10th April 2013

Social Stream Case Study: Paul Smith

Managing Director, Provident Solutions
www.providentsolutions.co.uk

Background

Paul has 25 years experience in the financial advisory profession. Starting as a bank adviser, he was the a Sales Manager at Prudential a while and spent 5 years with Clerical Medical then 4 years training advisers on a freelance basis for various companies before starting his own practice in 2003. He has segmented his client base to focus on his top 80 clients and is currently adding circa one new client per month.

Business Challenge

With limited resources and a keen eye on profitability, Paul’s principal business development objective is find the right clients while maintaining the high level of service he provides to existing clients.

Paul’s sweet spot is clients that have retirement on their mind, a group he is increasingly aware are looking online for knowledge before making contact with an adviser. He wants to help educate this group on the importance of lifetime cash flow planning and be their to help them when they want to start.

Paul has never wanted to bombard his clients’ with sales and marketing materials and has given his personal assurance to very client that he will never send them more than his monthly assessment of the markets and personal finance news. He is using the Social Stream content so that clients’ on his Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn streams can self select what to read and watch and see him as an expert with current knowledge.

Outcomes

Combined with his direct to client use of social media, Paul is using the content to bolster his relationship with his local professional referrer, especially solicitors. He sees this as a way to demonstrate his expertise, and give them some valuable content to share with their clients too. He describes social media a “great brand awareness tool.”

Future Developments

Paul intends to continue using the Social Stream content to build the engagement he is seeing. He is going to invest his efforts in growing his Facebook followers. He knows that not all clients are there, but the ones that are and follow him “are serious about their future.” By increasing his page following Paul believes he will be able to start harvesting the followers.

Reaction from his Twitter activity has been good and he wants to maintain this. Keeping regular updates going out spread across the week was easy using the content and the HootSuite Pro account.”

Advice

Paul says “using social stream has been a real eye opener. At the very least, at the end of using it for a month you’ll know exactly what you should be doing in a disciplined way. My biggest learning point is that I need to get the tone and volume right for the people I want to reach, and Social Stream does most of this for me.”

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