How To Attract Investors With Social Media

Do you want to know your clients and prospects better? Regardless of your own use of social media, the rise of platforms such as Facebook and Linkedin has created a tremendous opportunity to learn about and reach target audiences. In today’s world, people are spending more time online and are willing to share more information. For the typical user of social media, much of this information appears randomly and then is lost; however, there are now tools and approaches to capture and distill this information efficiently. By continuously tracking prospect behaviour on social media, monitoring how, what and when they interact with content and people, valuable insights can be collected, understood and utilized to enhance a sales process.

In our experience, the financial services industry, and alternative asset management firms, in particular, stand to benefit significantly from this opportunity. Do you want to know if your clients are more interested in fees or net performance? Social media data can help. Do you want to know if your clients are likely to act on a new offering? Social media data can help. Aggregating this and other digital data is a huge opportunity for any marketing or business development team.

1) Build a list of targets on a named basis: Today, there is a clearly identifiable list of institutions that actively invest in alternatives (hedge funds, private equity, real estate, etc). Identifying the individuals at these firms focused on alternatives is possible. Years ago, building this list was close to impossible, let alone maintaining it. Today, it’s easier than ever. Between available industry data and technology, building and maintaining the most current list of targets are manageable.

2) Monitor target behavior: The second step of this process is to turn on the tools that compile data. Traction House refers to these as “social media vacuums”. These tools are able to compile huge amounts of publically available data in real time. Imagine understanding the connectivity and activity of a network of known targets. Insights and observations that previously would have been impossible to capture would certainly be enlightening. This is an example of an approach that Traction House uses to monitor the behavior of our target markets on an almost a daily basis. We are able to distill the data, see through the noise and understand the key issues and opportunities.

3) Use data to guide strategy and content creation: Once the data is summarized and the insights about a target market are readily available, it’s possible to build a strategy and the optimal content to engage that market. This is a significant pivot from the process that most marketing teams employ. Often, marketing and sales teams can spend more time speaking and less time listening. Further, much of the speaking can be driven by gut feel and intuition rather than based on objective data. A data-driven approach turns the sales and marketing process around, allowing a firm to listen and then make a tactical and practical response to any opportunity set.

4) Monitor target engagement: This is the most crucial step of the process. All of the other steps in the process are less impactful if the data from the interaction of targets and content isn’t captured. By actively monitoring this activity, it’s possible to begin to understand who is interested in which content, and what level of interest exists. Rather than treating each prospect the same, it now becomes possible to segment a target list and address each target in a unique and efficient fashion. In a recent project, it was very clear to see a client had three types of prospects — those in search of a magic pill, those that believed in science, and thirdly, those that were mostly focused on relationship rather than strategy. Knowing this is invaluable. A client is able to target the individuals in a way never before possible.

Ultimately, what asset managers may not realise is that social media is a very flexible tool, one where subtle techniques can be used to provide significant, data-driven insights and opportunities. This industry is no stranger to using data on a day to day basis to optimise portfolios and manage risk. Now, the sales and marketing groups at these same firms can also optimise and enhance their efforts to more efficiently produce outsized results.

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