Building a loyal group of “followers” or “connections” on social media sites can be a boon to your ego, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into a bigger book of business, says Sara Gilbert, founder of Strategist in Montreal.
“That is the quandary many advisors face in the digital age,” Gilbert says. “How do you translate relationships made in cyberspace into actual face-to-face meetings and recruiting new clients?”
Gilbert offers the following advice to help you build your business using social media tools:
> Manage your connections
The first step in using social media tools, such as LinkedIn, to grow your business is to be selective about who you add as a connection.
While you might adhere to the idea that “anyone can be a prospect,” if you are based in Flin Flon, Man., courting prospects in Cape Breton, N.S. likely won’t yield great results.
Instead, Gilbert suggests, remove any connections that do not fall into the realm of a potential client, centre of influence (COI) or idea generator who can help you develop your business.
Also, don’t lose sleep over removing unhelpful connections. If, for example, a friend questions why you removed him or her, you can simply say that you are using LinkedIn exclusively to help build your business.
“Nobody is going to be offended by that explanation,” she says.
> Use tags
After trimming your connections, sort them into categories. LinkedIn has a little-known “tags” feature, which will allows you to organize your connections into lists that you can manage more easily.
For example, Gilbert recommends you start with four categories or tags. These could include: clients, prospects, COIs and idea generators. Use whatever works best for you, she says.
“Having 282 connections that aren’t structured in any way,” Gilbert says, “is like having a shoebox with a whole bunch of business cards in it. To build your practice, you want to structure that shoebox.”
> Follow up with prospects
Using social media tools, particularly one as business-oriented and widely approved by firms as LinkedIn, offers great potential to connect and follow up with prospects.
For example, suppose you you haven’t yet heard back from a prospect you met at a road show and connected with over LinkedIn. Feel free to follow up, Gilbert says.
Sending the prospect a polite email that says you have been connected for a few months on LinkedIn and you would like to re-connect is perfectly acceptable social media etiquette, Gilbert says.
As a rule of thumb, if you haven’t heard back from the prospect within two or three months since the first contact, you have a green light to fire off that message.
“When you send that reconnection message, the prospect knows who you are and what you do,” Gilbert says. “That cold lead is now a warm lead.”
Next: How to structure social networks for success.