NAILBA Perspectives Spring 2019 | Page 20

SOCIAL MEDIA Never run out of social media content Top ways for ongoing connectivity We’ve all heard the phrase “content is king” in social media. The challenge is not everyone is a great copywriter or has the time to consistently create organic content. Below are 8 ways to have a consistent source of social media content. These strategies will help you avoid going weeks or months without posting updates. 1. REPURPOSE PAST SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS Many firms think you can only post content once. Social media posts can and should be used multiple times to get traction! This is especially true if you have new followers regularly connecting. You can easily change the title or headline of an older post and share the article link again. This gives the article visibility to recent followers while acting as a great reminder to long-standing followers. Social media is about content, but it is also about timing. Your followers may not always see your post when you first share it. By repurposing prior content, you can keep your pipeline full, while increasing content visibility. Tiffany Markarian has been helping wealth advisers and professionals advance their business momentum since 1995. She is a frequent author for industry journals and has spoken at numerous industry conferences, including FPA Mass, NAILBA, GAMA, LifeMark Partners, NAIFA, and regional broker/dealers. She can be reached at [email protected]. 2. UNCOVENTIONAL HOLIDAYS There are appreciation days and unconventional holidays that foster unique social media ideas. National Day Calendar (www.nationaldaycalendar.com) is an online website that provides a full listing of these days, by month, on their “Calendar At-A-Glance” tab. The site also provides suggested links and hashtags for featured days, including: March 13th – K9 Veteran Appreciation Day June 1st – National Cancer Survivor’s Day July 28th – National Milk Chocolate Day September 9th – Grandparent’s Day 3. BUILD A SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT CALENDAR While doing your annual business planning, make sure you build a Social Media Content Calendar. Using the ideas above, you can create a template based on known events. Choose a Theme for Each Month You can choose a different financial or insurance planning theme each month to build your calendar. In January you could post a reminder for advisors to review clients’ insurance policies. In February, post content from LIFE Foundation for “Insure Your Love” campaign. Schedule your posts in advance Once you choose the days or concepts to feature, create posts in advance and have them automatically posting on a specific date and time. Facebook allows scheduling 6-months in advance on company pages. There are additional third-party tools such as Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com) to help you manage and schedule posts across several social media platforms. 4. RECYCLE OLD POWERPOINTS FOR CONTENT If you deliver webinars or attend industry meetings, you can repurpose the presentations. You may have hosted webinar presentations — including the presentations carriers delivered for you. There are probably 3 to 5 strategies featured in each presentation that could be made into social media posts or blog articles. 20 Perspectives Q2 2019 5. SHARE CONTENT AS A GRAPHIC Social media posts with images have a higher degree of engagement. There are several inexpensive online apps available to elevate your posts with eye-catching visuals. Several include free stock photos as part of a subscription. Some tools to consider include: Word Swag Word Swag is a subscription app, allowing you to pull a quote or article headline and share it in visual form using their stock photos or a photo from your phone. There are premium features that also allow you to add your logo. Anyimage.io for Social Cards Anyimage.io (https://anyimage.io) is an online subscription tool that transforms a photo or image into a clickable Social Card, linking to a webpage of your choice. Just upload a photo and the URL for an article or webpage and Anyimage.io turns the image into a clickable link to the webpage. You can also choose a premium service to have a custom domain for your website as shown to the right. 6. INDUSTRY APPRECIATION DAYS The insurance industry has several months which celebrate planning concepts, including Disability Insurance Awareness Month in May, Life Insurance Awareness Month in September and Long-Term Care Awareness Month in November. Each of these opportunities can be turned into multiple content postings for the respective topic, for example: Life Insurance Awareness Month (LIAM) Post a checklist for conducting a Beneficiary Audit Share your In-Force Policy Review services for fee-based or fee-only advisors Share Term Conversion educational material for client use Share a Life Insurance Calculator from your website or from a carrier 7. MONITOR YOUR COMPETITORS Competitors may have some good social media skills to learn from. You don’t want to necessarily follow the competition, but you may want to monitor their social media and look at who they are following. They may have some great sources for content that you can use as well. Tracking engagement of their posts can also help you keep pace with trends. Follow the influencers your clients follow Follow the top social media influencers for each type of advisor you work with to see who they are following. Twitter is especially helpful in this regard. In just 15 minutes a day you can follow relevant content. You can retweet high engagement posts or use for content ideas. Note: Before reposting or retweeting, make sure to review post comments. If the comments are controversial, you may not want to be associated with it. Follow the top social media influencers for each type of advisor you work with...You can retweet high engagement posts or use for content ideas. 8. YOUR COMPANY CULTURE Clients love to see photos of your team. Personalize and humanize your posts, by including: Pictures of your team at professional events or volunteering Anniversaries or firm history Employee birthdays, weddings, or baby showers Employee retirements, passing exams, or new hires These 8 social media strategies will help you plan and organize your efforts. Drive more engagement from your followers and showcase the resources and value of you and your team. www.nailba.org 21