As you ramp up your content strategy, you will likely be thinking of ways to get more traction on your blog. But where should financial advisors post content to attract the right audiences and make their content efforts worthwhile?
Luckily, there are countless avenues today for you as a financial advisor to publish your content. From your own blog, whether it’s hosted on an FMG Suite site or elsewhere, to LinkedIn to platforms like Medium, there is no shortage of communication opportunities. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each of these three choices and dive into a strategy that can help financial advisors market themselves.
What is LinkedIn Publishing?
When LinkedIn first launched, only major influencers and industry leaders could post longer blog posts. But a few years later, LinkedIn broadened this capability to all their users in the hopes of becoming a more robust publishing platform.
Pros: When using LinkedIn Publishing, your article will go to your connections, most of which you already know. This is great for attracting your intended audience, especially if you have connected with prospects on the social media platform.
Cons: Because LinkedIn has so many users, your post won’t stand out as much as on other areas of the Internet. Other posts are going to constantly push it down and unless someone is specifically looking on your profile, they might not see your blog.
What is Medium?
Medium, a publishing platform created by Twitter founder Ev Williams, offers almost anyone the chance to be a digital author. The posts are longer form content and are often supplemented with graphics and other visual elements. Unlike Tumblr, a visual blogging site, Medium focuses more on copy and separates the posts into helpful categories.
Pros: Medium is a large platform, meaning that you will likely gain more readership and they have done a lot of the marketing work for you. People can also subscribe to your posts and get updates when you write something new. Medium also offers an array of design options that other publishing platforms (like LinkedIn) don’t.
Cons: Because Medium’s readership is so large, it is harder to attract your ideal clients. As a financial advisor, you likely have a niche that you serve. While you may get more views on your blog or website, it’s hard to predict how many of these visits will be potential clients.
Your Own Website
Lastly, you can always host your own blog on platforms like WordPress or our FMG Suite content management system. These blog posts can be shared on social media or just live on your website, depending on how much marketing you want to do for them.
Pros: When posting on your own website, you have complete ownership of what that post does and what it looks like. And, all traffic will be directed back to your site which can increase conversion rates.
Cons: Most independent financial advisors don’t have the network that the big hitters like LinkedIn and Medium do. Your blog will only get as much viewership as you promote, meaning that you will have to advertise your blog on your own to get more traction.
Depending on your needs, one platform might stand out more than the others. Let’s now look at a way you might use all three to really ramp up your content strategy!
Combine Efforts to Market Your Blog
The publishing platforms we laid out aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, most marketers recommend combining bits and pieces of each to create a more cohesive brand strategy. Below is an example of the steps you could follow to utilize all your resources:
- Post your blog on your personal website first. Use a scheduling tool, like our blog post scheduling tool, to push the blog post out to email contacts and your social profiles.
- After your initial push, come back to the post in a few weeks and create a LinkedIn Publishing update. You may want to only post half the blog and if readers want to read the rest, direct them to your website. This will increase website traffic and potential conversions.
- Push your LinkedIn post out a few times to your audience to maximize exposure.
- Once you think you have this audience tapped out, repost the whole blog on Medium. Here, you can build a following and because you already wrote the post, it shouldn’t take long.
Thanks to the age of the Internet, anyone can be a cyber-author. For more tips on how to write content and get started, check out our newest whitepaper, Tips and Tricks to Writing Web Content Like a Pro.
