A few months ago, I gave a presentation to financial advisors about something called a “personal media revolution“.
We’ve entered an era where literally each of us has the ability to become our own powerful and influential media company. This is potentially the biggest shift in power we have ever witnessed since the invention of the printing press.
Creating and publishing your own content is not difficult, but it does take time, energy, creativity, planning, strategy, and research.
Most people are more comfortable with consuming content versus creating content, and most are not disciplined enough to consistently create content on an ongoing basis. Those who do, however, will be the ones who get rewarded.
Content generates visibility and builds influence
The power of the influence will be in the hands of the content creators. These are the people who are taking advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity to create, develop, and advance their personal and professional brands!
Will you claim your space for yourself and your firm in the digital age?
To educate your clients and prospects about today’s financial challenges and opportunities, you need to build a system that makes you (and your thought leadership) accessible, available, and shareable. Market commentaries and stock articles about money and finance just aren’t exciting. They don’t speak to the needs and concerns of anyone.
What questions are your clients asking? What trending topics are interesting, exciting, and perhaps relevant to their lives? How can you coach, support, and guide your clients through the maze of news, information, and garbage out there?
The answer: publish high quality content consistently that speaks to their needs, concerns, life changes, goals, and dreams
You must become a digital publisher if you want to build influence, attract and engage your target audience, and grow your business. If you’re already publishing digitally and it’s not working, either step up your frequency, or more importantly, have someone review and evaluate your content. More than likely, what you’re publishing isn’t interesting and relevant, or perhaps it doesn’t flow very well.
If you don’t create and publish your own thought leadership content in the age of the personal media revolution, you will put your business at serious risk. Your competitors who do invest in content creation have a tremendous opportunity to grab the attention and the loyalty of YOUR clients.
Ultimately, with all of the noise, YOU need to be the voice that your clients and prospects listen to, and the channel they tune into. Otherwise, they are going to be persuaded to listen to someone else who is speaking to their needs, concerns, goals and challenges. Someone else will guide them, and it could be a direct competitor!
Everyone can be an author now!
Apple recently announced its own iBooks Author program. If you know anything about Apple’s Garageband program for music, it has empowered musicians (and even non-musicians) to easily create, produce, and distribute music for little or no cost! With iBooks, it is going to be amazingly simple now to create, publish, and distribute your own ebooks!
Wow, that’s powerful.
iTunes, in and of itself, is becoming a full blown consumer content library with music, movies, podcasts, and now ebooks being produced and offered by anyone who wants to create this content!
In case you haven’t noticed, ebooks are taking over the world of physical books. Sad, but true. Kindle already has an ebook publishing tool for individuals. Do you realize how much credibility publishing a book, or even an ebook can give you?
There is a unique window of opportunity RIGHT NOW to go out and claim your space in this digital revolution. Who will you lead? How will you differentiate yourself? What unique message do you have to share? How can teach, motivate, and inspire your clients and prospects?
Building influence, by default, breeds business growth. It opens doors to new opportunities, from introductions and referrals to speaking engagements, media exposure, strategic business partnerships, and much more. Think beyond new clients. You can’t even imagine the opportunities that await you.
A Content-Driven Website or Blog is Key.
If you don’t have a tool where you can easily publish and showcase the content that you create, how are you going to manage this process? Brochure-based, static websites won’t work for a couple of reasons. They aren’t built to allow for simple publishing and content distribution. Traditional websites are also a place for business information and client tools for activities such as logging into their accounts! Most of the financial advisor websites I see are client portals, not tools for developing relationships!
Blogging technology, on the other hand, enables easy publishing for all of your content, supports multiple forms of content, and integrates seamlessly with your social media channels. A professional blog site is a digital asset that can be built around who you are as a person, who you help, and how you help them.
Your primary “new media” web presence should be focused on relationship development.
Content is the engine that drives influence.
Positioning yourself as a thought leader using content that you create such as articles, videos, presentations, audio podcasts, and ebooks or white papers that you publish are all forms of content that can help you build influence within your target markets.
Content is shareable.
Want to get found by your ideal clients and prospects? Create interesting, entertaining, relevant content that speaks to your target markets. Great content gets passed on and shared through email, social networks, and even through print.
Content drives leads.
If you frequently publish great content, you can attract, capture, and cultivate prospects through providing that content. Some of your best content can be kept behind a wall where your site visitors must provide you with their contact information in exchange for a piece of content such as a compelling white paper, ebook, worksheet, or even for the ability to pick your brain and ask a question! You can get creative with your “special offers” and “calls to action”! (and many will be willing to give you their contact information in exchange for something that can truly help them)
People want knowledge. Share you insights, your stories, and your best secrets. As you build loyalty, both clients and potential prospects will sign-up for your newsletters, events, and programs. In addition, if your content is really good they will be motivated to share it with their friends and connections on social networks.
It’s high quality content that allows you to build trust online.
Choose your content medium.
You don’t have to be a good writer to be a publisher. Are you comfortable in front of a video camera? Do you take interesting pictures? Does speaking into a microphone and recording your own podcast sound appealing? What about recorded powerpoint presentations?
Choose one or combine them all.
Practice builds confidence. Don’t be afraid of this. You don’t have to be perfect, especially when you’re just starting out. (trust me on this, I’m a perfectionist). It’s more about having the confidence to put your ideas out there. Once you begin to do that, you will begin to build an audience within your target markets. Eventually, you will become known as a thought leader if you work hard at it and focus your message.
Can you effectively outsource content creation?
You can outsource content creation to a certain extent. Just don’t outsource your voice. Outsource your process and implementation, and use custom tailored solutions versus canned, ghost-written solutions.
Keep in mind that there are some negatives to outsourcing your content:
-It won’t be YOU. Because of this, there is a decline in authenticity. Some will be able to pick up on that, especially as they get to know you personally.
-You won’t be able to do video or audio without your face or your voice, and these are two VERY powerful content mediums that will continue to grow in relevance simply because they create a more authentic connection with people
-Someone could misrepresent you (I’m not talking about intentionally misrepresenting you either. The fact that it’s not you means that it won’t always be exactly what you want to say or how you want to say it)
-Outsourcing can be expensive if you want to do it right, so be prepared to pay
What if you’re firm won’t allow you to create your own content?
This certainly presents more of a challenge, but you can still build thought leadership and “claim your space” by curating content produced by others. You will need to put your own spin on this content as you share it to initiate engagement and connection on social media channels. To do this, however, you need to have a great system for discovering high quality content above and beyond any firm provided materials. Most firms haven’t built content libraries that speak to the needs, concerns, personalities, perceptions, and everyday challenges of the human beings in your target markets. The content is typically general in nature, and more or less covering news, research analysis, market commentaries, etc. It’s difficult to get to the heart of the matter with generalized content.
The bigger issue with not being able to create and publish your own content is that you really need a HUB to drive your connections back to, such as a personalized blog, or blog-driven website where that content exists. It’s this process that allows you to capture and cultivate prospects as well as build loyalty.
However, publishing something is better than publishing nothing at all!
Everyone has something worthy to share that can help others. You have a story and a message. You have a unique value proposition in working with your clients. Who is hearing your message currently? Instead of speaking to one client or prospect at a time, how about speaking to thousands?
Becoming a publisher is a way for you to lead, teach, inspire, and educate your target markets in a public setting in a way that can attract them to you. As people get to know who you are and what you’re about through your public digital publishing efforts, they will get to know, like, and ultimately trust you.
As a digital publisher in the age of social media, you can effectively build influence to grow your business. It works.
What are your thoughts? Please share them in the comments below!
photo credit: » Zitona «
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