5 Social Media Mistakes Advisors Most Often Make + What To Do To Attract and Convert Followers
This article first appeared in Advisorpedia on March 29th, 2021, and can be found here.
Everyone wants to generate the most social media engagement as possible, but many do not realize that they are making constant mistakes while posting content. In today's video Samantha Russell, Chief Evangelist for Twenty Over Ten and FMG Suite covers the top five biggest social media mistakes that advisors most often make, as well as what you should be doing instead to attract and convert followers.
1. Starting Posts with "I," "My" or "We"
So when you're writing your social media posts, instead of focusing on something like, Here's my new blog post, or I always believe X, you want to frame it instead of, how does it benefit the person reading it in some way? So instead of my tax tips, you might frame it as how small business owners can use this little known to tax deduction to potentially save thousands every year. See the difference.
2. Using the Passive Voice Okay.
Mistake number two, which I see people making all the time is using the passive voice. So take a look at check out this in marketing, that type of passive voice is what makes people Scroll right past your post. We want to be more assertive in what we're sharing. So instead of saying something like, check out my latest blog post you would say, does all of this market volatility? Have you wondered what to do with your 401K? Use these five questions to determine if you're allocated properly so you can see the difference there.
3. Being too Broad instead of writing for a specific audience
Alright, mistake number three, being too broad instead of focusing on a specific audience. So I see this mistake all the time. Writing things that are pretty generic and could apply to so many people makes nobody stop and want to read it. So when you're writing your post, you want to think about who is the person that's going to be reading it that you most want to attract, that you want to engage with. What are they thinking about? What news is Trending right now that's impacting the things that they're talking about at the dinner table, the conversation that they're having with loved ones, and then try to visualize what's going through their mind and then use that in your post. Right? So back when the pandemic first started, I saw some people doing a really great job of focusing on writing posts that spoke directly to HR. So at all of these companies where maybe they had to let people go or they were wondering, can we still do our 401 K match or what's going on with the PPP loan? All of those things that are really specific? If you work with business owners and you want to target the HR departments, even you would write specific posts about that content that those individuals that are part of their job would be thinking about. Right? So again, getting as specific as possible rather than being really broad.
4. Sharing a link or article with no context
Number four, this is a mistake that drives me crazy sharing a link to an article or a blog post you wrote, or maybe even a New York Times article with no information whatsoever, no context as to why someone should read it that is going to never get you any engagement at all. If you want people to actually stop and read something or click something, you need to be telling them why you're sharing it. Is it interesting? Do you disagree with the author? Is there something in there that's really compelling information? So what you can do instead is copy and paste, maybe a paragraph from the article or quote and use that to hook people or a really compelling stat, or maybe offer a differing opinion as to why you disagree with this piece.
5. Not following the 80-20 Rule
(1) 80% Engaging with others content
(2) 20% Posting your own content