advisor, make sure you check out Your First Year As A Financial Advisor, where I reveal several things every new financial advisor ought to know.

Are you using LinkedIn as part of your financial advisor marketing strategy? After all, if you’re only using LinkedIn as a passive digital resume, you’re doing it wrong.

Social media is a time and cost-effective way for financial advisors to market themselves. While social networks like Twitter and Facebook definitely have their place, LinkedIn is by far the most valuable. It has the largest concentration of affluent consumers and the biggest percentage of millionaire users.

But can a financial advisor use LinkedIn to get more clients? Consider these stats:

According to FTI Consulting, 70% of financial advisors are using social media for marketing.
Out of those advisors, 90% use LinkedIn as their main social media platform.
One-third of these advisors generated $1 million or more in AUM through LinkedIn.

When it comes to generating new leads, LinkedIn is more powerful and more cost-effective than many other marketing techniques, including direct mail, paid advertising, seminars, etc.

Utilizing LinkedIn as a marketing strategy doesn’t happen overnight, but it does offer a big payoff. As you build your network, you should get more connections, more profile views, and more views on things you post. Over time, everything you put out will get more attention and more exposure, creating awareness in your area. Building your LinkedIn presence is important for a number of reasons:

It expands your network. To put it simply, a bigger network will attract more people to view your profile and connect with you. The average CEO on LinkedIn has 930 connections. I currently have about 2,500 connections (feel free to connect with me, by the way) and I can attest that significant growth didn’t really kick in until I hit 1,000 connections.
You can stay top of mind. When you communicate regularly and share information that your connections are likely to find valuable, you stay top of mind. This works in your favor because even people who aren’t clients can still refer/recommend you.
You will get web traffic. When you have posts/publications linking back to your site, it increases your web traffic. This isn’t rocket science, but it does lead to a steady flow of new prospects. Voila! Inbound marketing.
You will build trust through Google. At some point after getting a referral from a friend or family member, people will type your name into Google. Google gives those with strong LinkedIn profiles preferential treatment in the search results. When people search you, you want to make sure they can find you, see your picture, and feel more confident in trusting you.

Here are my tips for financial advisors who are looking to improve their LinkedIn presence:

1. Change Your LinkedIn Headline

Marketing should always be about how you can serve your prospects. People don’t care about what you do; they only care about how you can help them.

The most common headline I see is “Financial Advisor at XYZ Financial”. Great! But nobody cares. This might be your title and company, but it says nothing about the people you serve, what you do, or how someone can benefit.

To craft a perfect headline, you need to focus on what you do, your target market, and how you can help them. At the time of this writing, my headline is Helping Financial Advisors Get More Clients Guaranteed. What do I do? Get more clients. How does that help advisors? It makes them more money!

Some good headlines for financial advisors might be:

Certified Financial Planner Helping Divorcees Manage Their Money
Investment Advisor Offering Cash Management for School Districts in Arkansas
Financial Advisor Providing Alternative Investment Advice to Accredited Investors

When you write a headline like this, not only do you stay top of mind to people in your network, but your target market does as well. If people don’t know why you’re different or who you serve, they can’t refer business to you. Make it easy for even non-clients to refer you. You will go from “I think Bob’s in finance” to “Bob’s the guy who helps divorcees manage their money!”

Oh, and please don’t use symbols or emoticons. They look childish and unprofessional.

2. Join Groups

LinkedIn groups are an incredible way to meet new people and/or generate leads from the comfort of your own home. It’s much easier to reach out to someone in LinkedIn groups because you will have a common bond. Join groups that relate to your personal and professional interests, like charities you support, college alumni, hobbies, and professional associations.

There are more than two million groups on LinkedIn, and there are thousands added every week. Take a look at your top clients’ profiles. What groups are they members of? Join those!

3. Create Your Own Content

LinkedIn is one of the only social media platforms that lets you write and publish your own blog posts. It’s important for financial advisors to create their own content because they are subject matter experts. You can create blog posts, articles, eBooks, white papers, podcasts, and much more. Anything that provides value and is relevant to your network is a win. Content marketing gets attention, shows people how you can help, starts a conversation, and drives traffic to your website.

If your target market is divorcees, you may want to publish a series of posts like 5 Financial Steps to Take After the Divorce or 7 Easily Avoidable Mistakes Divorcees Make. The goal is to stay in front of your target market and to be there when they need you.

This is one of the best LinkedIn marketing tips I can give you - I know several financial advisors who are having big success on LinkedIn by publishing and promoting unique content. The magic comes from LinkedIn's ability to scale. If you publish evergreen content, you can keep promoting it and repurposing it to as many eyeballs as you can. It will keep working for you.

4. Just Get Started

About a third of financial advisors aren’t using LinkedIn at all. Those that do use it are reluctant to go big and therefore (remember how I said I didn’t see much growth until 1,000 connections?) don’t see results. Why is there so much opposition?

There’s no instant gratification. As I said, results won’t come overnight. The rewards go to those who can put the work in and be patient.
They think it takes too much time. This depends on how valuable you think your time is. While it does take a little bit of a time investment to tighten up your profile and reach out to people, you have to understand that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Besides, you can stay top of mind by sharing stuff you already read. When you come across an interesting article, take a few minutes to post it. Clients and prospects will appreciate hearing from you.
They have compliance fears. This is the most common reason, but the truth is that the same rules apply to everything you do – letters, seminar materials, etc. Just follow the basic guidelines and avoid promissory statements. Offer general information, not specific recommendations or advice. Besides, the more you write and post, the easier it gets.

I hope you see that LinkedIn can be great for financial advisors. If you're a financial advisor who has any questions about LinkedIn or social media in general, feel free to contact me. I am here to help you succeed.

ALSO READ: 27 Financial Advisor Marketing Ideas That Work!

LinkedIn is an incredibly effective prospecting tool for financial advisors.

Why LinkedIn Is So Effective For Financial Advisors...

Being the huge marketing nerd that I am, I often daydream about creating different marketing strategies.

One day I thought to myself, “If I could create the PERFECT marketing strategy for financial advisors, what would it look like?”

And I figured…

It would be cost-effective.
It would be accessible 24/7.
It would give you important information about your leads and prospects.
It would let you reach 10,000 people just as easily as 100 people.
It would build authority, credibility, and trust with your prospects.

Then I realized…

LinkedIn has all those things!

LinkedIn is definitely cost-effective. I personally made LinkedIn work for me with exactly zero dollars and zero cents.

You can access it anytime, day or night. I know financial advisors who, when they can’t fall asleep, send follow-up messages on LinkedIn at 3 a.m.

It definitely gives you important information about your leads and prospects.

You can search for someone, look at their profile, and glean important information that can help you stand out from everyone else.

You can reach 10,000 people just as easily as 100 people. That’s where LinkedIn dominates - it allows you to scale like no other marketing method in the world.

And it most certainly builds authority, credibility, and trust with your prospects.

Plus, according to Hubspot, 97% of people search online to find local businesses. 88% of people who search for a business on a mobile device either call or visit the business within 24 hours.

This means almost every single one of your prospects is searching for you online. If they find you, chances are they're going to reach out and set an appointment.

I guess this means you have to spend thousands of dollars with some SEO company, right? You know, the ones that promise you "first page rankings in Google" practically overnight?

Wrong.

Because, as a financial advisor, you have a "secret weapon" that other businesses may not be able to use... your LinkedIn profile.

Because if you have a LinkedIn profile, chances are it comes up on the first page of Google when someone searches your name. (Go ahead, try it. I'll wait.)

If your LinkedIn profile shows up high in the search results, chances are your prospect is going to click on it and check you out. Which means you don't have to spend big bucks on a marketing firm which may or may not deliver results. Because if you've got a LinkedIn profile, you've got a great chance of ranking in Google.

Of course, that's just a side benefit. The icing on the cake, if you will.

Because the REAL power behind LinkedIn lies in your ability to easily find prospects, reach out, demonstrate your value and set appointments.

You see, when someone searches for you on Google, it means the person already knows about you and who you are. Besides maybe a referral, you're not going to get a warmer prospect.

3 Things Financial Advisors Should Track On LinkedIn

Too many people try to make LinkedIn more complicated than it is.

It can be overwhelming, I know.

A lot of people profit from making you confused. They think if you’re confused, you’ll have no choice but to hire them.

Don’t worry. In reality, there are only three things that you should be tracking on LinkedIn.

And they’re not likes, shares, or comments.

While these “vanity metrics” might give us a nice little dopamine hit, they don’t really give us leads and prospects.

Here’s what you should be tracking:

1. The Number Of People In Your Network

The more people in your network, the more reach you have.

When you’re connected with a lot of people in your niche, this can be ridiculously powerful.

If you’re sending out connection requests, what percentage of people accept? How many people are requesting to connect with you?

This number should be growing.

2. The Number Of Appointments You Set From Your Network

A large network doesn’t mean much if you aren’t setting appointments.

And how you set appointments can vary - you can message someone on LinkedIn and ask for an appointment directly or someone could reach out to you first.

Either way, you want to keep track of how many appointments are getting set.

Because if you see something that’s working exceptionally well, you can keep doing it.

3. How Many Clients You Get From Those Appointments

Here’s where you can double back and make LinkedIn a virtual powerhouse.

Because once you know the type of person who is most likely to become a client, you can target that person exclusively. Which increases your marketing effectiveness like you wouldn’t believe.

Then you can go back and see if the other numbers increase and if they do, it’s like a compound effect.

ALSO READ: 15 Prospecting Tips For Financial Advisors

"But My Niche Isn't On LinkedIn!"

Some financial advisors are convinced they can't find their target market on social media.

It's just not true.

I had a financial advisor from Cleveland, Ohio tell me he couldn't find his niche on social media.

What was his niche? Teachers.

So... I went over the LinkedIn, typed in "teacher" and then refined my search to Cleveland.

Guess what I found?

47,902 results.

Yep. More than 47 THOUSAND people have the keyword "teacher" in their profile... all in this guy's location. Absolutely nuts. So, the idea that you can't find your target market online is one of the biggest myths out there.

Then, months ago, I had a conversation with an Inner Circle member who was using the system I outline in How To Get Clients With LinkedIn to… well… get clients with LinkedIn.

The “challenge” was that he was also in the educator niche and he was of the opinion that teachers don’t spend much time on LinkedIn.

And he’s kinda-sorta right.

Most teachers don’t spend much time on LinkedIn… but here’s the thing…

When you’re marketing on LinkedIn, you’re not going after the rinky-dinky profiles with only 12 connections.

You’re looking for the ones with 500+ connections.

Why?

Because anyone with that many connections obviously spends time on LinkedIn.

If you go after them, you have a higher chance of connecting and eventually setting an appointment.

And that’s what he did.

He started curating his outreach so the only people he connected with were those with 500 or more connections.

He started getting more acceptances, more engagement, and more profile views.

His success is beginning to compound on top of itself because teachers are connected with other teachers on LinkedIn.

This means whenever one teacher engages with one of his posts, that engagement is broadcast to the teacher’s entire network.

The minute they see this financial advisor who works with teachers, they reach out if they’re interested.

It’s a self-qualifying mechanism, which means my financial advisor friend only works with teachers who are already interested.

Pretty darn cool if you ask me.

Hungry For More LinkedIn Content?

If so, you're in the right place because episode #3 of my podcast (called "Financial Advisor Marketing") is called "Mistakes Financial Advisors Make On LinkedIn" and it can help you with your LinkedIn strategy as a financial advisor.

Some highlights from that episode include:

How to crack $1M as an average financial advisor (imagine what’s possible if you’re above average!). (3:15)
People hate to get interrupted at work—here’s how to get your prospects to think about you in their free time. (5:30)
If you don’t want a job, but clients—never do this. (9:35)
The single worst sales strategy online. Do this and a sleazy reputation will precede you. (10:45)

Simply search "Financial Advisor Marketing" wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes are uploaded every Monday! :-)

Make sure you subscribe to the podcast - simply search "Financial Advisor Marketing". New episodes go live every Monday!

P.S. If you're a financial advisor who wants to get more clients from LinkedIn, make sure you check out How to Get Clients With LinkedIn: How Financial Advisors Can Set Appointments and Convert Prospects With LinkedIn