Navigating social media

How to manage social media in your day-to-day

Except from Investment News special supplement published November 2014.

What are you doing now for marketing? Are you using social media?

SYBIL VERCH, Western Regional Manager, Senior Vice President, Private Client Group, Raymond James Ltd.: If you would have asked me a year ago how involved I was in social media I would have said, what’s a hashtag?

I am all over it now. I do my social media once a week for 15 minutes. I can get my regular posts done in about five, and then I can get some of the other ones done in the next 10. Once you start doing it you get quicker at it. And I also find when I’m reading articles now I can’t turn it off. So I’ll dog-ear a good article and stick the magazine in my purse. When my 15-minute time block comes up on Friday, I pull it out. Or sometimes if I feel inspired it will take me one minute to do that post right then and there.

My niche market is working with high net worth, successful female CEOs, entrepreneurs and their families. I make sure that everything that I post is directed at my target audience.

You find a way to hook them and then they read the article or they don’t, which doesn’t matter, really. You’ve had a few seconds to capture their attention. And if you haven’t, it’s gone, but that’s okay, tomorrow is another day.

Something else you can do is target your clients and pros­pects. I know who the women in my city are that I would love to connect with. So I start following them on social media, see what articles they’re posting and favorite the articles I like. I also re-tweet their articles.

As soon as I do that, my name starts coming up on their dashboard. Oh, Sybil Verch re-tweeted this. Oh, Sybil Verch likes … who is this Sybil Verch woman? They start looking into it.

If I am reading a magazine or the paper and see a woman in town who recently won an award or was profiled in a magazine, I will take a picture of the magazine, the article, and I will tweet the picture. I say “congratulations @,” what­ever her handle is, and “you inspire women.” I’ll post it and, boom, it’s out.

Media, same thing. If you point out things you like, and give credit where credit is due, you will start appearing on all of these other people’s radar.This has made a huge difference for me. It has increased my profile and opened the door to all kinds of events where I’m networking with those women that I want to network with, getting interviewed for magazines. It’s powerful.