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A digital marketing expert believes brokers should focus on LinkedIn as their social media platform of choice if they want to generate more referrals and leads.
Bluewire Media founder Adam Franklin said LinkedIn is a database of virtually every professional and business owner in the world, and it is up to brokers to choose if and how they utilise it.
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“When you know your buyer persona, you can do an advanced search on LinkedIn to find out everyone who matches your criteria,” he said.
“Then you can begin to form relationships with these people. The key is to lead with genuine generosity and be helpful – don’t just badger people for meetings.”
Mr Franklin will be one of the keynote speakers at The Adviser’s Digital Marketing Boot Camp 2015, which will take place in Brisbane on July 1, Melbourne on July 2 and Sydney on July 3.
Mr Franklin said the best thing, more broadly, that time-poor brokers can do to use social media effectively is to build a team around them.
“You can hire virtual assistants or enlist in-house help to delegate things like blog editing, ghost writing, designing graphics, editing videos or podcasts, monitoring, and interacting with followers on the company pages,” he said.
“Software can help you automate things like scheduling posts too.”
Mr Franklin said there is a framework brokers should follow when responding to comments on social media.
“At a high level, if the comment is positive or neutral, you should respond with a thank you or a question to engage the commenter,” he said.
“If the comment is negative, most of the time it is from a genuine person, so it’s wise to listen, acknowledge them and resolve the issue, ideally offline."
If brokers receive comments from cyber bullies or ‘trolls’, they should ignore them but not delete them since trolls crave attention, he said.
Comments that are spam, off-topic or breach brokers’ own content rules can be deleted, so long as the broker takes a screenshot first and explains to their network why the comment has been deleted.
“Finally, if the comment has legal or criminal ramifications, it is considered a crisis and should be escalated to legal counsel or the police to handle,” Mr Franklin said.
“At the end of the day, the best way to handle negative comments is to bury them under positive comments,” he added.
[Related: Social media inspires new lead generation tool]
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