How to use LinkedIn – for Financial Advisors – Part 2

Using content to your advantage

Setting up a LinkedIn profile showcasing you and your services is an effective way to start using the platform successfully as a Financial Advisor. However, your success on LinkedIn will largely come down to the content that you post.

I?recently published part 1 ?of this series and touched on how authenticity plays a massive role in representing yourself on LinkedIn.

Now, let’s look at how and when to post content to boost your efforts toward acquiring your ideal clients through LinkedIn.

Content best practices – the right content matters

The best advice I can give financial advisors on how to use and make an impact on LinkedIn is to focus on providing value before extracting it.

Too often, I see financial professionals sharing posts that hard sell their services and not much else. While it is important to use LinkedIn to sell your personal brand and the services you can provide, a question you must ask yourself is: does anyone really care?

Stop selling, start inspiring

One thing you must understand about LinkedIn is that the?830 million? active users on the platform are not there to be sold to.?Think about it, do you go to LinkedIn to get the dry shave, to get the cold call DM, etc??Of course not!?So don’t be the person doing that stuff.?Instead, they’re there to consume interesting content that either inspires, informs, educates, or motivates them, and when the time is right solves a problem they have.

While there’s nothing wrong with promoting your services, this should be prefaced with something that is useful to your followers and potential clients.

If you are just there to sell yourself and your services, you will quickly learn that users aren’t interested in what you have to say. However, if you share content about things that people actually care about, you are setting yourself up for success.

I encourage Financial Advisors to publish a healthy mix of content. Alternate between content that sells and content that inspires. Post about things people care about and then intersect this with how you can help solve their problems with your services.?Post content that inspires engagement, where people want to join a conversation you’ve started.

Some of the best posts I’ve written had nothing directly to do with what I sell, but lead to sales none the less.?For example,?take a look at this post .?

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It was viewed over 215,000 times.?I centered my thoughts around Virtual meetings, which I happen to know something about, and inspired an amazing conversation which led to people connecting with me, looking at my profile, downloading my eBook, and some even buying Conneqtor.

Determine who you are speaking to

Finally, it’s important to nail down a tone of voice for your LinkedIn posts. Remember that you don’t want to use language that goes beyond people’s understanding of finance and the financial world.

At the same time, you don’t want to over-simplify what you’re saying to the point where it becomes boring. The best way to know what tone and language to use is to put yourself in your customers’ (also known as your Ideal Client) shoes.?It’s best to position yourself as an expert that can explain the complex in simple terms while also adding your awesome personality & style to everything you post.

The same goes for the type of content you post, what would your customers be interested in reading about? If you were a customer following a Financial Advisor on LinkedIn, what about their posts would make you engage with them? As I mentioned in a?recent episode ?of my podcast,?Rethink , the best way to know your customer is to be your customer.

Posting at the right time, on the right day (H2 HEADING)

Now that you know?what?to post to be successful on LinkedIn, it’s time to figure out?when?you should be posting on LinkedIn to give your post the best possible exposure.

General advice for posting times

As a general rule, posts published early in the morning, around 8 or 9 am, outperform those posted later in the day. However,?when?you should post your content comes down to when your audience is online. This means that you need to do a little research and, once again, put yourself in your customers’ shoes.

When is your ideal customer likely to be online? Weekdays? Weekends? In the evenings?

According to?a recent study , the best days for engagement on social media overall are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The same study purports that Saturdays and Sundays are the worst days to post on LinkedIn.

A/B testing the right time to post

Finding the best time to post takes a little trial and error, or what is better known as A/B testing.?I’ve had posts on Friday afternoons go viral while at the same time having a post on a Tuesday morning be a dud.

Try posting in the mornings, at lunchtime, and in the evenings. Then, compare your posts side by side and see which of them performed best. If your morning posts receive the most traction, you’ve found the perfect window to post. Play around with posting at different times in the morning using the same methodology until you narrow it down as best you can when you should be posting.?It’s an art & science and will vary for all of us.

In my case, identifying the best time to post on LinkedIn is tricky as I have an international audience due to my?Conneqtor course ?being available on a global scale. For example, I’ve got people following me in South Africa who are in the middle of their day while people in the US are sleeping.

I’ve determined what tend to be the best times to post to get the most traction by using A/B testing, as discussed above. I’ve also given some thought to what content will resonate with which audience location. In some countries, people may be more concerned about?fuel prices ?than in others, for example. So, regardless of where my audience is located, I try to post content that is top of mind for them, content that will resonate with them.

Activate LinkedIn Creator Mode

Did you know that posts published in Creator Mode on LinkedIn receive?30% more engagement ?than posts that aren’t?

What is Creator Mode?

Creator Mode is a tool that LinkedIn has released in the form of a setting that can be activated on your profile. Intended to help you grow your reach and influence on LinkedIn, Creator Mode gives you access to excellent additional tools and features that complement your content and help you grow your audience.

Why Creator Mode?

When you post something from a personal profile on LinkedIn, the only metric you have available to measure your success is impressions, which is the number of times your post was seen. However, with Creator Mode activated, you get access to a suite of analytics that gives you insight into how your content is performing and how your audience interacts with your content.

These additional insights make your A/B testing far more meaningful than if you were to only measure post impressions.

I’ve found that having extra information about how my content is performing and who consumes it has helped me better tailor my posts to those reading them. This is a powerful way to ensure your posts reach the right people at the right time.?If you haven’t activated your creator mode yet you can?learn how to from LinkedIn here .

Final thoughts on How to use LinkedIn

Having a LinkedIn profile that is the right balance between authentic and professional is important. But knowing what to post, when to post, and how to measure what you’re posting will be your bread and butter as a financial professional.

Keep it informative, put yourself in your customers’ shoes, ensure you take advantage of Creator Mode, and make sure to remember these top 5 tips for success on LinkedIn to get the most out of your content and profile.

If you’re looking for more insider hints and tips on surviving and thriving in the digital age with effective strategies,?visit my website to learn more about Conneqtor ?or?download my free eBook ?to show you how you can take your business to the next level.

Stay tuned to?my blog ?for the next part of our LinkedIn success for Financial Advisors series.

Until then, all the best,

Derek Notman