John Diehl: [00:00:01] Hi, I'm John. [00:00:02][0.8]

Julie Genjac: [00:00:02] and I'm Julie. [00:00:03][1.3]

John Diehl: [00:00:04] We're the hosts of the Hartford Funds

human centric investing podcast. [00:00:08][3.4]

Julie Genjac: [00:00:09] Every other week. We're talking with

inspiring thought leaders to hear their best ideas for how you

can transform your relationships with your clients.

[00:00:18][8.7]

John Diehl: [00:00:19] Let's go.

John Diehl: [00:00:16] Julie, did I ever share with you my first

experience with social media? [00:00:24][8.6]

Julie Genjac: [00:00:27] No, I can't wait to hear the story,

[00:00:28][1.4]

John Diehl: [00:00:31] so I'm going back a ways to the days of

America online, you've got mail, all that kind of stuff. And I wanted

I heard all this stuff about chat rooms and I thought, Well, I better

figure out what these things are all about. So on Saturday morning, I

got on a chat room involving my favorite NHL hockey team, the

Philadelphia fliers. And of course, the conversation was riveting. It

was did you see the game the other night? What did you think about

that penalty? What about this player? This my favorite player? And

then it came back like somebody in the chat room said, Hey, you know,

ABC one two three, how old are you? That person said, I'm 12. How old

are you? I'm 14. Hey, J.D., how old are you? Before I get right 35,

I'm like, log off, log off, log off. I was terrified. So, you know, I

got to tell you, Julie, when it comes to social media, I am. I am

probably the worst person to talk to because there's so much that I

can learn from it. I am not an active user on Facebook or really most

of the other social sites. So how about how about you? I'm you. I

hope you're farther along than I am. [00:01:40][69.7]

Julie Genjac: [00:01:42] I have to admit I'm not much further along

than you are. LinkedIn has been my platform of choice, and I'm still

working on navigating that. So I think I know I'm excited to learn a

lot from Steven and we'll see where it takes us and how maybe a

courageous I feel after this to see if I can dip my toe into another

platform. [00:02:02][19.7]

John Diehl: [00:02:05] Well, you know, every time we talk to Stephen

Boswell, I always learn something new about a topic that I have very

little really knowledge about. So really looking forward to sharing

this episode of our interview with Steven Boswell, president of the

Oxley Institute. [00:02:20]

Julie Genjac:. We're so excited to have Steven Boswell with us today.

Steven is the president of the Oxley Institute. In addition to

overseeing the Oxley Institute's ongoing research on the affluent

consumer financial advisers and insurance agents, Steven delivers

workshops throughout the US on affluent marketing and practice

management. He is also the author of a bi weekly newsletter for

wealth management. Dot com. Stephen, thank you so much for being here

with us today. [00:05:48][36.3]

Stephn Boswell: [00:05:50] Hi, Julie. So good to be with you.

[00:05:51][1.3]

Julie Genjac: So, Steven, I have a confession to make before we get

any further in our conversation today, and I just can't hold it in

any longer. I'm not on Facebook. So just with that backdrop, John, I

don't know what your Facebook status is, but I needed to get that out

there. [00:06:19][20.1]

John Diehl: [00:06:20] So it's funny you say that, Julie, because I

was just going to present Stephen with the challenge that both you

and I are now, I will say my wife and I do have a Facebook account,

but that's about the extent of my knowledge about Facebook. So,

Stephen, I'm guessing that many financial advisers may have a

personal Facebook page, but I'm wondering how many are actually

thinking about using Facebook in their business communications? What

would you say? What's your notion or do you think most advisers have

caught on onto this? Or are they like Julie and I? And they're taking

a little while to get adjusted? [00:06:59][38.7]

Stephn Boswell: [00:07:01] Well, the two of you are in good hands

today because I think a lot of financial advisers that come to us are

starting not necessarily from scratch, but starting from a very basic

point of existence and Facebook. And we've seen that evolution over

the last. It's been over 10 years now since we began training on

Facebook for financial advisers. And the reaction we get now is very

different than what we got back then. Back then it was what? You're

serious. Like, you want us to be friends with our clients on

Facebook. And we thought that was going to be a big hit of a training

program or articles were going to be widespread. And this was going

to be a big trend. And it took a long time to develop because I think

as as I'm sure we'll get into today, there are a lot of fears with

getting involved. There's a lot of risk that we foresee. And, you

know, 10 years is a long time. So right now, we've got a lot more in

terms of rules of the road and best practices and knowledge around

what makes for really good usage of Facebook by a financial adviser.

And it all starts with having an account, getting involved and being

friends with your clients. [00:08:02][60.4]

Julie Genjac: [00:08:05] It's interesting, Steven, as you as you go

through this process, I'm I'm trying to wrap my mind around this

because my husband joined Facebook just so we could see pictures of

our our friends children because they wouldn't text them to me

because they said, Well, they're on Facebook. So I said, Well, I

guess, honey, you're the chosen one opened the account. So I'm

curious, are advisors truly finding and bringing in clients through

Facebook? I mean, I assume that they are, but just where you started

ground zero and sort of educate me and walk us through the process

today on how this is happening for advisors in terms of practice

growth mechanism. [00:08:38][33.1]

Stephn Boswell: [00:08:40] Sure. I'm really getting started from the

beginning, you have to understand the difference between a personal

profile and a business page. The personal profile is what you and I

would set up to connect with friends and family to share updates

about ourselves and to learn about other people. The business page is

there for you to build a following to share business related post,

ultimately to advertise to do all the things that a business would

want to do on the network. So when you're getting started with

Facebook from a financial professional standpoint, you've got to walk

before you run right. You've got to start with establishing your own

personal presence by building a business page, by attracting some

followers who then engage with you. And ultimately, your goal is,

like most of this is to get some new business out of the tool, but it

takes a little bit of time to evolve. We here at Oxley have seen that

evolution firsthand because we were early embraces of the network. In

the beginning, it was kind of slow. You'd post something you wouldn't

see a lot of engagement. You'd wonder if anybody's actually even

reading this, or if social media is this fad that's going to go away.

And ultimately, you work yourself into a position to where you're

doing a little less lead chasing and a little bit more lead

management where people are coming to you. And we're seeing that

exact same evolution for many financial advisors out there who got

started not being completely sure what they were getting into, but

over time they've built a respectable following. People want to

engage with them, and ultimately they're top of mind when someone

needs a good financial advisor. So, you know, if you're in the shoes

of a financial adviser, you're wondering, where will I start? Well,

embrace the network for what it is. We've got better work past some

of the fears that have long held many people back, fears that aren't

necessarily reality. You know, we've seen a lot more best practices,

I would say, than worst-case scenarios. [00:10:26][105.4]

John Diehl: [00:10:28] So, Stephen, mentioning that topic of fear, I

was just thinking to myself, as you talked about, I mean, it sounds

funny to say, Well, I'm afraid of Facebook, obviously. I'm not afraid

of Facebook, but I do have two fears that enter my head one I'm

afraid of saying the wrong thing. So maybe just educate Julian a

little bit on, you know, when I think about a business profile, what

kind of content might I'd be thinking about? That would be different

than, say, a personal profile? And then the second fear is, well, you

know, I don't know what my firm is going to think of this right? Am I

permitted to do some of these things? So with those two fears in

mind, both how I should use it, what kind of content and just any

insight you have because I know what the actually group you work with

many, many different firms just to level set for us on that fear.

[00:11:17][49.1]

Stephn Boswell: [00:11:19] Sure. And every firm that we've worked

with has certain rules, and every firm has advisers who complain

about the rules, even if they're fairly permissive. So, you know, we

go into it knowing that we've got to follow those guidelines. I think

it's always important to understand what the rules are as a starting

point. And almost every firm allows you to post some content on a

Facebook business page. And the trend that we see, and I think this

is, you know, the content that you post, there's not a ton of risk

there. And I'll tell you why the content that you post is such a drop

in the bucket of the overall Facebook content that is out there that

any one post, unless it's really, really bad, isn't going to make or

break your your page. So you've got to be willing to experiment a

little bit to post more rather than less. Like if you were to look at

our pages of these pages on Facebook and other networks, you would

say that we post a fair amount. If you asked me the leader of this

organization, should we be posting more? I'd say absolutely. Probably

twice or three times as much would be my preference. But it's got to

be good quality content, and we don't have the resources right now to

go two or three times this magnitude. I don't have time to shoot more

videos or our team doesn't have time to design any more posts. But if

I had my pick, I would say, let's do more rather than less. And for

that to take place, we have, you know, we have to put a little bit

more energy into content. We as an industry have to put more energy

into our content if we want more of it going out there. And you know,

when you're thinking about what makes for a really good business page

for a financial advisor, some of that content is going to be somewhat

educational. So if you were to pick at random financial advisors

business page, you would see a ton of educational content. And it's

not exactly the way we would build it, like it's almost all

educational content. I remember one time a financial advisor came to

me and said, Steven, we're getting next to no engagement. I just

don't think my clients are on Facebook. And I pull up this page live

while we're on the phone call. I said, Well, good grief, you have

every post is a chart or a graph or something your firm gave you, and

that is so boring. That's not what Facebook is all about you. How

about we mix it up a little bit? You're you're giving back in the

community. Snap some photos of that. You're engaging clients. Let's

get some video coverage of it like you're trying to do what you can

to liven up that feed to let people into your life a little bit. Even

though it's a business page, they still want to get to know you as

the professional. So when you're thinking about easy, immediate

things that people can do, it is posting content about what's

happening in their everyday life, both as a person and as a financial

advisor. And I think one thing that we've learned over the years is

that the accounts that are more personal, like business pages that

have more of a personal slant to it, get more engagement than those

that are overly clinical, overly dry. [00:14:11][172.0]

Julie Genjac: [00:14:14] I think that makes so much sense, Stephen,

and I know the feedback that I've received for years from financial

professionals is for those that do send out maybe an email team

newsletter. The section that receives the most positive feedback is

always the personal updates, right? The new house, the baby, the

camping trip, the community service, all of those areas where the

clients can really get to know the financial professionals as a human

and not just their advisor. You know, the other feedback that I've

heard for many years on any sort of social media platform is, OK,

Julie, I created the profile. I'm here. Nothing's happening. What

would be your your guidance? For those that have experience that, it

sounds like it's all about what you do proactively with the tool as

opposed to just arriving and all of the leads flood into you and all

of the the prospecting. But I would be curious to have you walk us

through that process so that those that are thinking about either

making their page more robust or starting from ground zero and and

walking before they run. How does that process look when it's

successfully executed? [00:15:22][67.8]

Stephn Boswell: [00:15:24] Yeah, Julie, I mean, there's a strong

parallel between that mindset as it relates to Facebook with that

mindset as it relates to client events, referral alliances, all the

traditional marketing as well because you can meet plenty of

financial advisors who've said, Well, I've tried to partner with

accountants in the past, and that went nowhere. It's a waste of time.

You'll hear that I ran an event one time I got clients to show, but

no real guest came. I didn't get any business out of it, and they all

have one thing in common. We dabbled with it and we can't dabble with

Facebook if we want to get really good results out of it, which means

putting more energy into what we post, how we engage other people,

how we learn to leverage its advertising mechanisms. Facebook seems

pretty simple, but when you get into it, it is. It's a little complex

and it takes not just weeks and months, but years to really

understand what all it can help you do if you if you actually grasp

all that right. So, for example, when you put out a post on your

business page, we'll say that you have 100 followers on your business

page. When you put up a post, you would think common sense would say,

Well, at least all my followers are going to see it. But in reality,

roughly five percent of your followers are actually going to see that

post. So let's say you have one hundred followers, which is not small

change for many financial advisors. Five people seeing that post. How

much lift are you actually going to get? How much feedback are you

going to get verbally from clients? How many interactions, reactions

or comments are you going to get on Facebook? Probably not very many,

just because the sheer numbers of it are fairly low. So I hear it all

the time. We talk about Facebook in front of live audiences and in

front of webinars, and I hear the feedback often of like what hasn't

worked for me yet, am I? My common response is it takes, so it takes

a good while. But what we're really after here is a sequence of

events that you know, first we have to show up and be there. Second,

we have to raise awareness of who we are both with our clients, our

prospects, our centers of influence, and we have to gather followers.

Writing followers isn't a vanity thing that you want to be a quote

unquote influencer, and you want to have hundreds or thousands of

people who who follow your things. That's not what it's all about. If

that was all it is, you'd go out and you'd buy followers, which I

would advise against, but it is about building a more natural

audience to receive future post. So let's say I go from one hundred

followers, which is likely friends of mine, clients of mine, my very

close connections. That's the 100. I go to a thousand or 5000

followers. This is including a fair number of people who haven't

engaged me yet, but maybe prospects in the future. So as I put out

more educational content by way of graphics or video or any number of

things white papers that I put out, more and more people are seeing

it engaging with the distribution spreads, and I get more inbound

business from it. So it's a little bit less of like the traditional

lead gen mentality and a little bit more of let me build this

mousetrap for lack of a better term that has people coming to me.

[00:18:27][183.3]

John Diehl: [00:18:30] Stephen, in your mind, excuse me, is there a

difference between posting and advertising on Facebook?

[00:18:37][6.9]

Stephn Boswell: [00:18:40] There is and it gets a little bit complex

because you are able to put out a post and then put some advertising

budget behind it, or you able to go in through their ads manager

platform and build an ad from scratch for many financial

professionals out there, the quickest and effective path for getting

more reach when your post is to boost the post and years ago, that

was frowned upon. It was kind of the the easy way out that I put a

few dollars behind a post and it encourages Facebook to share it with

more people. And it was frowned upon because it was kind of a

guesswork. You'd put in $10, for example, and to get a little bit of

extra boost behind that post, but it wasn't very specific in terms of

who that would reach. Nowadays, they've improved that mechanism to

where if you say, you know what, it's not worth it for me to put out

an article that I wrote or a white paper that I gathered from a

trusted party here and four, five or 10 people to see it. I want

hundreds or thousands of people to see it. I can do that fairly

easily by boosting a post. So they work hand in hand, and we think

boosting is a smart move if you want your content to get more

eyeballs. If you think about it, Facebook is is fairly smart in this

way. Facebook says you know you as a business user, if you want a lot

of people to see what you're putting out there, pay us for it. And

you can either resent that and not engage with the network, or you

can embrace it for what it is a fairly inexpensive way for a lot more

people to see what you're putting out there. So you don't have to go

in and necessarily leverage a third party like us to build ads. You

don't necessarily have to go and take a course, and there are plenty

of them on Facebook advertising. Traditionally, if you just, you

know, make the case in your own mind that advertising is important

and we can get there by boosting post, you can watch enough

tutorials. You can do enough research on your own to arrive at a

solution for that. That doesn't take you all day to figure out and

doesn't take a huge budget to make it work. [00:20:33][112.9]

John Diehl: [00:20:35] So, Stephen, I'm going to ask this question,

admitting that my kids think that I'm the prototype for those funny

commercials about not becoming your parents, so take this with a

grain of salt thinking about it that way. But you say boost the post

what actually happens when I pay to boost the post and how specific

can I be about boosting it? Like when you say, boost this Facebook,

target certain people or what happens when I say, OK, I want to do

that. [00:21:02][27.6]

Stephn Boswell: [00:21:05] Boosting a post is really the only way

that you can influence who sees the post directly. So when you put

out a post will say you go on to your business page and you put up a

photo, for example, of you at the latest fundraiser. Good post going

to see a few people. But if you really want to have that seen more

widespread or will say it's a white paper that you're really proud

of, that you had some hand in creating or you think's really good.

You can then say, I want this to go to people in a certain

geographical area who Facebook estimates to have a certain level of

wealth who are in a certain phase of life, either by age or, you

know, family situation. You can pick my industry. There there are.

Facebook knows a lot about us, right? It's scary as a consumer, but

it's really helpful as an advertiser. So you're able to get really a

narrow band of content. For example, it will say I had this white

paper and it's written specifically for people who own businesses. I

can make certain that I'm boosting that post towards people who

actually own businesses. It's a really good combination of of them

knowing a lot about people and giving you the opportunity to put your

message in front of that specific audience. [00:22:15][70.6]

Julie Genjac: [00:22:18] I think that's such an important point of

distinction, Stephen, is the ability to really target a market. I

think there are probably many financial professionals listening today

saying, you know, my my practice is a level of seasoning and I

deliver wealth management. I don't need another four more twenty five

thousand dollar accounts at this point. That's not the client that I

can add the most value to. And so I'm reticent to blast my marketing

out to a really broad audience because those are the individuals that

may come to me seeking my advice and guidance. I'm curious for those

teams and financial professionals that you've seen, truly implement

and execute this marketing strategy. Well, my guess is that there is

one person on the team that's managing this or that's at least being

held accountable to the activities and being consistent. Is that the

case? I'd be curious to know because I'm sure many financial

professionals are saying I'm rapid my arms around so many things

right now. The world is changing more rapidly than I can even keep

track of. This is just another thing. If I'm interested, how do I do

it well for myself at my practice and my team? [00:23:28][70.0]

Stephn Boswell: [00:23:40] When you're considering as a financial

adviser, whether it's you or someone else on the team who spearheads

the social media efforts, it really depends upon which element of

that strategy we're talking about, like the financial adviser has to

be involved in some way. But you also would benefit from having some

help in terms of posting, boosting, engaging with people who engage

with you. So for, for example, at Oxley, you'll notice a lot of me in

our post, photos of me, videos of me, my business partner, Kevin

Nichols. We do a lot of that, but we're not actually the ones who

were behind the scenes putting up the post, scheduling them in

advance. We have help with that, right? And it's a big help. But when

you're thinking about it as a financial advisor, you can't think

about it as something that you can completely delegate to someone

else because it will always come across as impersonal. And you

mentioned earlier the idea of going after higher net worth prospects

and working with a higher net worth group of people. The more that

becomes true like, the higher you focus in terms of net worth. The

more personalize your content needs to be people who have, let's say,

five million investable or 10 or 20 million investable. They're not

sitting around looking for boilerplate financial content from

financial advisors on social media. But if they happen to see you who

they know as being their financial advisor or they know through their

country club and they see your video or an article that you've

written come through their feed, they may take the time to read it

because it features you so you as the advisory. You've got to be

involved, but don't feel like you've got to run over every element of

it. [00:25:11][90.9]

John Diehl: [00:25:14] Stephen, quick question for you in terms of

the operational aspects. What does it cost to start a Facebook

business page? [00:25:22][8.0]

Stephn Boswell: [00:25:24] Yeah, to get it started, it's free and

there are 100 different tutorials out there, probably thousands of

them. Facebook itself has a great blueprint, they call it, that tells

you how to do all of those things. So it's free, and the advertising

really depends on what your objectives are in everything, from making

people aware of your page, which is, you know, relatively

inexpensive. The same with making people aware of a certain post,

boosting a post, maybe something you put twenty five dollars behind

or 100 or 200, but relatively low figures. Whereas if you want to get

into a more sophisticated lead generation campaign, you're looking at

more like thousands of dollars per month into something like that. So

depends on your objectives, but overall, I'd say it's cheaper than

advertising mediums of the past. [00:26:08][44.5]

Julie Genjac: [00:26:12] Well, Stephen, I have to say you've inspired

me. I know what my homework is after this, I'm going to set up my

personal Facebook page and start there, and hopefully it grows from

there. And I'm hoping that others that have joined us today may be as

inspired as I am. And for those that are to learn more about

Stephen's Facebook marketing tips and much more, please visit

Hartford Funds dot com slash Facebook. Stephen, thank you so much.

I've learned so much today and I don't want to speak for John, but

I'm sure he has as well and and thank you for sharing your words of

wisdom. [00:26:43][31.3]

Stephn Boswell: [00:26:46] It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having

me. [00:26:46][0.0]

Julie Genjac: [00:24:37] Thanks for listening to the Hartford Funds.

Human Centric Investing podcast, if you'd like to tune in for more

episodes. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube. [00:24:50][13.4]

John Diehl: [00:24:51] And if you'd like to be a guest and share your

best ideas for transforming client relationships, email us a guest

booking at Hartford Funds dot com. We'd love to hear from you.

[00:25:01][10.2]

Julie Genjac: [00:25:02] Talk to you soon. [00:25:02][0.0]

226535

Prior to implementing any of the strategies referenced, please consult with your

firm's legal and compliance teams about social media policies and programs