ShoeFitts Marketing Recommends Cybersleuthing for Advisors Sales and Fact-finding Efforts

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The online world allows many opportunities to discover more about prospective clients, competitors and industry trends. Rather than a broadcasting-only approach to social media, financial advisors should create a listening channel to raise awareness and build connections.

Portland, OR

June 03, 2013

All too often, social media is viewed as a one-way street – an opportunity for financial advisers to push their marketing messages to their audiences. By actively employing social media channels to cyber sleuth – research consumer trends, investigate competitors and actively engage with clients and prospects – social media channels become a two-way highway by which advisers can leverage social media as a brand differentiator, according to Sheri Fitts, founder of ShoeFitts Marketing.

Employing social media in this way requires intentional time and effort. “Remember that social media is a two-way conversation,” Fitts says. “Just as your teachers said, we have two ears and one mouth for a reason. You should be listening twice as much as broadcasting.”

Advisors would be well served to follow the example of major Fortune 500 brands, which expend vast resources to safeguard their brands, on a smaller scale. Fitts recommends that advisers check out several online resources that can help them listen more effectively to their clients, prospects, stakeholders and others. Google Alerts is one of the best ways to stay on top of news in a specific location, client activities, prospects, competitors and your own firm. Newsle is a service that will help you track when your contacts – including clients, prospective clients, referral sources, members of the media and others – are mentioned in newsletters, articles and white papers.

For the social networking minded, there are a number of targeted tools you can use to keep up with what your contacts are doing. Twilert is a Google Alerts version geared to Twitter, while LinkedIn Signal will allow you to search the updates of everyone in your network using specific phrases or words. Both Facebook and Twitter have settings that provide a simple way to be notified if someone mentions your name; access these through your setting on mobile devices and e-mail.

About ShoeFitts Marketing

ShoeFitts Marketing is Portland, OR-Based leader in marketing and social media strategy that specializes in helping retirement plan advisers , third party administrators, and financial service organizations. Our approach is simple: use the right tool for the right job. We know how to work within the parameters of this regulated environment from decades of experience working in the financial services marketplace. We’ve galvanized industry marketing and social media efforts by developing a cache of premium products and customized training sessions, and use progressive strategies to provide fresh opportunities for clients to establish standout roles in their industry.