Emerging Media: What (and Why) You Need To Know About Tweets, Followers & Bloggers

“Your brand isn’t what YOU say it is, it’s what GOOGLE says it is”

- Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine

Start Your Engines

2

Photo: Amplified-Photography / Adam Balch http://www.flickr.com/photos/triplemaximus/24173

Agenda

• Introduction: What is Digital Media & Why Should I Care? • Tools of the Trade: Channel Overview • Retirement Services: How is the Industry Engaged? • Audience: Are You Participating?• Making the Most of Digital: Your Personal Brand &

LinkedIn

3

“The word blog is irrelevant.What's important is that it is now

common, and will soon be expected, that every intelligent person (and quite a few unintelligent ones) will have a media platform where they

share what they care about with the world.”

- Seth Godin, Author

Digital Media…

…Allows for direct conversation and relationship-building with partners, customers, potentials

…Provides instant feedback…Enables micro-targeting niche groups…Exists in your universe…Creates and enhances thought leaders

5

A Part of Marketing

OUTBOUND MARKETING

• Direct Mail / email• Print Ads• Marketing collateral

INBOUND MARKETING• Blogging• Social/Digital Media• Public Relations• Website

Interruption Permission

6

Did You Know? • 46% of financial advisors are interested in learning how

to harness social networking platforms for securing new clients

• 35% of financial advisors are interested in learning how to harness social networking platforms to enhance communication with existing clients

• 62% of financial advisors agree that social networking is here to stay, saying that social media will have a lasting impact on the financial services industry

• 42% of financial advisors favor and use LinkedIn

Source: Rydex Advisor Benchmarking, 2010)

Social Media is for Leads and Sales

Source: State of Inbound Marketing Report - http://bit.ly/aewfHr

8

Social Media is for B2B and B2C

Source: State of Inbound Marketing Report - http://bit.ly/aewfHr

9

10

What You Need to Know Now

11

Is your company ranked on the first page of Google?

If not, 3,923,869 sets of eyeballs missed your website 12Source: http://training.seobook.com/google-ranking-value

• Search is the most performed action on the internet. Email is a close second.

• By 2014, mobile and internet technology will help over 3 billion of the world’s adults interact electronically

• By 2015, online marketing will control more than $250 billion internet spending worldwide

Did You Google Today?

• Google: 34,000 searches per second (2 million per minute; 121 million per hour; 3 billion per day; 88 billion per month, figures rounded)

• Yahoo: 3,200 searches per second (194,000 per minute; 12 million per hour; 280 million per day; 8.4 billion per month, figures rounded)

• Bing: 927 searches per second (56,000 per minute; 3 million per hour; 80 million per day; 2.4 billion per month, figures rounded)

Sources: Gartner; http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1278413Search Engine Land http://searchengineland.com/by-the-numbers-twitter-vs-facebook-vs-google-

buzz-36709

13 Photo Credit: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/women/2010/03/technologys_dark_underbelly.html

14

• More Tools/Channels = Less Control • Are you and your company being “found” by the right people?• Do you know what search terms are used to reach your website?• Do you have a plan to convince the search engines to rank you more

highly than a competitor?• Your digital footprint is your resume

Take Control

• RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content

• It allows you stay easily informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in, without having to go to specific websites

• RSS feeds allow organizations to keep clients and prospects up-to-date on news, thought leadership, company updates

• Common RSS aggregators include Google Reader, MyYahoo, BlogLines, Feedburner, Microsoft Outlook

Real Simple Syndication (RSS)

15

Get More For Less (Time)

16

• Separate the wheat from the chaff • Archive all the information you want to read…but don’t

have time to• Keep clients, prospects and influencers up-to-date,

without clogging inboxes

University of Arkansashttp://www.uark.edu/misc/wheat/

• Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging tool

in which users send and read posts of up to 140-

characters called tweets.

• Tweets are distributed to followers on a “feed” which

displays the tweets in real time

• Twitter now has 105,779,710

registered users

• New users are signing up at the

rate of 300,000 per day

• 180 million unique visitors come to

the site every month

• Twitter's search engine receives

around 600 million search queries

per day

Source: Huffington Post, 4/21/10

17

Why Should I Care?

18

• Lurk and Learn – Use Twitter as a news aggregator; hear what others in the industry are talking about

• Connect with Influencers – Establish relationships with industry leaders, news media, etc. – @401KPlanInfo– @RetirementRsch (Boston College Center for

Retirement Research)– @FiduciaryNews

• “Lurk and Learn”• Connect with Influencers• Content Distribution • Client management and acqusition

19

•Global: LinkedIn has over 65 million members in over 200 countries•Fortune 500: Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members•Focused: LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional audience•Influential: Users are younger, richer and more powerful than Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Business Week readers•Powerful: Your LinkedIn profile automatically shows high up on Google’s first page

• Needed to Play: Your peers and competitors are already there• 66% of LinkedIn users are decision makers or have influence in the purchase decisions at

their companies • Responses to questions posed can be ranked. Over time, rankings create another

community of respected experts based on the helpfulness of their advice.

20

Retirement Services

Social Media AuditSource: http://www.neoformix.com/2008/BushSpeechOnFinancialCrisis.html

Methodology

• Goal: How, and where are organizations in the retirement services industry engaging? Where are the opportunities for this audience?

• Audit Overview: Reviewed 5 major asset management firms, plan administrators and registered investment advisors

• Selection Criteria: Companies were selected based on size and web presence (i.e. search rankings)

21

• Website Audit: Social media applications, videos, podcasts, blogs

• Blog Audit: Who’s blogging, how frequently, comments?

• Channel Audit: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Slideshare, YouTube, Ning

Asset Management Firms: Snapshot

• Most are taking a “toe in the water” social media strategy – but could do more

• Significant amounts of content on website, but currently functions as a brochure – 2 firms conduct at least one podcast or webinar a

month– Regular economic commentary common, and

leverage-able • 3 of 5 have RSS feeds; 3 of 5 have subscription options

22

• Blogs are not a strategy that many asset management firms have embraced…but could easily do so

• Twitter usage among asset managers is erratic – retail-heavy asset managers more likely to “broadcast” tweet. One manager protects its tweets, while another is “squatting” on all handles related to the company

• Facebook usage nearly non-existent; most Facebook mentions come from employees

• Universal adaption of LinkedIn – but content is staid, few engaging

Plan Administrators – Social Media: Snapshot

23

• Social media engagement varies significantly from company to company

• Is website content valuable if you don’t engage someone?

• Regulatory updates, commentary significant source of content for plan administrators

• Most common digital strategy is a LinkedIn company profile, but most individual employees not linked-in…yet

• Two companies have blogs – but no comments

• No Facebook, Slideshare, YouTube, Ning presence

• One organization has significant following on Twitter – also the most social “savvy” of Plan Administrators

RIAs – Social Media: Snapshot

24

• The least engaged group audited • Not surprising, given compliance challenges • Digital media is limited to LinkedIn and company website only• Employees engage on LinkedIn – one has 300+ employees listed• RIA Marketplace Group has 3000+ members • Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Slideshare, Ning engagement low

– Just 62 Twitter profiles contain “Registered Investment Advisor” (363 contain “investment advisor,” and 4,674 contain “financial advisor”)

• Company websites tend to be content-rich– Whitepapers– Traditional media

placements– Bylined articles

• Online tools, calculators common• Significant opportunity to

leverage search engine optimization

25

26

• Deepen connectivity to customers/employees/partners• Raise company awareness & strengthen reputation• Invent new uses for existing content• eValuate the impact of a dying media model• Empower your audience by turning customers into fans

Opportunity: DRIVE Relationships

Opportunity: 5 Steps to Get Ahead of Competition

You’re not behind…

1. Choose your topic parameters and understand why they matter 2. Use significant content libraries to engage clients, prospects, influencers

– Create RSS Feed that acts as advance-warning system – Use Twitter to identify early-adopters and promote content– Move from brochure-ware to deployable, link-able thought leadership

3. Search Engine Optimization Strategy 4. Seek out influencers, create a dialogue

– RIA Marketplace LinkedIn Group – RIA Marketplace Microsite – @401(k)planinfo

5. Leverage LinkedIn – your personal brand is a critical part of the sale

27

Best Practices: Twitter

2828

29

Best Practices: LinkedIn

30

Best Practices: Facebook

Where Should You Start?

31

3232

First Step: Get yourself off to the right start

• Establish your profile: Complete 100%, add a picture and leverage the “summary” section

• Use your own name to create a “vanity profile:” www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethsosnow

• Customize your website links: Match search phrases that you know your prospects use

• Invite your contacts to join the network: Remember bigger is better and you are never “done”

• Update your status several times a week: Every time you act, it appears on the home page of your 1st degree connections

33

34

Second Step: Take advantage of LinkedIn tools and features to deepen connections

• Shared Connections: Find potential clients/employees — and then see what connections you have in common

• LinkedIn Answers: Establish authority and expertise by participating in ongoing discussions

• LinkedIn Groups: Interact with other business professionals on relevant topics, add your own RSS feed

• Ad campaigns: Identify highly qualified targets by seniority, industry, job function, company size, etc.

• Events: View at a glance all of your network’s upcoming events• Recommendations: Market your business by having your colleagues and

clients share your expertise

35

36

Third Step

• Create a Group: Potentially the most powerful way to use LinkedIn – build your own community

37

Questions?

38