New technologies and social media are becoming less of a fad and more of an essential business tool, offering opportunities in key business areas such as gaining referrals and providing scoped advice, according to Hugh Humphrey, managing director of AMP-aligned dealer group Hillross.
He said the instantaneous nature of social media could also help financial advisers keep clients up to date with important developments such as legislative changes, and that social media was an area where a licensee could really help an adviser add value.
Humphrey said social media services such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn could also help advisers supplement face-to-face meetings with other forms of regular, meaningful contact.
Some Hillross advisers, for example, post regular newsletters (providing updates on topics such as financial markets movements) via Twitter, which allowed clients to choose whether or not to engage with each communication.
Hillross also rolled out nine iPad apps to its financial advisers at its national conference in January, which Humphrey said had seen a collective 720 downloads among the group's advisers.
Such apps could help advisers in providing scoped advice by dealing with each "piece of the pie" separately, Humphrey said.
He said analysis from the US had shown that social media could be used to introduce advisers to prospective clients and help to build networks.
"When an adviser can credibly share information that adds value, even with non-clients, that may lead to them becoming clients in the future," he said.
"That's why we have pretty comprehensive policy around using social media, with a view to not just engaging with clients but building records of interested people that may or may not drive new business into the future."
Humphrey said LinkedIn was doing some interesting things in terms of creating groups and discussions.
"Social media is an element of that refocus back on: 'what are clients experiencing, how do they hear about advice, how do they find a planner, what does a fact-find feel like, how does it feel when you get a statement of advice, what's the emotional response, what's the intellectual response to the advice process?'," he said.
Colin Williams, director of The Humble Investor, said the amount of change in this area had accelerated in the past few years and it could be hard for advisers to keep up. Too many are waiting for help from their licensee rather than proactively engaging themselves, he said.
Williams said social media would never replace in-depth conversations with clients but could be great for creating awareness at a higher level. It might be helpful for advisers to write a blog or newsletter – for example, to have something prepared for an expected interest rate rise that they could send to clients. Publishing that on a website could also help attract potential clients, he added.
A recent Zurich Australia survey found that although 34 per cent of advisers were now using an iPad in their practices, only 21 per cent were using it in a client setting. It found a significant proportion of advisers would be prepared to increase their usage of social media.
