Using social media wisely has helped one senior financial planner for a Midlands-based firm to gain clients.
According to Martin Dodd, partner for Wolverhampton-based Midlands Investment Agency, advisers who want to reach new clients “need to be where people are looking for us – and that is online”.
Mr Dodd said: “People are not looking for websites, they are looking for information on social media platforms, which is why I believe it is important to put relevant social content in front of them to educate and engage people.”
He said that while this content would not constitute advice, he believed that advisers could no longer just sit in their offices and wait for the phone to ring or for a knock on the door.
Mr Dodd added: “Because of social media activity I get recognised when I walk down the street. Not all people I interact with are clients or will become ones, but in my community I aim to be the go-to guy for financial advice.
“I think that as IFAs if we do not use social media, then we will miss a trick.”
Adviser view
Joss Harwood, chartered financial planner for County Durham-based Eldon Financial Planning, said: “At one time it got to the stage where if you did not have a website, people were a bit suspicious. I think it has now got to that situation with social media.”
However, she added that an adviser’s use of social media would depend on what demographic they were targeting, and that social media would not always directly generate business.
Background
Earlier this month, US-based financial market intelligence provider Greenwich Associates revealed that nearly all institutional investors were using social media to supplement traditional financial news sources as part of their overall investment processes.
In an 8-page report, How Social Media Informs and Shapes the Investing Process, Greenwich Associates revealed that social media was influencing decisions that could “result in the allocations of billions of investment dollars around the world”.
