LinkedIn for Financial Advisors: A Social Media Marketing How-To Guide

LinkedIn boasts 303 million monthly active users, many of whom are high-earning professionals who could definitely benefit from financial planning and wealth management services. It’s also one of the more low-effort platforms from a social media marketing standpoint. Those two factors make Linked in one of the best places for financial advisors to start their social media marketing efforts. With that in mind, here are some of the key factors to keep in mind when using LinkedIn for financial advisors.

Who Is the Target Audience on LinkedIn for Financial Advisors?

The audience on LinkedIn is a bit older than other social media platforms, with 66% of users over the age of 45 and very few users under the age of 25. They’re also higher earners—over half of LinkedIn users had a higher-than-average monthly household income. That age and income bracket makes sense when you consider that 126 million LinkedIn users are in a senior-level or decision-making position in their workplace. 

As a financial advisor, that means you’ll be reaching people in the middle of their careers who may have already passed certain milestones like buying a home and starting a family but are still a decade or more away from retirement. 

Given that 49 million people use LinkedIn to look for a new job each week, you’re also reaching professionals who might be in the midst of a transition—either looking to step up to a better position in the same career or switch careers entirely. 

Those are the two audiences you should consider when you craft your LinkedIn posts.

What Should You Post About?

The mid-career professionals you’ll be connecting with on LinkedIn might be in progress on a financial plan already, so they probably have a reasonable grasp of the basics. If they aren’t already taking steps to manage their wealth, they’re likely at least at the stage where they’re starting to realize how important a financial plan is. 

So your best bet is to deliver content on what a good wealth management strategy looks like, how changing circumstances like a job loss or a career change can impact a financial plan, and how to catch up on goals—especially retirement—for those who might have been neglecting long term financial planning until now.

You can also be somewhat more direct in your marketing approach here as 80% of B2B leads generated on social media come from LinkedIn. While you still need to make sure all content is in compliance with FINRA’s fair and balanced communication rules and you don’t want to be too pushy, this is the right place to talk about why working with a financial advisor is important and how your services, in particular, would benefit the needs of LinkedIn’s user demographic. 

While you don’t need to post often, your posts should run longer than other social media posts so they can take a little more time to craft. Think of them more like mini-blogs, with a word count hovering around 300 words. If you write a newsletter, maintain a blog, or do any other kind of long-form content marketing, you can definitely repurpose that into LinkedIn posts by reworking them into summarized versions.

How to Set the Optimal Posting Schedule

Like Facebook, less is more when it comes to posting on LinkedIn. Keep in mind that only 12% of users visit the site daily, making it one of the least engaged audiences in social media. That’s likely because it’s largely used as a job-hunting and recruiting tool, so users are often only active on the platform when doing either of those. If you post too often, you’ll clutter your followers’ feeds which can distract from company updates or posts from other professionals they’re trying to network with. 

The recommended posting frequency is just two to five times per week and definitely not more than once per day. Schedule your two to five posts for standard working hours, especially around mid-morning or lunchtime.

Between the infrequent posting requirements and the fact that you don’t need to focus on keeping up with current events or trends, it’s easy to leverage automation tools to schedule posts in advance and stick to a fairly hands-off social media marketing strategy. 

How to Grow an Audience on LinkedIn

The good news for financial advisors just starting on LinkedIn is that organic growth is much easier here than it is on other platforms. The site was built for networking so a basic social media strategy of posting relevant content and following (“connecting” in LinkedIn terminology) people in the finance space or who fit your client demographic will yield steady and consistent results. 

As easy as it is to grow your pool of connections, the trick is making sure you’re connecting with the right audience to make sure you’re reaching the people most likely to benefit from your services. Here are some tips for finding the right connections:

• Start with your existing contacts. LinkedIn allows you to import and sync your email contacts on the platform. This is a quick way to connect with people already in your network. From there, you can connect with the people in your existing contact’s networks. 
• Join LinkedIn groups. LinkedIn groups are where users go to find and share tips and advice on specific subjects. Look for groups focused on finance-related topics. Post useful tips and connect with others in the group.
• Build a great profile. After receiving your invite to connect, the first thing people are going to do is check your profile. If it’s bare bones and vague, they’re not going to see much reason to accept your invitation. Make sure to fill in as much information as you can, with as much detail as you can. Showcase the education, expertise, and experience that make you a great financial advisor. That paired with regular posts that position you as a subject matter expert and thought leader will help visitors instantly see the value you’ll add to their feed if they accept your invitation.