{"id":24257,"date":"2012-06-01T14:27:04","date_gmt":"2012-06-01T03:27:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/case-studies\/?p=24257"},"modified":"2014-05-04T13:34:04","modified_gmt":"2014-05-04T02:34:04","slug":"case-study-social-media-in-an-advice-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/case-studies\/2012\/06\/01\/case-study-social-media-in-an-advice-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Case Study \u2013 Social Media in an Advice Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two-time AFA Adviser of the Year finalist, Nick Sinclair, has successfully integrated a range of social media channels into his business marketing strategy. Nick shares the challenges he faced as a \u2018social sceptic\u2019 and how, using channels like Twitter and Facebook, he has transformed his Wealthfarm business.<\/h4>\n
\n

[hr]<\/p>\n

At a glance<\/h3>\n

Provided by:<\/strong> Nick Sinclair
\nBusiness name:<\/strong> Wealthfarm
\nLicensee:<\/strong> Synchron
\nBusiness start date:<\/strong> 2004
\nHead Office location:<\/strong> Southport, Queensland
\nNumber of staff:<\/strong> 24
\nSocial media partner:<\/strong> White Echo (whiteecho.com)<\/p>\n

[hr]<\/p>\n

In detail<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

Background<\/b><\/p>\n

Nick Sinclair is not afraid to admit that he was a social media sceptic. It wasn\u2019t until one of his clients opened his own consulting business that Nick became interested in using social media in his own firm.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were having a beer one afternoon and chatting about how his business was going. To be perfectly honest I didn\u2019t believe that anyone would pay for social media consulting.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy client said to me: \u2018This is how powerful it is, Nick, watch this,\u2019 and sent out a tweet via his mobile phone. It said: I\u2019m having a beer with my financial adviser. He\u2019s changed my financial situation, so happy that I moved to the coast and met him.<\/i> Within minutes he had three friends who were well within my client profile tweeting back saying they\u2019d been looking for an adviser and asked him to send through my details.<\/p>\n

\u201cI picked up on those leads straight away, and it made me think that maybe social media did have some merit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Implementation<\/b><\/p>\n

Nick worked with White Echo (his client\u2019s consultancy firm) to set up a business Twitter and Facebook account, and develop a social media strategy for Wealthfarm. The strategy was two-fold:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Generate leads by leveraging the reach of social media<\/li>\n
  • Build deeper relationships with existing clients, leading to retention and referrals<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Content which is relevant to clients \u2013 news on interest rates, economic updates, business and marketing strategies \u2013 is posted daily on Twitter and Facebook. Clients can click on the accompanying links to read the full story, or choose to share it with their own followers.<\/p>\n

    \u201cIf you want to increase your profile, and engage more clients, the most cost effective way is through social media. The reach that you have is significant,\u201d says Nick.<\/p>\n

    By way of example, he tells how in the first few weeks of establishing Wealthfarm\u2019s Facebook page it received 50 \u2018likes\u2019. \u201cBut those 50 people have their own networks, so that\u2019s the equivalent of 15,000 people who you have reached with your brand.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Social media also allows Nick to engage with clients on a deeper level than can be achieved through annual client meetings.<\/p>\n

    \u201cPart of our fact-find process is to determine which social media our clients are active on. We\u2019ll then ask if they\u2019re happy for us to follow them.<\/p>\n

    \u201cIt gives you a deeper level of understanding about your clients. I can see what they\u2019re doing on the weekend, the places they like to eat, what interests them. Most advisers have a certain level of relationship with their clients. They\u2019re never going to increase that unless they engage with social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Measuring success<\/b><\/p>\n

    Wealthfarm receives a report from White Echo each month, tracking how many comments have been received, which articles were the most widely read, and what clicks from social media have flowed through to the Wealthfarm website. This enables both parties to determine which content is engaging clients or prospects, and whether it has resulted in a direct lead.<\/p>\n

    Nick also receives feedback directly from clients: \u201cThey\u2019re telling us in meetings about how they saw a particular article we posted. In fact, some clients that we\u2019ve traditionally serviced over the phone or via email are now only using social media to contact us.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Wealthfarm has now expanded its social media channels to include Linkedin and YouTube, and is even running workshops on leveraging social media for its small business clients.<\/p>\n

    Key learnings<\/b><\/p>\n

    With around 3 leads each month attributable to social media, Nick has gone from sceptic to advocate. His advice to others looking to implement a social media strategy for their business is:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Use it consistently and regularly – \u201cPeople are on social media 24 hours a day. You can miss opportunities if you are not monitoring it regularly. The same goes for negative commentary. If you\u2019re not there to respond it can get out of hand quickly.\u201d<\/li>\n
    2. Leverage others\u2019 expertise – \u201cWhen we broke down the cost to do it in-house versus the cost to outsource it, it was chalk and cheese. It\u2019s a lot easier to outsource it; our partner can monitor our brand across multiple channels 24\/7 and notify us immediately if there is a challenge\/opportunity.\u201d<\/li>\n
    3. Show your personality – \u201cPeople don\u2019t follow businesses so they can be \u2018flogged product\u2019. Share information about people within the business, or if you work with a charity, ask your followers to support it.\u201d<\/li>\n
    4. Get involved – \u201cYou can be sceptical and not do it, but if you\u2019re trying to market and grow your business you don\u2019t really have a choice. Social media is the new way forward. It\u2019s only going to get bigger.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Two-time AFA Adviser of the Year finalist, Nick Sinclair, has successfully integrated a range of social media channels into his business marketing strategy. Nick shares the challenges he faced as a \u2018social sceptic\u2019 and how, using channels like Twitter and Facebook, he has transformed his Wealthfarm business. [hr] At a glance Provided by: Nick Sinclair […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4477,4261,4479],"tags":[5758,4558,4569,4484,5764,5765,4483,4482,5755,4481],"class_list":["post-24257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-marketing","category-marketing-sales","category-social-media-marketing-sales","tag-afa","tag-client-relationships","tag-digital-communication","tag-generating-leads","tag-marketing","tag-referrals","tag-social-media-2","tag-synchron","tag-technology","tag-wealthfarm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/case-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/case-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/case-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/case-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/case-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/case-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/case-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/case-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/case-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}