Is social media truly "free"

Soon after I started using Twitter I was having a discussion with a colleague during which I asked him if he was planning to set up a Twitter account. When he asked why should he, my first response was "well, it's free so it can't hurt". He then asked an even better question - "but is it really working for your business?".

That discussion took place almost a year ago and although I was initially very sceptical about using social media, I have found that it can be quite useful. But a year later is it really working for my business and therefore is it truly "free"?

Hands up who thought social media – Twitter, Facebook, etc would be a passing fad and it would never apply to financial planning? C’mon, be honest. I did. With over 25 years of business marketing under my belt, I looked hard at these new media and honestly thought they wouldn’t last the distance. I was wrong and in the past year I have been doing a lot of learning and adjusting to how this not only affects my business but my clients’ practices as well.

Last year I wrote a newsletter article entitled “Does social media work for financial planners?”. I recently uploaded it to my new blog and without any promotion at all, it has been read over 50 times. I will also tweet out a link to this particular blog post and see what happens. [something happened - it reached 500 reads on our previous website! (not this new site)]

But is that all it’s about?

Obviously the key reason for any good communications strategy is to educate your clients and/or attract more business; preferably both. It’s great for the ego to see your carefully crafted messages go viral but if the effort you invest doesn’t flow through to your bottom line, doesn’t this really mean that social media is not free?

The real cost

Let’s look at an example to determine how much it could cost you to use a “free” service such as Twitter.

Firstly, as with any marketing, you need to prepare your strategy (we all know the importance of a plan!). Begin with:

1.  What are your goals for using Twitter? Do you want to promote your expertise to attract new clients? Use it to educate your clients by tweeting them links to your blog or newsletter? Or will it be an easy way to regularly stay in touch by tweeting links to information you think your followers would like to read? Tip: be clear with your goals so you are able to measure your success in achieving them.

2.  Do you have the resources in-house to manage your campaigns? Do you have the time yourself to write content to share, or will you outsource to a professional service? It’s easy to just share (re-tweet) the work of others but that doesn’t really demonstrate your professional expertise.

3.  How long will you continue each campaign? Considering it will take quite a few months to attract a good following (your followers will depend on your target market – clients, prospects, COIs, etc), when do you expect to achieve your first goal? If your objective is to attract more clients, specify how many, how you will reach them and by when.

4.  Finally and importantly, how much have you budgeted for your social media marketing? If you do outsource the management and content, what will that cost vs the opportunity cost of doing it yourself?

Once you’ve completed your plan it’s time to put it into action – but in just getting this far have you realised that using social media is not going to be “free” at all?

Is professional guidance necessary?

There are some great social media consultants who can guide you through the early stages and provide ongoing support. As with anything in business, sometimes it’s better to hand over things that you’re new at or don’t understand to someone who specialises. (Sorry, we don’t offer this service nor do we have any recommendations for any social media consultants yet.)

Measuring your success

Clever tools are available to monitor your social media campaign to determine its success. Many are free and provide basic reporting for you to comprehend. The smarter programs manage engagement levels, provide options to track and automatically respond to mentions of your company, plus a host of other solutions that grow by the day. However, be aware that accurately tracking social media usage is quite difficult due to privacy restrictions. So although you may not know exactly who is helping you spread your word, you can identify trends. Whether you choose to do your own monitoring or use a specialised program, you will invoke further costs.

So, is social media working for my business?

I am a great believer in measuring my marketing to know what return on investment (ROI) my campaigns deliver. Twitter does require regular attention so I must allocate it at least 3-4 hours per week. (Don’t be alarmed, this also includes the time I spend reading the great information I receive via tweets. It's a fantastic research tool and this aspect alone is definitely a good investment of my time.)

Now the question is – how much new business have I attracted from using Twitter? I will honestly tell you that I cannot directly link any new business over the past year to Twitter alone. Yes, I am expanding my knowledge and connecting with more people in the industry, but at this stage, Twitter has not been a free marketing tool for me and my ROI is very low indeed.

Don't misunderstand me - there are many benefits of using social media and I have recently reviewed my initial strategy now that I can see how Twitter will benefit my business. And I’ll continue to test and measure... and learn.

I'd love to receive your feedback. My Twitter label is @financelibrary.

Btw... we've recently made it easier for financial advisers to maintain their blogs. We've written blog articles for you to use! Check them out under Sneak Preview above.

Best wishes,

Julianne

Julianne Bell, Financial Writers Australia

If you don’t have time to write articles for your website, Facebook or link your Twitter or LinkedIn accounts to, have a look around our website. There is a treasure trove of easy-to-understand, fully researched articles to share with your clients.  Join the library or sign up to receive our newsletter full of handy tips. You are most welcome to linger longer.