I WANT YOU TO JOIN MY PANEL

Looking for a “Few Good Financial Advisors”

By D. Bruce Johnston, President & CEO

That is the title of my November 10th BrightTalk webinar. In the new world, social media is beginning to help smaller fund managers and advisors stand out in a crowded marketplace. I have been charged with identifying two Financial Advisors willing to share how they are not only using social media, but how they are successfully linking some of the most popular applications to achieve success.

Just as social media is changing the way financial services professionals are connecting with customers, it is also changing the way job seekers are pursuing opportunity. So before you apply for one of the two positions it might be worth brushing up on how social media is changing the job search rules.

Here are a few tips from Tony McKinnon, president of MRINetwrok, one of the world’s largest search and recruitment organizations that I carved out of a recent MarketWatch column.

The first thing he notes is: “Social media sites have become increasingly important platforms for finding jobs by facilitating connections and demonstrating the achievements and interests of job seekers.” But, he cautions, “capturing the attention of prospective employers and recruiters — who have made the sites a routine part of their searches — has also become more difficult because of the overwhelming amount of information available.”

McKinnon offers a number of useful tips to help job seekers adapt their messages so they are more likely to go viral:

• Keep it simple. Trim your text to its core message and stick to the point. Leave no room for interpretation. “Remove any superfluous or flowery language, and clever wordplay,” advises McKinnon. “Remember, too, that your audience may include many for whom English is a second language.” He further cautions, however, that brevity should not come at the expense of clarity. Just be sure that people know what your message is, why it is important, why it affects them personally, and what they should do about it.
• Tailor your message to your audience’s needs. You won’t get far if the people you want to reach cannot see what’s in it for them. “Relate to them by tying your story to what drives them,” says McKinnon. “Make it about them and what they should do about it.” On a practical note, McKinnon suggests using pronouns like “you” and “your” and “our” and “ours.”
• Consider your timing. If you find your message is being drowned out by noise, change the timing of your posts. If you’ve noticed, for example, that your target audience tends to check their online sources in the late afternoon, you’re probably posting at that time.
• Be selective in choosing your channels. Although the three most popular channels are commonly accepted to be Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, it is very likely that an influential segment of your audience is listening to other channels as well such as blogs and specific groups.
• Craft an interesting story. Fundamentally, people care about people, says McKinnon. “We all seek connections, so don’t just push a bunch of isolated facts. Craft a story and keep spinning it as you send out your messages,” he says. “Not all your content has to be tied to one single thread, but weaving it into many of your posts will give readers continuity and help keep them coming back for more.”
• Push to get the word out. It is very hard to predict what will go viral and get noticed, observes McKinnon. To increase the probability of your message spreading widely, enlist the help of your friends, colleagues, and others in your network. Use every vehicle you can: Make your message into a blog post on your own blog, or if you don’t have one, ask other bloggers to post it or to publish a link to it on their blogs. Direct-message your Twitter followers and ask them to re-tweet it. Post it on your friends’ Facebook wall and ask them to share it with their friends. Post it on LinkedIn Groups and send a message to your LinkedIn network to post it as a status update.

In the case of my search I would add the successful Financial Advisor would have to have a minimum Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn following of at least 250 in each application to be considered.

So, armed with the new rules of job search and the minimum number of followers, if you would like to participate on my panel and think you’re qualified to be one of the two Financial Advisors on my panel, please ping me on my email, Twitter or LinkedIn accounts. I’m ready to be WOW’D!