Many financial advisors are embracing social media, using various social networks to keep in touch with clients and potentially score new business. But along with the benefits of more extensive networking come the challenges of managing multiple accounts and separating the personal from the professional.

According to research conducted this past spring by Environics Research Group, roughly one in four financial advisors are using social media in some capacity in their practices. One-quarter of those advisors use LinkedIn to communicate with clients, while 16% use Facebook for the same purpose. One in 10 are using Facebook, Twitter or Google+ to keep up to date with the financial services industry.

If you are serious about using social networks to build your business, then social media management tools are a must. For example, a tool that provides a dashboard view of all your accounts would save you from having to log into the sites manually.

Before deciding on a social media management tool, you first should decide which social networks are most important to you. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are not the only social media platforms available. A blog (through a platform such as WordPress or Blogger) and perhaps even a geolocation network such as FourSquare also can be useful.

Different networks are generally tuned to different audiences. Facebook is a useful way to engage crowds of people in discussions; despite the capacity for replies and direct messages, Twitter is more useful for broadcasting one-to-many messages; and LinkedIn is far more suitable for professional messaging, with its a drier, more “on message” feel.

Any social media management tool that you choose should at least have the ability to manage multiple social networking accounts at once. A competent tool will give you the capability to send out a single message over multiple networks, as you may wish to tweet a message in addition to posting it on Facebook.

More than this, though, your social media management tool should give you the capability to schedule messages. Maintaining a single social media account – let alone multiple accounts – daily while also trying to run a business can be time consuming. Given that many advisors are still skeptical about the value of social media, it makes sense to compartmentalize the time that is spent on it.

Social media consultants suggest taking a chunk of time at the beginning of every week or month to create a series of social media posts rather than doing them on a daily basis. Tools that permit scheduling will let you write posts in advance and then schedule them to be delivered at a certain time. In this manner, you can write and forget, although it would still make sense to monitor your accounts at least once a day for any replies or direct messages. Retweeting and replying to messages is a good way to engage your audience.

When using multiple social networks, consider tools that will help you to manage your followers more effectively.

Followerwonk (followerwonk.com) and ManageFlitter (manageflitter.com) are apps that help you organize your Twitter followers – and those whom you follow – by parameters such as number of followers and age of account. This feature can help you determine which followers to target with retweets and replies.

These analytics tools can extend into status monitoring, too. Tools such as Hootsuite (hootsuite.com), from HootSuite Media Inc. in Vancouver, will show you analytics such as who clicked on your links the most, who is retweeting you and how influential they are. It also will tell you how many people you’re reaching through these methods. Analytics tools also can help you to make decisions, such as the time of day to post messages to get the maximum reach or which keywords are most popular.

A variety of tools offering features such as these will help you manage multiple accounts on different social networks at once. Hootsuite, which supports platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare and, to some extent, WordPress, offers a free service. Hootsuite also offers premium accounts with extra features, such as unlimited social network profiles, free reports and compatibility with Google Analytics for analysing website traffic.

Tweetdeck (www.tweetdeck.com) is another social media management tool that offers web- and desktop-based versions. Owned by Twitter, Tweetdeck also supports Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace (the last of which is aimed primarily at a younger audience and unlikely to attract an audience suitable for financial advisors).

Seesmic (https://seesmic.com), from San Francisco-based Seesmic Inc., is yet another alternative that supports the holy trinity of social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter). This product, available on the web or as a desktop app, features integration with more than 90 third-party plug-ins. These include a variety of other social networks, along with the StockTwits financial information community and a variety of news sites.

If you expect to have team members helping you to produce, edit and schedule your posts, a tool that offers collaboration among multiple users will allow you to delegate specific social media management tasks to your colleagues.

Finally, consider mobile access when choosing a social media management tool. Most now offer smartphone apps that will allow you to monitor your social media streams and make posts while on the move.

Social media management needn’t be a headache, but this task needs decent technology to do it effectively. Choose wisely when setting up your management system to minimize work later on. IE

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