An impressive 94% of financial advisers use social media for their business, with LinkedIn taking the lead as the preferred marketing platform. According to a 2023 Putnam Social Advisor Survey, a significant reason why advisory firms and their compliance teams are embracing LinkedIn is because of the recent marketing changes outlined in the SEC’s new Marketing Rule.
While many are eager to attract prospects and improve their thought leadership through social media, it takes some time, dedication and strategy to do so. Here’s a look at how advisers can work to build a personal brand on LinkedIn and organically grow their circle of influence online.
What is a personal brand?
If you have the right credentials and education, most people will trust that you are able to execute your job efficiently. But when it comes to actually overseeing someone’s personal wealth? That requires an immense amount of trust and a level of comfort that doesn’t happen overnight.
Your personal brand should reflect who you are and the unique perspective you bring to your position in the financial services industry. If you come from a unique background that brings value to your clients, your personal brand should reflect that.
Consider how you’re portrayed online right now. When you Google your name, what comes up? If you go to your LinkedIn profile, does it accurately represent who you are and what you do currently? If it’s been years since you last updated your profile, chances are the answer is “no.” The problem is, your personal brand is reflected in what others see online. By taking control over how others view you, you have the opportunity to build more authentic connections with your target audience.
How can building a personal brand benefit registered investment advisers?
Identifying your personal brand puts purpose and direction behind all of your marketing efforts, both on LinkedIn and elsewhere. Say a big part of your personal brand is helping millennials tackle student loan debt. What you’re writing on LinkedIn, the background information you include on your profile page, and even the type of people you’re reaching out to or connecting with should all align with your brand.
Advisers everywhere are investing their time and energy into building a brand on LinkedIn because it’s a great place to build relationships with COIs and grow your referral network, in addition to connecting with prospects in the professional realm.
Five tips for registered investment advisers on how to build a personal brand on LinkedIn
With an understanding of the importance of personal branding, the next step is to start building your own. Here are five tips for creating your own personal brand on LinkedIn.
1. Create goals
Like all content you and your firm create, it’s important to have goals that guide your strategy and dictate how content is implemented or published. Think about the message you want to send to your followers and the ideals your personal brand should reflect.
To further develop your personal brand and identify relevant goals, ask yourself questions like:
- What am I passionate about?
- What am I good at?
- Who do I want to connect with?
- What does success look like for my LinkedIn posts?
- Am I being genuine and true-to-myself in the content I create?
2. Optimize your LinkedIn profile
Your LinkedIn profile could serve as a first impression for future clients. But if your picture is blurry (or worse, blank), your work history is outdated and there’s a lack of personality or uniqueness, it’s neither building trust nor representing your personal brand effectively.
Go through your profile one element at a time to update outdated information and include information about who you are and what you do. That way, people can get to know you before they ever send you an email or give you a call.
3. Give your audience variety
Promoting your RIA firm or your own content on your personal LinkedIn profile is great, but it shouldn’t be the only thing you do on LinkedIn. Try to vary the type of content you share.
Offer up some personal anecdotes, celebrate professional wins, share photos from your family vacation, give insights on industry news — there are so many ways to add to the conversation without becoming redundant. Similarly, try to vary the type of posts you share to include a mix of text posts, videos, photos and carousel (slideshow) posts.
If you’re curious what type of content LinkedIn “rewards,” current trends lean toward “zero-click” content. What is it? Essentially, any type of content that “lives” on the LinkedIn platform and does not link out to another website. LinkedIn’s algorithm likes to boost these native posts because they keep people on the platform, rather than taking them off of it.
4. Engage with others
To be successful on a platform like LinkedIn, you need to remember to put the “social” in your social media! It’s not enough just to post on your page often. Engage with what other people are posting as well. Make it a rule for yourself to interact with other peoples’ posts more often than you post yourself. Industry expert Samantha Russell says to follow a 4:1 rule for comments on other people’s content to posts of your own.
When you comment, go beyond one- or two-word responses. Be genuine. Ask questions. Add to the conversation. The point of LinkedIn is to foster conversations with like-minded professionals and future clients. It’s going to take more than just an “I agree!” to build those genuine connections.
5. Don’t forget about compliance
Your personal brand is all about you, but it still reflects on your firm. How you conduct yourself on LinkedIn needs to reflect your firm’s compliance standards.
As with everything else you do, be aware of your firm’s compliance rules, policies and procedures. For example, most RIA firms will require you to keep records of everything you share online. Be prepared to archive your content and share with your compliance team.
Building your personal brand
As with any other marketing strategy, how you approach your personal brand on LinkedIn should be intentional, thoughtful and compliant with the most recent regulatory standards. Focus on building trust with your ideal audience, and don’t shy away from sharing valuable information that exemplifies your deep industry knowledge.