A broker who has gained over 16,000 followers and over 4,000 leads from Facebook in less than three years has said others in the industry lack strategy when it comes to social media.
Andrew Krauksts, director of The Home Loan Advisory, says the approach of many brokers to Facebook is the equivalent of “throwing spaghetti against a wall”.
“It’s very easy to hit the ‘create page’ button, but the problem is they haven’t thought about what it is they want to set up and what sort of sales funnel they’re going to have in terms of driving traffic to that page and how they’re then going to convert that traffic into clients,” says Krauksts.
Generally it’s easy to tell when a Facebook page was first created simply by counting the number of posts on the page per month, says Krauksts.
“You see a lot of updates for the first few weeks and then suddenly they drop off and it’s been dead for the last three months – that’s when they’ve lost interest and in social media that’s the death of it, once you stop posting there’s no engagement and there’s nothing there.”
The reason for many brokers losing interest is not seeing the responses or reaction that they anticipated through the page, says Krauksts, and this often comes down to the type of content they’re posting.
“Given the fact that we don’t work in a sexy industry, no one’s interested,” he says. “So if you want people to join your page you’ve got to have a strong offer, something of value they receive in exchange for liking your page – otherwise, why would they?”
Free reports and financial information alongside competitions, amusing pictures or client stories are a great way to peak people’s interest, says Krauksts.
“I try to stick to the rule of thumb of give pieces of content that have nothing to do with finance and one about finance. Otherwise it just puts people into sleep – I’m more interested in getting engagement and getting people to know my personality.”
Krauksts says competitions are a great way to draw people in to your site. Once people have entered the contest, Krauksts then send an email to let them know they are in the draw, to wish them luck, and also to share some information about himself and his business.
“There’s nothing wrong with asking for business, people generally appreciate your honestly and I don’t get many people opt out after I’ve told them that. I let them know I’m available for any financial questions they may have and I also let them know there’ll be more competitions coming up later on.”
Another mistake brokers often make with social media is being too guarded with rates and deals, afraid of giving too much away, says Krauksts.
“I find you’re much better off to say here is the lender with a great deal, and don’t be afraid, because in most cases people will say ‘tell me more’ and come to you. Yes there might be the exception where people will go straight to the lender but you probably never had them in the first place.
“If you’re more open and more giving people are more likely to come back.”
Krauksts will shortly be offering an in-depth course for brokers on how to effectively gain followers and leads through social media. For more information click
here.
