LinkedIn is a great platform for financial advisors and financial planning businesses. In fact, around 80% of advisors find new clients on social media. Using LinkedIn is a great option to grow your financial planning business. Several people go to LinkedIn for professional networking. The site has grown in popularity since it was first launched in May 2003 by Reid Hoffman. As a financial advisor you can reach out to several people on LinkedIn through the use of certain tools and features.

Here we will examine how to use these features on LinkedIn to help grow your financial planning business.

Manage Your Profile

Create and manage your LinkedIn profile in order to attract potential clients to your business. Make sure to include as much information as possible in order for your business to look professional and attractive. Organized information that is easily recognized and displayed on your profile can help increase your connections. You should include a professional profile picture along with a cover photo that represents your business. Providing important content, such as pictures and business information, can help you make more connections and gives your business more credibility.

Join or Create Groups

The ability to join or create groups on LinkedIn can be a very helpful feature. You can locate and find specific groups based on their title. Each title reflects a theme, such as “financial planning.” You can utilize this feature to target and find a specific group to grow your client base. Targeting a specific group of people is important because it can help narrow down your focus to advertise to a certain audience. By joining or creating a group, you can participate in discussions and post information that can help find possible clients. Posting content and being engaged with a group assists in building relationships and creating a community. You can direct this community to your professional website or your blog.

Advanced Search

LinkedIn’s purpose is to help you network and connect with as much people as possible. The more connections you make the more likely you will be able to grow your business. A connection with a past client or colleague can lead to a future connection with someone else. You should take advantage of the advanced search tool to target and look up certain keywords, such as companies, groups, location, and interests. There may be other topics to search as well.

Slideshare

There is a SlideShare app that helps you look at and observe at least 18 million presentations. SlideShare has presentations that can inform and educate your customers on financial matters, such as strategies, investment terms and concepts, and other subjects. By using SlideShare you can create and upload presentations that can assist your clients with specific events. You can connect and build relationships with a broader audience. You can also repurpose your blog as a SlideShare, which can further grow your business because a wider audience has access to your content. SlideShare is easy to navigate and can build professional relationships as well as build your marketing platform.

Additional Tools and Features

LinkedIn offers several tools and features for free. However, if you want to take full advantage of LinkedIn, you can use a paid plan to extend certain features. Depending on the specific business, the features vary. A couple possible options for financial advisors are tools called Sales Navigator Professional and Premium Business features. There are other paid features, but it is more likely for you to use the Sales and Business paid features as a financial advisor.

The Sales features includes:

  • access to 20 InMail messages for direct conversations with anyone, even if you are not connected
  • view who has looked at or has been interested in your profile in the last 90 days
  • get sales insights
  • discover lead recommendations and saved leads on a custom list

The Business features include:

  • access to 15 InMail messages for direct conversations with anyone, even if you are not connected
  • view who has looked at or has been interested in your profile in the last 90 days
  • career insights
  • business insights
  • online video courses

In addition to the features listed above, there may be other advantages of using paid plans and premium options that can help grow your business.

Finally, automate and supercharge your LinkedIn strategy with SocialChimp

With SocialChimp, businesses can manage all of their social media accounts in one place. No more wasting time, finding, creating, and scheduling your social content. Whether you own and operate your own brokerage with a ton of brokers working for you, or you run a small independed office, we are here to help your business succeed with social media. In 10 or 20 minutes you can easily find and schedule a month’s worth of engaging social content to your Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin profiles.

Alexandra Waller

As a writer and a poet, Alexandra finds that words have the power to connect people from around the world.