15 Tips for Financial Advisors Who are Networking on LinkedIn

Expand client marketing via LinkedIn As the premier professional network on the Internet, LinkedIn is a great place to make professional connections and network for potential clients. If your Compliance Department permits social networking and activity on LinkedIn and you aren’t there already, it’s the place to start your social networking journey.

These 15 tips are designed to help you carve out a social networking identity on LinkedIn. Start by creating a LinkedIn profile, then find professionals to connect with and branch out from there. More than 467 million Americans have LinkedIn profiles and it’s a great place to prospect for potential clients.

You can also network with your high school and college alumni friends, professional colleagues in your community and across the country, and hundreds of other people. The possibilities are endless.

As always, it’s important to review and understand your firm’s compliance regulations and approach to social media before beginning any new strategy. Stay current on the industry regulations as with any digital marketing approach, this is a fast moving and ever changing environment.

1 Create a LinkedIn profile: If you’re not already on LinkedIn, it’s one of the best places to begin. Join and create a simple profile listing your current and past job titles and employers, a description of what you do now, your degrees, your skills and links to your firm’s website and your interests. Run that by the Compliance Department, post it and you’re on your way.

2 Update a LinkedIn profile: Go through your contacts and address book to find clients, potential clients, colleagues, friends, acquaintances, neighbors and anyone else in your online and offline networks. Not everyone you know will be on LinkedIn, but as the preferred professional social network, many will be. So start there.

3 Mine the networks of your connections: Once you’ve got some connections, check out your connections’ networks and see what professionals you know in their networks. Then extend invitations to those professionals.

5 Follow companies on LinkedIn: If you specialize in helping employees of certain companies or have large companies in your area with potential clients, start following those companies on LinkedIn. You’ll be able to keep up with what’s happening and be able to serve those clients more effectively.

6 Join LinkedIn Groups: LinkedIn has thousands of groups that cater to numerous professional and personal interests. Search by topic, and check out your connections to see what groups they belong to that interest you.

7 Share information on LinkedIn Groups: Just joining LinkedIn Groups won’t get you very far. To gain worthwhile connections and improve the quality of your networking relationships, you’ve got to participate. Answer questions posed by others and even start conversations on topics you’re interested in.

8 Ask for advice on LinkedIn Groups: LinkedIn offers hundreds of groups for networking with others on a wide variety of topics. There are numerous forums for financial advisors as well as forums on community and leisure interests. Checking out which groups your connections belong to will give you a leg up in finding groups with like-minded individuals offering valuable networking opportunities.

9 Join locally oriented LinkedIn Groups: Search on LinkedIn Groups for any that include your city’s name in the title. The sheer number of groups on LinkedIn is growing weekly, so odds are there are at least several groups from your area on LinkedIn. It’s a great way to connect with potential clients and referral partners.

10 Join an alumni group: LinkedIn is full of alumni groups from hundreds of colleges. It’s a great way to connect with your old college buddies, find others in the same line of work and connect with potential clients.

11 Find LinkedIn events App: By using the LinkedIn events App you can find out what events your connections are hosting and going to and post your own events. You can also search events.

12 Upgrade to LinkedIn Business or Business Plus: LinkedIn offers three tiers of premium access for a fee that allows you to contact any users with an InMail, see more profiles when you search, find out who viewed your profile and see expanded profiles.

13 Try LinkedIn InMaps: Mapping your network via LinkedIn InMaps inmaps.linkedinlabs.com/ helps spot centers of influence and how connections are connected to each other.

14 Find employees on LinkedIn: LinkedIn is fast outpacing Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com as the best place to find potential employees on the web. More people than ever are posting resumes there, and it’s also a great place to network to find employees, interns and freelancers.

15 Freshen your LinkedIn Profile: As your practice grows and your interests change, update your LinkedIn profile to reflect that. Your profile should reflect what you’re up to right now, not what you used to do two or three years ago.