Build Your Blog And They Will Come

My past is catching up with me, I think. A retired financial planner and investment adviser, I still keep up with the CFP® continuing education requirements and subscribe to several professional journals on finance. So, now, here I am, a professional ghost blogger, and what do I find in the September/October issue of Practice Management Solutions (magazine for financial planners), but an article about social media and the value of —blogging!

“Social media”, the article explains, “is a general term that encompasses a number of interactive broadcast activities and….websites.” Practice Management then goes on to say that the main benefit of adding social media such as blogging to an overall marketing communication strategy is “to attract the attention of your clients and prospects to your products, services, and capabilities.” Resorting to the use of social media doesn’t mean abandoning more traditional communications, the writer assures readers, urging financial planners to add such powerful new web-based tools to their current “suite” of marketing activities.

Stressing that, just as in the real estate game, location is key, Practice Management tells financial planners to “build a presence where your audiences are – on the busiest avenues of the social media infrastructure”.

Mike Gegelman, a financial planner in Florida, couldn’t agree more.  In Advisor Today, another of the journals I read, Gegelman reminds colleagues that “Successful prospecting comes down to three things: the right message to the right market at the right time”. Truth is, Gegelman is highly unusual  in that he spends time studying writing and marketing, and composes and tests all his own marketing materials, from brochures to blogs. Most small business owners and professional practitioners, as I brought out in my earlier blog You May Be A Finder, Binder, Minder, or Grinder – Are You A Writer? devote their efforts to finding and minding business, with no time or inclination to compose to write even the most informal of blogs.

However, since most of these busy entrepreneurs are becoming aware that blogging belongs in every business tool kit, a ghost blogger is often invited to enter the picture (or, as I like to say, behind the picture!)