The Changing Wave of Social and Digital PR for Finance and Investment Industries
Building and maintaining your reputation, creating exposure, and generating leads

Executing an effective public relations campaign is no easy task. It takes more than a few social media posts, hours of research and even cold calls to build brand awareness for just a single media placement. Though the entire process can be time-consuming, the value in credibility, brand awareness and even the potential to generate leads, drive website traffic and edge a firm to the forefront of its competitors is priceless.

Strategy, relevant content generation and engagement must be taken into account when developing the social media aspects of a digital finance-related PR campaign. Navigating the regulatory environment and restrictions to leverage social media to enhance and support your investment industry public relations efforts is vital today in the world of media relations. It is now essential to any business that wants to drive escalating growth, particularly in the investment and financial circles—as you have to take your content to where your target market spends time online.

                                        Angel Oak featured in Financial Advisor Magazine

What is digital investment industry PR?

Also known as Public Relations, you may know the term, but you may not know what it has evolved to mean today in the financial and investment community and how the entire process works around creating buzz for financial firms and their products:

The dictionary defines it as:

1.       The professional maintenance of a favorable public image by a company or other organization or a famous person.

2.       The state of the relationship between the public and a company or other organization or a famous person.

Maintenance and relationships. Two key words that investment experts should take away. Investment industry PR is all about building strong relationships with your peers, the evolving finance industry, and your target market and audiences. When you are able to maintain a respectable company persona and be one step ahead of your competitors, edging yourself to become an industry thought leader adds exponential value.

                             Gartland and Mellina Group featured Investment News

Where MBC Strategic Can Help

Navigating the niche world of financial PR and marketing, we seek ways for investment companies and investment managers to flesh out their stories and offerings in order to differentiate themselves from the sea of asset managers, private equity firms, alternative investment firms, service providers, financial advisors and everything in between. Investors—whether retail or institutional—deserve and need to be educated on the nuances of your investment strategy, as well as the plethora of educative financial topics. The firms that stand out are those that have a precise investment-related public relations plan in place.

                                                                   STRATA Trust Company featured in CNBC

The finance and investment industry can be intimidating for investors—with complex topics and a difficulty in the ability to discern between different investment strategies. This is when a unique PR campaign that is intertwined with a storytelling marketing campaign and a solid brand can help your firm stand out.  For instance, when marketing to millennials, creating an approachable story by taking the time to develop a firm’s brand, especially if you’re a small investment manager, can be the most helpful. In essence, there are massive growth opportunities for money managers and financial professionals who choose to fine-tune their millennial investment marketing strategies. The key is to build trust in your financial investment options. PR is just another important arm in all of this, going hand-in-hand with social media as a routinely maintained public persona — a staple for millennial investors. This is also true in the institutional arena, where well-placed content marketing or media hits can help solidify research and deliver some clarity in the due diligence phase of manager selection.

Even FINRA Regulated Providers Can Sell It on Social Media

Social media accounts such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Harvest are not only crucial in developing your public image but also great resources to scope out journalists, engage with clients and monitor your top competitors’ activity. Social media is sending conversational messages with the aim to influence awareness and eventually sales. Firms should use these accounts and be consistent with a particular tone when engaging with their audience. Investment firms and asset managers can do this by using relevant hashtags, links and images, and tagging journalists they want to reach out to and re-post topical news. This is the voice of the firm and changing that voice can result in loss of trust and the audience. Digital PR is about sending a message without seeming to influence sales, so the tone and approach are different.

The PR audience interacts with the content differently and usually in a passive way, whereas the social media audience is more engaging and interactive. This is as a result of social media being more two-sided than PR, which is often seen as one-sided. 

                                                              Reality Shares thought leadership in dividend analysis on Twitter

Word of mouth is the oldest and most reliable form of marketing. Though these are the times of perceived news bias, features are still ripe with innovative thought leaders providing rich advice on every sector of investing. Social media eliminates the walls between members of the public and a brand, shortens the time a company has to react to relevant stories, and blurs the line between marketing and public relations. Word travels fast on Twitter, so firms should use the platform to announce awards, achievements, and the latest company updates. In addition, even if it takes a bit of extra time to pre-approve content, dripping out messages with a consistent and brand supportive voice can be a solid long-term plan for investment companies looking for search engine recognition and a strong digital presence.

Drawing Out Your Digital Investment PR Plan

When your firm creates a drawn-out, monthly public relations campaign around achievements, have your management team widely available for interviews. This can position your firm against competitors, and there’s no better way for potential leads to draw their eyeballs on discovering you through their daily news feed and pick up the phone.

Using platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn, you’re cutting out the third party and offering your messages directly. It’s a much quicker, more direct form of communication to a very targeted audience who have chosen to engage with your brand on social media in the first place. You can actually become the direct source of news about your company or brand by writing a blog and posting articles or media releases on your website. This can help raise your profile and increase your credibility as an expert in your field and boost your SEO efforts—even in the regulated investment and asset management industry.

                                                       Campaign 5000 featured in The New York Times

Uncover Your Financial and Investment Digital PR Strategy

MBC Strategic is an award-winning strategic branding agency from Los Angeles, California with extensive expertise with the full range of investment products, processes, services offering complete alternative investment rebrands and marketing plans. This expertise is combined with unmatched investment marketing experience to create and communicate the right message for each of our clients. Whether your firm’s clients are investors, advisors, or institutions, we understand their philosophy and psychology, and will develop effective tools and materials to target and reach them.

For two decades, we have helped firms build their identity, target the right audience, and effectively deliver their message. Serving clients from alternative investments to mutual funds, financial service providers and institutional investors, we deliver branding, marketing, and public relations solutions.

To learn more about how MBC Strategic can improve your financial and investment marketing and branding solutions, please, give us a call and contact us today.

1.      http://docs.preqin.com/reports/2018-Preqin-Global-Real-Estate-Report-Sample-Pages.pdf

2.      https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/07/millennials-drive-housing-confidence-higher-despite-red-hot-prices.html

3.      https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreacoombes/2018/03/13/millennials-are-good-at-saving-but-investing-not-so-much/#1c33e60b7266