Facebook’s Graph Search (the search bar at the top of Facebook) is extremely powerful and highly under-leveraged. It’s truly a “social search.” It’s a search engine based on people, posts, photos, places, pages, groups, apps and events. Imagine aggregating the vast amount of intelligence on Facebook and allowing users to intelligently search the database. Facebook’s Graph Search also responds to a natural language query, which makes it easier to use (once you get the hang of it).
The following are just a handful of ways we think financial advisors should leverage this feature.
Seek Out Major Life Events
There is no denying that Facebook is the home of major life events. We can’t scroll through our news feed without seeing a baby, grandchild, new home, job and more. But did you know you can proactively search for these life events?
Try running a search using a keyword like “new grandson”. Your results are personalized based on your network. The results will be a combination of old and new posts.
Here are a few others searches you might want to try:
“new granddaughter”
“new job”
“retiring”
“wedding”
“divorce”
“new house”
“vacation”
See What Others Are Saying About Your Competitors
Want to find out what others are posting about another advisor or firm in town? Simply run a keyword search with their firm name.
“XYZ Wealth Management”
“XYZ Financial Planners”
Find Someone Who Can Introduce You
We all know personal introductions are one of the most powerful marketing tactics for financial advisors. If you want an introduction to someone at a particular company, run a search amongst your Facebook friends to find out who you know who also works at that company.
My friends who work at [company name]
If you don’t know anyone who directly works at that company, you can also see which of your friends knows someone who does.
Friends of people who work at [company name]
Find Out Which of Your Friends Doesn’t Like Your Business Page
One of the initial ways to grow your business page is to ask your immediate friends to “like” it. But what about your friends who missed your invite? Don’t fret. You can run a search to find out who likes your page and then match it up to your friend list to identify the stragglers.
My friends who like [your page name]
Take this information and send a personal message to each of your friends who have yet to like your page and ask them to support you.
Better Understand the People Who “Like” Your Page
As your business page grows, you’ll want to gather insights into the behaviors of your audience. It’s helpful to know what other pages they like, the types of posts they engage with, and more. To uncover this gold mine of intelligence, run a query as follows:
Posts liked by people who like [your page name]
Pages liked by people who like [your page name]
Photos liked by people who like [your page name]
Videos liked by people who like [your page name]
Favorite interests liked by people who like [your page name]
If you enjoyed this article, don’t miss our new YouTube show, The Stephen and Kevin Show, featured on WealthManagement.com. It’s fueled by advisor questions from Twitter and Instagram. We’d love to answer a question from you for the next episode—just use #AskStephenAndKevin.
Stephen Boswell is the COO for The Oechsli Institute and co-author of Best Practices of Elite Advisors. Kevin Nichols is the Director of Coaching for The Oechsli Institute and co-author of The Indispensable LinkedIn Sales Guide for Financial Advisors.
