Is Instagram an effective marketing tool for financial planners?

Social media has become increasingly important for business owners of all types to market themselves to potential clients.

Many financial advisers and planners are active on LinkedIn – this is great, but LinkedIn is perhaps better suited to building connections with fellow professionals.

To reach potential clients it could be a good idea to post educational content on the platforms they are using. With billions of active accounts, Instagram is one of the most popular social media networks, and many businesses use it as their primary social media presence.

Read on to learn how you could use Instagram for marketing as a financial adviser.

You can reach people through multiple mediums

One major benefit of Instagram is that you can post multiple types of content from one account. Each medium has different advantages, which can make them well suited to different types of posts.

Images

These are traditional Instagram posts. They can either be a single image, or a carousel of multiple images, with a caption below.

Images are good for company updates, team photos and other content that people who are already following you would be interested in.

Reels

Reels are Instagram’s take on TikTok videos or YouTube shorts. They are short, portrait videos that are presented to users in an endless feed of algorithm-based suggestions.

These videos are fed to people who don’t follow you. As a result, they can be the best way to reach potential new customers who may not have heard of you.

Stories

Stories are images or short videos which disappear after 24 hours. They’re often used for insight into the day-to-day running and behind-the-scenes of a business, or for sharing links, creating polls, and other types of interactive posts.

You can build personal relationships with potential clients

It’s no secret that trust between a financial planner and their clients is of the utmost importance.

Instagram can be used as a tool to build trust between you, your clients, and potential clients. If you put yourself front and centre on your Instagram account, you can make yourself a trustworthy face of the business.

This way, people will begin to feel like they know you, and begin to trust you. Plus, by posting regularly on Instagram, you can maintain a relationship with existing clients outside of your meetings.

There is potential for huge exposure

Instagram is designed to feed users an endless stream of content – even from accounts they don’t follow. This means that, if you produce high-quality content, there’s a good chance it will be seen by potential customers who don’t follow you (yet).

Reels are a particularly powerful tool here – according to Forbes these shorter videos are 2.5 times more engaging than longer videos, and 34% of consumers appreciate the seemingly more genuine nature of them.

Following trends and using popular sounds can get your content placed in people’s feeds. However, as a financial planner it is important to maintain an air of professionalism – don’t go full influencer, keep it classy.

Another point to consider is that just because you’re reaching a lot of accounts doesn’t mean you are reaching a lot of good potential clients. By producing valuable content that your ideal clients will find useful, you are more likely to reach valuable accounts.

If you are aiming to bring in younger clients, Instagram could be very beneficial

If you are looking to attract younger clients, using Instagram could be a great way to reach this audience. Recent research commissioned by Forbes found that 79% of members of the millennial and Gen Z generations have received financial advice from social media.

This may sound strange, but this age group turns to social media for cooking tips, home decoration inspiration, and news updates – why wouldn’t they use it to access financial advice?

If you can create content that offers genuinely useful and valuable information to people in this age group, then they are likely to engage with you on Instagram. As they build their financial knowledge and consider working with a financial adviser, you could become their go-to choice.

That said, people of all ages are on social media – so don’t think that there’s no advantage to using Instagram if your target market is older.

Get in touch

We specialise in helping sellers like you find the best buyer for your company. To find out how we can help you, email hello@melo.co.uk or call 0113 4656 111.

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