Are You Losing Clients by Ignoring Social Media?

How Advisers Can Stay Visible, Compliant, and Engaged, even if you do not have the time to do it yourself

In reading this article you will understand:

• The importance of social media as part of your communications strategy.
• How social media can support conversations around financial planning.
• Themes that drive social media engagement.

The Financial Services industry is changing, and so is the way advisers connect with clients. Many advisers are disengaging with social media due to advisers often struggling with time, resources, know-how, and compliance worries when it comes to maintaining a strong social media presence. This results in missed opportunities to engage with clients, build trust, and educate the public on Protection, Mortgages, Pensions and Investments.

The value of social media

• You increase visibility for prospects, clients, referrals and introducers – four incredibly key sources of business.
• You remove the psychological barriers because you aren’t on google or remove the lost opportunity as someone doesn’t deal with you because you have an outdated account.
• It helps to keep you front of mind with your clients and those referring – visibility sparks engagement.
• It helps with new and organic growth – where a client may have said “I’ve been meaning to call you for months” they engage much sooner. Equally, educating about disciplines you may not be involved in e.g. a Mortgage adviser sharing Wealth content creates the opportunity for signposting.
• It helps you as part of your communication strategy – many will file or delete an e-mail, which is very different to social media, where individuals will scroll, stop, absorb and then continue to scroll. You capture attention.
• It supports an exit strategy – you opt to retire and announce your successor, your clients search for the successor – an active feed retains clients, an inactive or invisible presence will lose clients.

What is the solution if you do not wish to own this in-house

Industry leader Setul Mehta recently launched SM Advice which takes a straightforward approach. The company focuses on creating and posting relatable, branded, compliant content that resonates with clients and encourages action. From pensions and investments to mortgages and protection, the content spans the topics that matter most. The benefits of using a service like this are:

• Consistent Visibility: Ensuring advisers maintain a regular and professional presence online.
• Relatable Content: Posts that speak directly to clients’ needs, prompting them to take action.
• Compliance Management: Handling submissions and approvals with networks to ease adviser concerns.

Packages are tailored to suit different needs and budgets:

• Lite: £150 per month or £1,500 per year – 1 platform, 2 posts per week.
• Core: £200 per month or £2,500 per year – 2 platforms, 2 posts per week.
• Premier: £250 per month or £2,500 per year – 3 platforms, 3 posts per week.
• For users of Protection Guru Pro, there is a 20% reduction on the costs. (See below for more details)

Who it’s for

SM Advice is designed for sole traders, business owners, and self-employed advisers. Whether you’re a new adviser looking to establish a presence or an experienced professional seeking to modernise your communication strategy.

The broader mission

Beyond providing social media support, SM Advice is passionate about improving financial literacy. “By supporting advisers in their social media efforts, we’re also encouraging conversations about financial planning,” Setul shares. “This creates new opportunities, from engaging with clients’ families to making businesses more attractive for succession planning.”

Setul explains, “I started this as I don’t think enough advisers are using social media to engage with clients, and they really need to. My service solves this problem by providing a consistent and affordable way for advisers to create impactful content. Ultimately, my goal through the service is to contribute to improving financial literacy across the UK – we can’t rely on the government or education sector to make that happen, so as a financial community it’s down to us.”

What the industry is saying

Steve Bartholomew, CEO of St Barts Finance, sums it up: “SM Advice provides us with a trusted outlet for content creation and compliance handling. This professional presence allows me to focus on running my business and helping clients.”

Keith Richards, Chief Executive Officer of the Consumer Duty Alliance, said: “The new service is very timely and much needed as the use of social media can also help to evidence adoption and culture towards consumer duty obligations and commitment.”

Ian McKenna, Founder of ProtectionGuru, shared “In the last couple of years we have seen very different behaviour for advisers when it comes to social media. Some have embraced it and found it a great way to grow business, but far more firms have not yet done so for a variety of reasons. Many advisers prefer to focus on what they excel at, but they should not ignore social media. Setul has a very rare mix of skills having worked on both sides of the market and is ideally placed to help advisers meet the challenges of building an effective social media presence for them while the advice firm sticks to their core skills”

More details

If you want to know more about how the service can work in practice for you, visit www.smadvice.co.uk or e-mail [email protected].

If you would like to know more about Protection Guru Pro, attend one of our training courses and we will give you a 60- day free trial for the full Protection Guru Pro service  enabling you to transform the quality of your advice, the speed of processing cases and your income from protection. Sound like a good deal? Click here to register for a course Get More from Protection Guru Pro: Adding Value to Your Protection Conversations – Protection Guru

 Things to reflect on for CPD:

• Which clients are currently difficult to engage?
• What are the risks of not managing your social media strategy?
• What are the benefits of using social media?