The best time to set up a Facebook Business page for your financial planning firm is one year ago or today. While it may seem in the short term like a silly diversion of resources, the fact is that using a Facebook Business page is the only way for advisors to:
- Target prospects based on ZIP code, age, and interests
- Gain daily exposure to your clients and their friends
- Tag clients in event photos to get exposure to their network
- Get listed on the pages of nearby businesses
- List your business on Facebook maps
Of course, Facebook is only one of the marketing communication channels I recommend. The advisors that I work with send out content via five channels:
- Their website
Users Spend 34 Minutes Per Day on Facebook
Facebook can be more powerful than LinkedIn and Twitter due to the popularity of the site. There’s a good reason Facebook calls its members “users”—they seem to be truly addicted. Recent research shows that the average user spends 34 minutes per day on the site. (1)
While Facebook is only a piece of the larger marketing puzzle and can be slow to get off the ground, my clients who have been sending content out for at least six months have the following success:
- 40-100 website visits per month from Facebook
- Hundreds of clients and prospects following their business page
- Exposure to 300 or more prospects for each post on Facebook
Claiming your business page will also improve the search engine optimization (SEO) of your business website. Despite the power of Facebook, many advisors resist creating a business page because they don’t understand how to execute a professional business marketing strategy on a site full of baby photos and cat videos.
It’s important to understand that a Facebook Business page is not a personal profile. Personal profiles have “friends” while business pages have “likes.” While you must create a business page from a personal profile, you do not need to be active on your personal profile to have a business page.
Some advisors confuse their Facebook feed (where they see the personal posts of their friends) with their Facebook Business page, where only the page administrator can approve posts. With correct settings, the casual nature of Facebook will not dilute the professionalism of your firm, because you get to approve all posts on your page in advance.
How to Set Up Your Facebook Business Page
Facebook requires that each Business Page be set up through a personal Facebook profile. If you are not currently signed up for Facebook, have someone in your office use their Facebook profile to set up the page. Or you can sign up for Facebook to get started.
- Once you log in to Facebook, click on the arrow in the top-right corner to drop down the menu and choose Create Page.
- Choose a business category for your page. I recommend Local Business.
- Choose an industry-specific category. I recommend Licensed Financial Representative.
- Enter your business address so you are listed on Facebook maps and people can “Check In” at your office.
- Add a short description of your firm and your website URL.
- Add a photo of you, your team, or your firm’s logo as the profile photo.
- Create a unique username at www.facebook.com/yourfirmname.
- Add your page to your favorites on your Facebook account. This will give you easy access to it when you log in.
- Add a long description and include disclosures.
- Adjust your settings to require post approval by the administrator. Go to Settings, Visitor Posts, and check the box next to “Review Posts Before They Are Published to Page.”
- Add a background image that relates to your firm or location.
- Submit to compliance for approval.
Promote
Once your page is approved by compliance, you’ll want to start promoting it through your website and on your email signature with MailChimp or Constant Contact. Then you can begin inviting clients to “like” your page by going to your page, clicking on the three dots to the right of your background photo, then selecting “Invite Friends.” Once someone has liked your page, they will see all your updates in their news feed.
Now that you’re up and running, you can begin posting your blog posts, videos, and updates to your business page to get more exposure. Then you can start running ads to get more people to like your page, register for your event, and drive traffic to your website. Be sure to “boost” each new article or video for a small fee to triple the amount of people who see the post.
Please join me in this quick video below where I discuss the importance of a Facebook Business page and walk you through how to set one up.
To learn more about what we do for financial advisors and their marketing, watch my free webinar on What We Do & How We Help. In this webinar, I walk you through everything financial advisors need to know about marketing. You can even use this information to do your own marketing if you don’t want to work with us directly. And if you’re ready to partner with Indigo to maximize your marketing, schedule a free strategy session here!
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(1) https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-statistics/