View Points May 14, 2014

7 Steps for Social Media Engagement

The world of social media is constantly evolving, and to successfully market yourself to plan sponsors using social media, you must evolve with it.
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While it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by these changes and the effort needed to develop and maintain an effective social media presence, following a few best practices can streamline the process and acclimate you to a more integrated marketing strategy.

Create a social media strategy. Planning is crucial. Tackling your social media presence by creating a LinkedIn or Facebook page that you randomly use will do more harm than good. Create a calendar to schedule your postings.  Use HootSuite or similar tools to manage your social networks from one dashboard. Research your competition and their posts. Take stock of what you know and can offer to adviser dialogue and to plan sponsors and post about those things.

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Use appropriate platforms. LinkedIn is considered the gold standard when it comes to professional networking. Identify companies you’d like to meet with and join LinkedIn groups to which their top decision makers belong.  Develop a complete LinkedIn profile to make a powerful first digital impression, including a professional photograph and keywords and skills focused on the retirement plan and investment industry. Use Twitter to quickly interact and contribute meaningful insights on trending topics and market commentary. From providing updates on your company’s latest plan offerings to using hashtags to engage in real-time dialogue with top decision makers, Twitter provides you with a digital opportunity to give your business a more human feel. Facebook provides you with a digital space to post videos and photos, yet another way to promote the more human aspect of your business. You can also take advantage of Facebook Offers as a way to distribute promotions and the platform’s Boosted Posts to promote your business or your insights to a more targeted audience. By building an audience through posting such valuable information, you can easily facilitate digital introductions through online connections.  

Remain current. Keep the information on your social media profiles up-to-date. This includes information about your company’s mission, products and services as well as what you bring to the professional table. Stay on top of retirement and investment news. Use your social media profiles to establish your voice on trending topics.

Stay relevant and consistent.   Are each of your posts geared toward plan sponsors?   Keep them professional as well; don’t post baby pictures and then post an article about best practices.  Avoid posting about specific products and services you provide; instead, post interesting content and links that will appeal to plan sponsors. By consistently posting such content, you can build an audience, relationships and a reputation as a financial expert in the field.   

Be engaging. Engage with others; don’t expect others to engage with you if you are not willing to do the same.   

Monitor and respond to online conversations.  When followers comment, you should thank, answer or address them.  Also, don’t delete negative postings.  Instead, address them immediately and deflect them with a response such as “I’m sorry you had a bad experience. Please call me so we can resolve this issue.”   

Consider a grassroots approach. Though your business centers on marketing yourself and your services to businesses, it’s critical to remember who makes up those businesses: people. Use a variety of social media sites to connect with people in different industries about retirement trends and plans. That will further exhibit your expertise in the field as well as possibly put you in front of decision makers who can bring you in to market your services to their businesses. Highlight independent social media sites where clients have reviewed your performance in your traditional and social media advertising. The SEC’s recent Guidance Update speaks to the scope of this strategy as well as compliance concerns.

The bottom line is that your target audience is going to use social media to research you just as you may use it to research prospective employees or vendors. Will your absence be conspicuous or will you be engaged?

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bob Wilgus is the director of Corporate Communications for RME360, a marketing and lead generation service provider that merges tried-and-true marketing strategies with today’s advanced technologies. For more information about RME360’s digital and traditional prospecting solutions, visit www.RME360.com, call 1-888-383-8770 or follow the company on Facebook or Twitter. You can contact Bob through Google+ or via email at Bob.Wilgus@RME360.com.   

 

NOTE: This feature is to provide general information only, does not constitute legal advice, and cannot be used or substituted for legal or tax advice. 

Any opinions of the author(s) do not necessarily reflect the stance of Asset International or its affiliates.
Data & Research May 13, 2014

Putnam’s Peer Comparisons Cause a Rise in Deferrals

Showing plan participants how well and how much their best-performing peers save is highly motivating, Putnam Investments finds.
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Putnam Investments says the early results from its new “How Do I Compare” feature, which enables participants in Putnam-administered 401(k) plans to compare their saving and investing progress with the top savers in their peer group, are very encouraging. The results, based on nearly 10,000 workers who have used the feature, found that social comparison helped boost deferral rates by 28%, from 7.5% of annual income to 9.6%. (See “Peer Pressure Could Help Raise Deferral Rates.”)

The Lifetime Income Analysis tool by itself drove strong increases in deferral rates, according to Edmund F. Murphy III, head of defined contribution at Putnam Investments. But the newer social comparison feature is raising rates even more, he tells PLANADVISER. “We’re seeing a lift above and beyond that,” he says. According to the latest figures from PLANSPONSOR’s Defined Contribution Survey, the average deferral rate among active participants is 6.1%.

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“It is also an indicator that people are motivated by different things,” he says. “It’s not just how you stack up against the average savers, but how you stack up against the top savers. Our thrust is really around comparing participants to the top savers in their top peer group. That’s what has led to the lift we are seeing.”

Putnam also examines, in addition to top savers in account balance and deferral rate, the key characteristics of top savers. Aside from the numerical data, Murphy says, Putnam makes available to participants information about the other financial habits of these top savers, such as the use of individual retirement accounts (IRAs). “They typically have an outside IRA in addition to a workplace savings plan,” he notes. “They typically are saving for retirement beyond just the 401(k) plan and IRA, using other savings vehicles such as a money market account.”

Another question Putnam asked top savers was how long they intend to work. “Top savers tended to have a longer work horizon than those in the average (savings) category,” Murphy notes.

Murphy says the size of the increase was surprising. “We thought we would see a lift,” he says, “but 28% is a fairly material increase.” Increasing the deferral rate can be a cash flow issue for a lot of people, he points out. They must take money out of current savings in order to save for the future, so the comparisons are clearly more of a motivating factor than he originally thought they would be, he says.

“It’s clear that what gets people to take meaningful action is when you compare them to top savers, not the average of your peer group,” Murphy says. The results show some people trying to move right into the category of top savers. “We provide them with the ability to see what they’ll replace in retirement,” he says. “If you’re saving at 9% or more, you’re typically on track to replace 90% of your income. So that’s a motivator.”

The sooner participants can defer at these levels, the better off they’ll be, Murphy notes. Putnam is in the process of drilling more deeply into the demographics of users that increased their savings and deferral rates, to get a better understanding of this group.

Launched in April, the “How Do I Compare” feature is integrated into Putnam’s Lifetime Income Analysis tool, which projects a worker’s current savings into future monthly income and offers actionable steps to potentially improve outcomes in retirement. The social comparison component enables participants to measure future monthly income trajectory against their peer averages—based on criteria such as age, salary and gender—as well as to the top 10% of savers in each category.

“The early signs are so encouraging we’re going to continue to monitor and track,” Murphy says. “There might be things we can do to make it better and enhance the experience. We’ll continue to let it play out and monitor the results.”

The message Murphy would pass on to plan sponsors is that social comparison works. “It’s a catalyst to get people to take action and to save at rates they otherwise would not have,” he says. When participants have the opportunity to see how they stack up against top savers, they are motivated to reach for a higher bar.

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