- Susan Weiner Investment Writing

“Just do it” – LinkedIn status updates

September 20, 2011/in LinkedIn, marketing, social media/by Susan Weiner, CFA

I know many investment professionals who feel skittish about dipping their toes into social media. To them, I parrot Nike’s line:

Photo by Ivars Krutainis

“Just do it.”

LinkedIn is a great place to start.

Try this experiment. Post a LinkedIn status update once a week for a month. See if you get any responses.

Start by writing status updates within your comfort zone. You can say something as innocuous as “Have a great weekend!” or “I’m reading today’s Wall Street Journal.” You can steer clear of compliance-sensitive content, but still show some personality by commenting on your hobby or other leisure activities.

If you monitor your LinkedIn account regularly, try posing a question. People love to talk about themselves. Again, you can keep the topic innocuous. For example, “Beach or mountains – which vacation spot do you prefer?” or “What’s your favorite hobby?”

If you’re willing to venture into financial topics, you might link to an article you enjoy. Check with your compliance professionals to see what they’ll allow.

Half the battle in social media is just showing up. Try it, and see what happens!

The CFA Institute made me do it: A social media tale

August 30, 2011/4 Comments/in financial topics, social media/by Susan Weiner, CFA

I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to develop a business presence on Facebook. LinkedIn, Twitter, and my blog kept me busy enough.

But then I heard that the CFA Institute had way more followers on Facebook than LinkedIn. How many? I forget the numbers I heard at the institute’s 2010 annual conference, but more recent statistics include

Facebook – more than 40,000 fans
LinkedIn member group – almost 14,000 (and 27,000 in candidate group)
Twitter – more than 8,000
LinkedIn company page – almost 3,800

I found these stats in “The CFA Network” in CFA Magazine. The big gap between Facebook and other social media made me think seriously about Facebook.

I’m not saying that 40,000 fans on Facebook are worth more than 14,000 group members on LinkedIn. It seems as if the CFA Institute’s LinkedIn members are more engaged than its Facebook members. I enjoy my conversations on the group very much.

However, the Facebook numbers made me think about delivering content the way my readers want. I’ve blogged about this in “Great blog posts don’t matter…” Eventually I started an Investment Writing Facebook page. The Facebook page has become another way for me to share my blog posts and to experiment with starting conversations.

My Facebook page is still evolving. I haven’t found the right formula yet. But I’ve had fun experimenting. Thank you, CFA Institute!

Independent vs. wirehouse approach to social media

July 27, 2011/in financial advisor, marketing, social media/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Want to hear from two of the women who are pioneering social media use in financial services? Watch this webcast featuring Cathy Curtis of Curtis Financial, an independent advisor, and Lauren Boyman, director of social media for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. The webcast was organized by LinkedIn.

If you listen carefully, you’ll hear Curtis identify the form of social media that has helped her the most in connecting with prospective clients. She also mentions an interesting measurement of her social media success: The large number of prospects who find her small independent firm through a Google search.

Curtis keeps her content 80% business and 20% personal. The personal content focuses on food and wine. There’s nothing like one of her @CurtisFinancial foodie tweets to make me hungry.

Boyman discusses her firm’s strategy of providing pre-approved content to start conversations. Once that content starts the conversation, there will be more leeway for personalization. This is because a Twitter conversation, for example, moves away from being “static content” that requires pre-approval. It will be interesting to see how much flexibility the firm’s advisors actually receive.

Boyman’s firm will provide a calendar and worksheets to advisors. This sounds like an idea independent financial advisors could benefit from adapting.

To read about some of the webcast’s high points, plus some analysis of the webcast, go to Pat Allen’s “Personal Or Turnkey? This Must-Watch Video Presents 2 Very Different Approaches To Social Media.”

Tweeps, share your Twitter name in your article bios

June 3, 2011/in marketing, social media/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Twitter users, you may be missing out on valuable Twitter exposure.

The solution? Include your Twitter name in every article you publish online.

I would like to give you credit when I tweet your article that I find on Facebook or some other website. But when your Twitter name isn’t obvious–and isn’t provided by your “Share” widget–I may skip it. Or I may guess your name wrong, thus confusing your wannabe followers. By the way, if you’re a Twitter novice, a Twitter name–also known as a Twitter tag–is formatted like this: @susanweiner.

Sorry, but I’m busy. So it’s a choice between omitting your Twitter tag or not tweeting your article.

The bio accompanying your article is a good place to share your Twitter name.

Do as I say, not as I do?

Hmm, should I start including my Twitter tag in my blog post footers? Writing this post makes me wonder if I should feature @susanweiner, my Twitter name, more prominently on my blog. I’ve figured that my Twitter name is easy to figure out if you see my name. Maybe I’m too optimistic.

What do YOU think? Do you agree that it’s especially important to remind readers of your Twitter tag if it’s not a combination of your first and last name?

Guest post: “Blogging: why you want a better bounce rate”

May 19, 2011/3 Comments/in blog, communication, marketing, social media/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Website bounce rates puzzle me. So I read guest blogger Tom Mangan’s article with interest. It seems as if you should put the most important information up top, where people will see it. Hmm, that sounds similar to good writing, so it’s not surprising that I met Tom through a community of freelance writers.

Blogging: why you want a better bounce rate

By Tom Mangan

Ever ask yourself where people go when they end up at your website? For most of my blogging life, the answer seemed like “somewhere else, as fast as their fingers can click.” That’s because up until a couple months ago, I ignored a key statistic called “bounce rate” that was telling me my blog needed a healthy tweak.

credit: www.clker.com

Bounce rate is one of the key metrics available free from Google Analytics. It tells you how many people visit one page at your blog and bail, typically by clicking the “back” button.

Web traffic gurus know most people make snap decisions about whether your page has something they’re looking for. You’ve got maybe five to 10 seconds to reel them in.

Like way too many blogs, my hiking blog had a standard layout with a header identifying what my site was about, a headline revealing what an individual page is about, and social links like e-mail, Twitter and Facebook. People who came my site had no earthly idea it was brimming with five years worth of content painstakingly compiled to warm a hiker’s heart. Typically over three-quarters of my site’s users left almost immediately; my bounce rate was 75 to 80 percent, day in and day out.

Then I changed to a new WordPress theme that allowed me to install all these cool navigation menus across the top, identifying all the many categories inside my site:

Immediately my bounce rate plunged below 50 percent — roughly a 50 percent improvement.

The game changer: I gave my readers something other than the “Back” button to click in that crucial first five seconds. Now roughly my half of my visitors click a second time. They longer they’re there, the better my chances of making them a regular reader.

If you’re thinking, “well, I’ve got all those links in the rail down the side of my site,” guess what: hardly anybody ever clicks on those. After the top two or three on the list, most get ignored.

Interestingly (or frustratingly, depending on how you look it), the big boost in bounce numbers did not equate, as near as I could tell, to a huge increase in page views. Page views were up, but I had also added new site features, and it was springtime, prime hiking season, when my site’s traffic always rises anyway, so I can’t say conclusively that it helped my raw page count. Furthermore, it appeared that the click-through rate on my Google ads cratered about the same time I made this change, so giving people more click options could be double-edged sword if you earn a living from ad clicks.

But if you use your blog to demonstrate your expertise and connect with potential clients, you’re not fretting over the scraps that land in your Adsense account every couple months. You want to tell people who land at your blog — in that first crucial blink of an eye — that there’s gobs of content inside that they ought to check out if they don’t see anything they want right now. Mind you, site navigation is just one component of your bounce rate. These links explore it in much greater detail.

Tom Mangan is the creator of Two- Heel Drive, a Hiking Blog, and the founder of Verb Nerd Industries, his freelance editing, writing and blogging service.

Pictures can supercharge your message: A grasshopper story

May 3, 2011/3 Comments/in blog, client communication, communication, social media, writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

People absorb messages better when words are complemented by an image. This is a rule that any writer can exploit.

Take my dinner at Casa Oaxaca on a Mexican vacation. It was a multi-course tasting menu, so I could gloss over the chapulines in the taquitos de jicama con chapulines, quesillo y cuitlacoche. But then the dish captured in the photo to your right arrived.

Do you see the little antennae and the translucent wings?

I could no longer ignore the inclusion of toasted grasshoppers (chapulines) in my food. Good thing they were tasty!

Properly used, photos and other images add oomph to your written communications.

Tips for finding images

1. Look for the noun.

Finding an image is easy when you write about a concrete topic like grasshoppers. Simply search your favorite photo bank for your thing–the noun you’re writing about. Check my earlier blog post for free or low-cost photo sources.

2. Illustrate the adjective, verb or emotion.

What can you do when your subject is more abstract than grasshoppers?

I follow the advice of writer Erik Sherman:

Remember that none of your stories are about abstract topics. They are always tangible to someone. It might help to stop thinking about the topic – the noun – and focus on what people are doing – the verb – or what they’re feeling – the adjective. In a given investment story, someone is either making or losing money. It often happens in some industry, like real estate, high tech, or commodities. There may be regulatory aspects, in which case think about images that could represent regulation, like police holding a hand up to tell traffic to stop, a judge, Congress. The more tangible and simple you get about the topic, the easier it will be to think of a fitting image.

Financial blogger Chuck Rylant cracked this problem in his “Controversy Over Disappearing CalPERS Police Officer Retirement Benefits” blog post, which is no longer live. He illustrated the adjective “disappearing” instead of the difficult-to-depict noun, “retirement benefits.” Plus, the sinking ship in his illustration reinforced the message that the benefits are disappearing.

Can you add any tips for illustrating blog posts and other written communications?

Nov. 20, 2013 UPDATE: If you prefer original photos, read about the strategy used by advisor Sheri Iannetta Cupo. Aug. 15, 2016: I deleted some broken links.

Blog comment guidelines for financial advisors: Russell Investments example

March 21, 2011/6 Comments/in blog, compliance, marketing, social media/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Financial advisors, investment managers, and wealth managers worry about allowing comments on their corporate blogs. The wrong comment could land the blogging firm in trouble with the SEC or FINRA. Russell Investments offers a good example of how to handle this issue.

I imagine that Russell’s solution has three components, although only two are visible on its Helping Advisors blog.

If you allow comments on your financial or investment blog, are you using the three tactics I describe below?

1. Moderate comments.

When you enable comment moderation on your blog, no comments are visible to the general public until someone at your company approves them. This lets you vet problematic comments.

2. Provide “comment guidelines” for readers.

Transparency pays. You set more realistic expectations when you tell people that you won’t publish all comments and you share your guidelines. Russell does this nicely in “Comment Guidelines.” Their main points include the following:

Russell may not respond.
Stay on topic.
Avoid investment advice.
Be respectful.
We respect your privacy.

I also like that Russell gives readers the phone number to call with client service issues.

3. Establish internal guidelines and procedures.

I’m guessing that Russell Investments has set up internal guidelines for deciding the kind of comment to squash. The firm can’t anticipate every situation, so it needs to have a process for referring questions to the appropriate decisionmaker.

The firm also needs procedures to ensure that comments are moderated in a timely and consistent manner. This may be a drag on resources. I noticed on the blog’s “Don’t let the scarcity mentality hold you back,” that a reader commented on Feb. 23, but the firm did not reply until March 1, six days later. I can’t tell if the reader’s comment was also held for six days.

What else should advisors consider if they allow blog readers to leave comments?

Why financial bloggers should care about William and Kate

March 13, 2011/in blog, client communication, communication, marketing, social media/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Prince William and his bride-to-be are hot topics. Financial bloggers and other writers can use that to their advantage. Simply follow the example of LawyerMira‘s tweet, “Why William and Kate Should Sign a Prenup,” by inserting William and Kate into a tweet or blog post about your area of expertise.

When you put trendy topics in your headlines, you’ll attract more readers. Even better, otherwise indifferent readers may plow through your entire article or tweet.

For example, an article about “Why William and Kate Need a Financial Planner” may retain the interest of readers who otherwise would never read about financial planning. You could perform a public service by using William and Kate as an example.

However, as I mentioned in “SEO: What’s right for your financial blog” and “Two views: ‘Why Wasatch Writes White Papers,” you should deliver on the promise of your title. Don’t simply seek eyeballs at any cost.

Have you seen any good “William and Kate” titles related to investments, wealth management, or financial planning?

Please note the titles in the comments. Also, feel free to suggest a “William and Kate” title you’d like to read. I can imagine all sorts of riffs on “Why William and Kate…”

Social media lessons from the top nine Investment Writing posts for 2010

December 29, 2010/in blog, financial topics, LinkedIn, social media/by Susan Weiner, CFA

LinkedIn and Facebook are powerful.

The 2010 analytics on my blog made me appreciate the power of social media more than ever.

The influence of LinkedIn revealed itself in my most popular blog posts of 2010. These posts ranked high because they attracted attention in LinkedIn groups. “LinkedIn Groups Help Blog Posts Soar,” my guest post on the American Society of Business Publication Editors blog, discusses this phenomenon. I’d like to thank all of the LinkedIn members–and other visitors–who took the time to visit, forward, and comment on my blog posts.

As for Facebook, it has become a top five source of referrals to my blog. This is true even though I only launched the Investment Writing Facebook page partway through the year. Twitter didn’t rank as high as I expected on this count.

I also saw some themes in my most popular content. Top posts addressed marketing, social media, writing, and opinions of leading financial experts.