Create Pre-Packaged Posts: Spend a chunk of time creating a collection of pre-packaged posts, pictures, quotes, article links, that you can pull from when you’re really busy. Here at FSM, we like to create a library of quotes and posts to draw from when we need fast content.

Use social media aggregation tools: There are a medley of great social aggregation platforms to schedule content for all of your social platforms in one easy place. Tweet Deck and Hootsuite are among our list of favorites. Sign up and save hours of time.

Create an editorial calendar: Editorial calendars are an awesome way to map out your entire social media marketing strategy. They not only help you strategize your content, they also promote continuity between different social platforms and ensure that everyone (associates, guest contributers, ect.) is on the same page.

Hire an intern or delegate responsibility: Social media should be a collaborative effort. If you’re the only one managing the social media operations, you might consider rotating the responsibility between others in the office. As long as your brand’s voice is consistent, this is a great way to keep ideas fresh and evenly distribute the load.

Guest Contributors: Having guest contributors—especially when it comes to the blog—is an incredible time saver. Not only that, but it keeps your blog fresh with creative voices. Find a list of people and publications that you can exchange content with. Chances are they’re scrambling for posts too, so it’ll be great opportunity to build a mutually beneficial relationship rooted in sharing content.

Use your phone: We all have times when we’re waiting in the grocery line or at the DMV—use these opportunities to post to your social networks on your smartphone. Who says you can’t kill two birds with one stone?

RSS Feeds: RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it is a great way to keep a constant stream of posts on your platforms. Because it’s automated, you don’t have to worry about posting or visiting the website. To set it up, all you have to do is visit a website/publication and select an RSS feed that parallels the interests/needs of your target audience. From there you can select how often you’d like the feed to appear on your platforms.

Google Alerts: Google Alerts are e-mail updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your queries. All you have to do is enter a search query you wish to monitor and select how often you’d like to receive updates. Google Alerts are great for monitoring a developing news story and keeping current on a competitor or industry trends—all of which are great springboards for blogs, videos, tweets, and Facebook posts.

Personalized Content: So you can’t seem to find and/or develop interesting content today? Try taking a step outside of the norm and posting something personal, such as pictures from your last vacation, your daughters graduation, or your latest speaking engagement. There is nothing wrong with sprinkling personal touches onto your social platforms. As financial advisors, this is a great way to save time and build trust with clients, leads, and prospects.

Daily Social Workouts: Daily Social Workouts offer some great routines and guidelines for daily posting on your social networks. It not only takes away the think-work associated with posting and engaging, it also teaches you  a great deal about how and when to engage.

While the latter options offer some great tips for saving time, remember that social media is personal and “in the moment”. Your audience will really appreciate seeing real, genuine posts from your business, for they are interested in you more than anything.  How do you save time and increase efficiency with social media?

Either way, this aspect of the advisory business is so important that a refresher course is always welcome.

Remember, the goal here is never to create homework for your clients or yourself, for that matter. You’re not demanding “referrals.” What you want is to be the person your clients recommend.

1.) Don’t torture your clients.

Asking your clients to list people they know who can benefit from your services is a form of torture for them and for you. Do the homework yourself. When a client comes in, create a list of people he or she knows that would fit your ideal client profile. Then during the meeting, ask for specific introductions. To create the list of introductions, look at your clients’ social networks. Start with people they are connected to on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Focus on people they may work with, went to school with or have interests in common — think book clubs as well as golf clubs.

2.) Have a method to your madness.

If you have trouble asking for referrals, your clients may feel equally awkward advertising your services to their friends and colleagues. Depending on a given client’s temperament, you can offer three different ways to help with the introduction:

• If they don’t feel comfortable broaching the subject themselves, ask them if you can reach out on their behalf and mention their name as an existing client.
• Should they want to approach the friend themselves, provide a thumb drive that contains information about your firm, including an article or blog you have written that would be of personal interest to the prospect. This way, your client doesn’t have to sell you. All he or she needs to do is deliver the “message.”
• Finally, if your client is comfortable with the idea, offer to take all three of you out for lunch, a round of golf or a client event. This rewards your client for the referrals and gives you a no-pressure context for demonstrating your expertise and “bedside manner.”

3.) Be consistent and thankful.

In all of your communications with clients, in person, on the phone or via email, make sure you thank them for working with you and remind them about the problems you solve along with your willingness to have a free, no-obligation meeting with anyone they think would benefit from your services.

This is the core call to action in any referral-based prospecting plan. Keep it in front of your clients, and when they encounter someone in their lives who needs financial advice, odds are good they’re think of you.

Let’s face it, many seeds whittled and faded; but others probably developed into fruitful returns on your investment of time and energy.

Similar to relationship building meetings and events, social media offers the platforms to spread the seeds of your business to the world. Measuring the growth of the seeds, however, can be a challenging concept to grasp; but It begins by shifting your definition of your return on investment (ROI) and developing a solid list of key performance indicators (KPI). Below are two indispensable strategies to consider when it comes to measuring social media ROI:

1. Change Your Perspective: In the old days (1990’s), it was easy to launch a marketing campaign and measure the success via bottom line growth. With social media marketing, it’s a little different. Many advisors (understandably) struggle grasping the benefits and potential returns of social media. With a little shift in perspective, however, the benefits and/or returns are hard to ignore.

• Cost Savings: Let me state the obvious: social media is cheap and in many cases free. By having stellar social media processes and operations, you will save your company a boat load of money that otherwise would be spent on costly marketing campaigns. Don’t ignore this when examining benefits and returns.
• Search Engine Rankings: Google is the #1 search engine tool in the world and is an integral part of many people’s’ day-to-day lives. Think of social media as the vehicle to increased search engine rankings and ultimately worldwide exposure.
• Cost Avoidance: If you’ve accepted it or not, people are talking about your business on social media. Whether or not you choose to participate in this conversation is up to you. I don’t know about you, but if I knew people were talking about me in real life, I’d want to be there to save face. On social media, you have the power to not only listen in, but monitor the conversations that are buzzing about your business. Just think—putting an end to one negative conversation may result in one new client that may have never looked twice.
• Sales and Revenue: Just because the “bottom line” is no longer the only measure of success, it doesn’t mean it should be ignored. Continue to measure the relationship between your business’ bottom line and your social media efforts. Still shaking your head? Check out some of these success stories.
• Social Capital: Social capital refers to the collective or economic benefits of knowing people. In other words, the more people you know, the more likely you are to gain referrals and prospects, get preferential treatment, a develop your “celebrity” so to speak.

2. Keep track of the seeds that grow with KPI: Key Performance Indicators are the mediums through which your business assesses success. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of measuring your performance. You’ll waste years of time and energy if you fail to do so. Here’s how you can get started:

• Create Categories: Choose metrics that you can translate into business categories, such as sales, leads, customer satisfaction, customer interaction, ect. Determine these categories based on the goals of your business. For example, if you’re seeking to increase referrals, use referrals as a unit of measurement.
• Stop Fixating on your “likes”: Define more than just “attention” metrics (# of followers, ect). For financial professionals, it takes time to develop a large following. And, while it’s great to have as many followers as possible, it’s essential to expand your attention to other areas such as higher search engine rankings, follower engagement (likes, comments, shares), and weekly total reach.
• KPI’s for each social network: Each social network is different. On Facebook you may measure your “weekly total reach” whereas on YouTube you may measure the # of video views. Regardless, make sure you cater KPI’s to the specific network.

3. Check out some Monitoring Gems: Below are some awesome, free tools to help you gauge the performance of your social media marketing. The information and insights you obtain from these sources will be useful in all realms of your business. 

• Facebook Insights: Facebook Insights is a great tool to measure the impact of your posts, how many people are talking about your page, demographics, and your weekly total reach outside of your fanbase. You can access insights by logging into your business page and clicking on the admin panel.
• Google Analytics (free): With Google Analytics, you can insert a line of code into your website and keep track of how people get to your site, how they navigate through it, and how long they stay.
• YouTube Channel Stats: On YouTube, you can keep track of video views, demographics, playback locations, traffic sources, audience retention, subscribers, views and more.
• Going Up!: This is another free web analytics package that helps you monitor traffic trends, SEO, keywords, and user profile data.
• LinkedIn: LinkedIn is not necessarily a monitoring tool, but it can provide good information about your connections. Use it to keep track of what your competitors, industry trends, and hot discussions.

How does your business measure social media ROI? Leave a comment to let us know?

A study conducted by AdvisorWebsites.com

Audience
Financial advisors and members of the financial services industry in Canada and the USA:
23% from Canada
77% from the USA

147 financial professionals completed the survey, all of which being either a financial advisor, broker or RIA

Timeframe
The study was conducted online between August  2nd and August 24th 2011
Note: 31% of the responses were submitted from mobile devices!!

DOWNLOAD THIS STUDY – pdf 95.6kb

Results

• 94 financial professionals reported they had heard about Google+. This represents 64% of the participants to this August 2011 study.
• 53 didn’t hear about the new social network launched by Google 6 weeks ago. This is interesting given the amount of press & media coverage received by G+
• 44 out of 94 financial professionals reporting they had created a profile and were using Google’s new social networking site.
• Lack of invite was the top reason why advisors were not using Google+, tied with the professionals not ready to take on a new social network just yet.
• Only 10% mentioned compliance as their main reason for not using Google+, which was a surprise.
• Most of the financial professionals currently using G+ (50%)  learnt about it through media and press coverage.
• The study also shows that colleagues and friends’ recommendations were the driver for just over 20% of the respondents. Quite low given the nature of social media.
• Every financial professional currently using G+ rate their experience from medium to high, with 37% giving it a note of 8 and more. This is a huge accomplishment for a social network that was launched 6 weeks ago.

Social media has single-handedly granted more power to the consumer to be publicly vocal about their experience. But they’re not the only ones. You, as a business, also have the opportunity to listen, monitor, and address the words that are being said about your business. Whether you choose to seize that opportunity or not is up to; but regardless, people will and are voicing their experiences and opinions about your business online.

So how can you adapt to this social shift? First off, revisit the old saying “if you can beat em’, join em’”. In other words, have a social presence and actually participate in the conversations regarding your business. Secondly, up your customer service ante. Because your clients have the technology to share their positive and/or negative experiences about your business in a matter of seconds, you have a greater responsibility than ever before to deliver the most stellar, legendary service possible.

According to the 2012 American Express(R) Global Customer Service Survey, the sign in the restaurant was right. Americans will tell an average of 15 people about positive experiences, and an average of 24 people about poor experiences. But there’s more. Results also showed that consumers on social media tell three times as many people about service experiences compared to the general population. Given that there are hundreds of millions of people on social networks, that is a statistic that cannot be ignored.

Results also showed that consumers on social media tell three times as many people about service experiences compared to the general population. Given that there are hundreds of millions of people on social networks, that is a statistic that cannot be ignored.

Here are some ways to amp up your customer service in preparation for the tidal wave of social chatter:

• Know what to avoid: When asked about the top customer service irritants most likely to lead them to switch brands in 2012, eight in ten (79%) Americans cited one of these “Big Four Gripes”: 1) Rudeness: An insensitive or unresponsive customer service representative — 33%. 2) Passing the Buck: Being shuffled around with no resolution of the issue –26%.  3) The Waiting Game: Waiting too long to have an issue resolved — 10%. 4) Being Boomeranged: Forced to continually follow up on an issue — 10%
• Look in the mirror: In the words of Business Wire, “great service starts with the people who deliver it”. Motivate your associates and employees to provide outstanding service and ensure the service standards in your firm are set very high.
• Build relationships: Every great business is built on friendship. View customer service as the golden opportunity to build a deep connection, not as a burdensome requirement. Remember, in this era, a good relationship means free PR via social media.
• Listen to your clients: Instead of snarling, be thankful for client feedback–both positive and negative. Especially on social media. A while back, one of our clients received a heated complaint on his Facebook wall. While this would have normally went unaddressed, social media gave him the opportunity for rebuttal and damage control. His kind, proactive response to the customer complaint was socially visible–meaning that others saw his graceful reaction to the clients issues and concerns. In this situation, he successfully managed the impression of his brand. If the occasion arises, you should do the same. Check out sites Social Mention, Klout, and Monitter to stay posted on the influence and buzz about your biz.
• Go the extra mile: When prospects approach your business, they have a preconceived expectation of how they should and/or will be treated. If you meet their expectations, it’s likely that they’ll move on contently. However, if you exceed their expectations, it’s likely they’ll rave about you to their online and offline friends and develop brand loyalty. Remember: going the extra mile doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. As long as you genuinely care about the individual and work hard to meet their needs, you’ll surely impress them. Approach every person assuming they’ll talk about you on social media.
• Listen to your associates: The people who work the closest with your clients have incredibly valuable insight about what they want and need. Don’t ignore this opportunity.
• Seek to make an impression: Every decision, act, and interaction is an opportunity to drive loyalty and engagement. Seek opportunities that make a positive impression on your business. Is there a local charity event that your associate is attending? Take a picture and post it on Facebook. Is there an award or recognition that you recently earned? Post it. Outside of business itself, social media is the way to tug at the heartstrings of your customers and slowly develop the trust they want and need. Create opportunities to make a great impression.

Social media has granted you the peace to no longer wonder what people are saying, but actually participate in what they’re saying. It has also given consumers the power to amplify their messages about you–so amplify your customer service!

Ten tips for better networking are:

1.) Fuel the conversation. Smile, introduce yourself and make an effort to remember names.

2.) Be clear about your intentions. You are there to develop relationships.

3.) Brush up on your icebreakers. What brought you here? Tell me about your business? How long have you been a member of this group?

4.) Choose your topics wisely. Avoid controversial ones.

5.) Have an answer to “What’s new?”

6.) Be aware of your body language.

7.) Give positive feedback on business-related issues.

8.) Exit gracefully. Be honest and say that you want to circulate and meet some other folks.

9.) Say thank you for connecting with them and learning about their business.

10.) Be accountable. If you said you would get back to them about something, do it in a timely matter.

Carefully observe people’s behaviour in order to learn about them.  Becoming skilled at networking events takes practice, but it is worth it. You never know who you will meet and how it will affect your business in the future.

Look professional for events, and always carry enough business cards for larger networking events and keep them handy. Also, create a follow up system with your new contacts, especially if you are meeting many people and have trouble remembering names and faces.

Photo courtesy of http://www.mbda.gov

So, I’m sure you’re wondering—So what? As a Financial Professional, how can I use this platform for my business? As an expert in social media, I can assure you there are an infinite number of ways to integrate YouTube into your marketing strategy. Below are three key points to get the ball rolling:

How Advisors are using YouTube: It’s obvious that millions of businesses are using YouTube—but how are financial professionals, as a niche, using the platform?

• To Establish Credibility and Reach Target Audience: Similar to your blog, it’s important to position yourself as an expert in your videos. By producing interesting, useful, and timely content, you send the message that I know what I’m talking about. This is essential to retaining clients and attracting leads and potential clients. Perhaps one of the most renowned financial video content creators is Mark Matson’s Matson Money. He creates videos that address a plethora of financial topics. Some examples are: “The Benefits of International Investing”, “How to Build an Inefficient Portfolio”, and “Real People, Real Problems”. The College Funding Connection also has videos that engage their target audience while establishing credibility. Check these out: Why do so Many Middle Class Parents Pay so Little for Children’s College Education? (Part 1 of 7) and Why High School “Financial Aid Nights” can be Hazardous to your Wealth! (Part 2 of 7). The key here is putting yourself in the shoes of your consumer. What would you want to watch?

Strategies for going Viral: Did you know that Google owns YouTube? That means that by signing up for YouTube, you are building a friendship with the largest search engine in the world. Google loves to give preferential search engine treatment for YouTuber’s. Therefore, by creating a YouTube account you’re already well on your way to boosting your search engine rankings. But it doesn’t end there. What are some other strategies for increasing viewership?

• Length: The optimal length for a video is a gray area.You have a maximum of 15 minutes for your video. But before you max out the length, make sure you’re effectively getting your message across while engaging the audience. If you use the entire 15 minutes, the video better be extremely engaging and entertaining. To hover on the safe side, make your video 60-90 seconds. Research indicates that viewers have a short attention span and, more often than not, will quit watching your video if it’s longer than that.
• Entertaining: The most highly viewed videos on YouTube are entertaining and have some degree of shock effect. This doesn’t mean your video has to contain outlandish content, but it helps to integrate humor, quirkiness, honesty, and perhaps a dash of controversy. Similar to your blog, speak to your audience. What are the pressing issues in their lives? What do they want to hear and learn about? How can you address them in a unique, engaging manner?
• Interviews and Stories: To add an extra flare to your video library, aim to integrate relevant interviews and stories. Perhaps you know somebody who can share interesting experiences or insights about retirement or 401(k) planning. Or maybe you know of an individual that paid off his/her credit card debt who can offer advice to others. Be creative. Your videos don’t have to be strictly informative, they can be awe-inspiring too.
• How To’s: There will always be a demand for “how-to” and Q&A videos. What are some of the frequently asked questions that you receive as a financial advisor? What are topics that people struggle with or are unsure of? At FSM, We love to create videos and blogs that address real concerns we have with clients. You should do the same.

• Don’t make it an ad: Steer clear of explicit self-promotion. People don’t want a commercial, they want rich, engaging content. There are billions of videos on YouTube–do you think people are going to waste their time watching a self-promoting piece? Instead, include brief calls to action, such as “download our free compliance guide to learn more” or “visit our blog to learn more about budgeting”.

SEO and Synchronizing Videos on other Social Platforms: YouTube is an incredibly utilitarian platform. Once you’ve established a personalized channel and built a video library, you can feature your videos anywhere. In fact, I recommend that you embed and weave your videos into all of your social platforms, including your website, to maximize marketing results. Post it to your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, embed it in your blog, submit it to StumbleUpon, post it on your wife’s Pinterest page, and send it in your e-newsletter and mailing list. Blast the video everywhere! In addition to posting the video to your social networks,  The Social Media Examiner offers some additional advice on video SEO:

• Title: Make sure your targeted keywords are in the first few words of your title. Another trick is to add a colon after your initial keywords and rephrase your title for maximum effect. For example, your video on saving money for college might be called “College Savings Plans: The 529 Plan and Your Child.”
• Description: Two things to keep in mind here: 1) start your description with a full URL, and 2) don’t be stingy with your description—more is… well, more. Be as descriptive and keyword-rich as possible. This will help you get found more easily by people searching YouTube for your type of content. You can also include more URLs throughout your content.
• Tags: Be sure to include any and all related keywords  in the tags field.

If you want to stay on the cutting edge of online marketing, it is essential to build a branded YouTube account and use it as much as possible. With the rapid growth of videos, it would not be surprising if they completely replaced written content within the next few years. Now is the time to jump on the bandwagon.

The session was such a success and unfortunately maxed out our maximum attendees allowance and had to reject attendees for the first time ever , which is both a good sign and a bad thing.

We would like to formally apologize to all or readers and clients who couldn’t attend today’s session and have decided to publish our PowerPoint deck on slideshare.  You can either download the presentation using this link <Website and blog – social media hubs for financial advisors> or go through our slides using the embed media below.

Photo Courtesy of: http://www.jgardnerdesigns.com

Select a master calendar: Before building an editorial calendar, you’ll need to acquire a master calendar. This calendar must be convenient, accessible for you and your associates, simple, and navigable. It is the map you’ll repeatedly refer to for an extended period of time. If you were visiting a foreign country, you wouldn’t want to decode a sloppy or complicated map—you won’t want that here either. Here are a few calendar platforms for you to consider—but by all means, do what works best for you and your business.

• Google Calendar: Google calendar is a free online tool that you can use to create your editorial calendar. Not only is it simple, accessible, and navigable—it also prompts you to set up reminders that you can synch with your Smart Phone.
• Microsoft Word: There are many calendar templates on Word that are perfect for creating editorial calendars. Depending on your organizational infrastructure, you may also consider using Outlook.
• Editorial Calendar on WordPress: This editorial calendar gives you an overview of your blog and when each post will be published. You can drag and drop to move posts, edit posts right in the calendar, and manage your entire blog.

Articulate strategies and parameters: By developing and solidifying a social media and blog strategy, you and everyone associated with your content will share the luxury of being on the same page. Here’s how you can achieve this:

• Keywords and Length Requirements: This takes us back to our old friend, SEO. Create a master list of SEO friendly keywords that you frequently implement into blog and social media posts. Also create length standards for your blog. This makes it easy for all writers, both internal and external, to create the best content possible.
• Target Audience:  It is very important to have a keen understanding of your target audience. Note their interests, education level, family dynamics, income level, gender, ect. Speak their language, understand their needs, and be aware of the hot, trending topics in their world.
• Master list of Topics: Blog in such a way that covertly communicates your business’ expertise. I suggest brainstorming at least of 5-10 of your firm’s key areas of expertise and services, such as retirement planning, estate planning, investing, or insurance. Use these topics as springboards for social media and blog posts. And as a friendly reminder, don’t ever seek to self-promote or explicitly advertise your business via blogs and social media. As a content producer, you’re here to create content that benefits, educates, and provokes thought for your audience.

Establish patterns and themes: You don’t want to get caught sitting in the office at 6pm on a Friday evening scraping for your next blog post. Here are some ways to plan ahead:

• Deadlines and Publishing Days: Choose specific days when blog posts are due for edits, and days when they go live each week. Here at FSM, we post blogs on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s because that’s what works best for our team. Select deadlines that are convenient for you, your writers, and your readers.  When inviting guest authors, make sure you give them at least 2-3 weeks to write the post—assuming they are very busy and that there will be edits. For social media, here is an awesome daily social workout regimen your business can follow.
• Themes: There are several ways to approach themes. Some people like to create recurring weekly themes like “Retirement Tuesday” or “Money Saver Monday”; others like to establish monthly themes like “April: Taxes” and “August: Planning for Education”. When it comes to developing themes, do what works best for you and your staff. The important key is keeping content fresh and relevant. The College Funding Connection has a “Financial Aid Question of the Month”.

• Holidays/Current Events: Take into consideration holidays, cultural traditions, current events, and milestones. Perhaps you might cater your content to the Super Bowl, The Olympic Games, or the Fourth of July. Regardless of which ones you chose, remember to creatively tie it back into your field.
• Mediums: Many financial professionals still think that all blog content has to be produced by them or their team. This couldn’t be further from the truth. There are a plethora of styles and strategies for producing content. It doesn’t always have to be a cut-and-dry informative piece.  Schedule variety in your social media and blog calendar—such as how-to’s, case studies, opinion pieces, interviews, guest blog contributions, insightful pieces, testimonials, podcasts, videos, commentaries, and more.

Blogs and social media platforms are meant to be fun! Remember to enjoy the process and always ensure that your editorial calendar complies with your social media policy. If you have any questions about creating an editorial calendar, please leave a comment!

On this day one 100 years ago, the infamous Titanic had already departed on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic.  Most of us are well aware of the famous James Cameron film inspired by the Titanic and its doomed voyage, but did you also know that there are apps and Twitter accounts dedicated to the tragic voyage as well?  Just like @RealTimeWWII, you can follow @TitanicRealTime, which includes tweets from the different passengers onboard the luxury ocean liner.  The minds behind this project, The History Press, were creative enough to includes hashtags in their tweets such as #firstclass, #crew and #thirdclass.  Followers are able to learn via tweet that the #firstclass passengers were “treated to a marvelous meal with excellent company”, while one #passenger shared how he is looking forward to seeing New York for the very first time.

@TitanicRealTime on Twitter

With over 62,000 followers, social media lovers and history buffs alike can “experience the Titanic’s epic journey with minute-by-minute tweets as if from on board the ship itself”.    Not into Twitter?  Why not download National Geographic’s “Building Titanic” iPad app?  Its photos and passenger accounts will make you feel as if you are on the ship yourself.  If video is more your thing, watch Titanic 100, National Geographic’s animated video on how and why the Titanic sank.

James Cameron and National Geographic have released a new CGI of How the Titanic Sank

Even social media’s new kid on the block, Pinterest, is showcasing the Titanic’s 100 year anniversary.  The Smithsonian Institute has a Pinterest board called “Titanic at 100″, which provides a digital scrapbook of artifacts, exhibitions and material from the museums, archives, and media from Smithsonian Magazine about the Titanic disaster on April 14, 1912

Titanic Pins Provided by the Smithsonian Institute

Whether you start following the Titanic’s voyage on Twitter or Pinterest, encounter photos and testimonials via the educational app, or watch the sinking on Youtube, take notice of the way social media is capturing the attention of a generation engaging on social media.  Technology is providing us with new and exciting ways to connect with the past and make important stories and ideas stand out against the rest.

I am constantly surprised at how the old and new meet – these historical events that we’ve heard about over and over again in school and in our history books are being given a new life through social media.  Therefore, no matter what your industry – education, financial services, or non-profit – challenge yourself to put a new spin on the way you market your content.  The most off the wall and creative ideas may be the answer to your social media success.