LinkedIn is the social-media network of choice for many financial advisors. But other platforms have much to offer advisors who are looking for ways to build rapport with clients, prospects and centres of influence.

“Twitter and blogs are great ways to reach out to clients and prospects, as long as that’s where they are,” says Richard Heft, executive director of Toronto-based Ext. Marketing Inc. “Advisors should focus time and effort on knowing where their clients and prospects are and then have a good presence in those spaces.”

Bearing in mind that all social-media activities should be cleared with your compliance department, here are some tips for using these platforms effectively:

> Blogs
Blogging is a great way to establish yourself as a subject matter expert, Heft says. Clients like reading information in a blog format, because the articles tend to be short and informative.

If you blog, you should post content at least once a week, so make sure you have enough to talk about.

“Create a 12-month editorial calendar,” Heft says, “by looking ahead and asking yourself, ‘What will I say every week?’ and ‘How can I build compelling stories?'”

Since blog posts should be only about 400 words in length, you can leverage content by taking a “big” idea, such as estate planning, and breaking it into several topics, such as wills, real estate and second homes.

One more thing: be consistent. Many blogs fall by the wayside after a few months because bloggers lose their motivation, get sidetracked or run out of things to say. By blogging at least once a week, you will build credibility and establish yourself as someone your readers can trust.

> Twitter
Your younger clients may be more active on Twitter than on LinkedIn. So, if you have a young client base, Heft says, you should consider going there.

You also should have a Twitter account if you blog, Heft says. Twitter is a great place to send out shorter messages that will interest clients and prospects enough to drive them back to your blog or website.

“Boil your posts down to 144 characters and link them to your blog article,” he says. “Then, tie it all together by having the blog page on your website.”

Building relationships using Twitter alone can be difficult because Twitter has no geographical limits and some of those who follow you will never become clients, says Sara Gilbert, founder and business consultant with Strategist Business Development in Montreal. But Twitter is great for curating content: “It often yields excellent articles that you can share, so make it part of your communication plan.”

Gilbert also suggests that you re-tweet the tweets of those you follow and use hashtags (pound signs that group posts by topic).

Note that on Twitter, more frequent activity is expected. “If you use Twitter as one of your main tools,” Gilbert says, “be prepared to tweet about three times a day.”

> Pinterest
Pinterest, the pinboard-style photo-sharing website that lets users create and manage theme-based image collections, is surging in popularity, particularly among women.

“Pinterest has an interesting concept and I can see advisors using it on an inspirational level,” Gilbert says. “For example, you could post images of a beautiful scene and add quotes or a caption that says, ‘imagine retiring here.'” Link it back to a blog post about retirement planning.

This is the third installment in a three-part series on building rapport using social media.