Advisors and their firms might develop better social media strategies if they considered these five thought-provoking considerations from experts at the LIMRA and LOMA conference held recently in Boston.

1. Location-Based Check Ins
Several speakers promoted the benefit of using Foursquare, which allows individuals to "check-in" with each other based on their location from their mobile devices through GPS functionality. For example, a person could check in at a baseball game to see if he or she had other friends there. In many cases, people win "badges" for checking in and can be awarded the "mayor" title, with some establishments providing giveaways.

Another cool Foursquare feature is it allows the user to see "places" nearby one's geographic location. As you click on an establishment, "tips" can be read from others.

Think this is a fad? Wonder if it is just for young adults drinking at bars? Think again. More than 10 million people worldwide are using Foursquare, with over 3 million check-ins per day.

Theresa Kaskey, director of brand management and interactive marketing at John Hancock Financial Network, and two fellow panelists from New York Life and State Farm, say their companies are looking into location-based social media.

2. Social Media's Viral Effect
Drayton Martin, senior vice president, and John Wolfarth, executive vice president and director of digital operations at Mullen, a marketing agency, spoke about how social media is changing how firms talk with customers. Wolfarth encouraged the audience to engage in a relevant way. "Social media is the new word of mouth," he maintains.

The Mullen execs shared how social media provides added exposure when done well. The example they gave was the Darth Vader commercial that ran during the Super Bowl. Volkswagen purposely "seeded" the commercial before the game. In other words, they posted it on the Internet before it ran on television, and they saw 25 million pre and 45 million post impressions online. Those tremendous results came from a lot of brand evangelists spreading the word.

Martin cautioned the attendees, saying, "Stop thinking like a marketer." In this era, it is no longer 'This is our message, accept it.' She added, "Give something rather than just take. Gain affection."

Three companies noted for being successful with their social media approaches were E*Trade Financial, Home Depot and American Express. E*Trade promotes educational information, Home Depot offers do-it-yourself videos, American Express has a small business open forum. Providing free help to Web site visitors helps those firms convert some of them to paying clients.

3. Linking In
Jennifer Grazel, head of category development for financial services at LinkedIn, said businesses can no longer buy attention; they have to earn it.

LinkedIn is providing more news to its 120+ million users, and that's driving significant traffic to other Web sites, said Grazel. LinkedIn not only reaches out to users with profile updates and discussions, but its LinkedIn Today aggregates news by displaying what is most shared by its users, who can also choose to receive news on certain industries. "Forbes and The Wall Street Journal have seen unprecedented site traffic from crowd sourced news [from LinkedIn]," Grazel said.

Even if an advisor is not a focus of the news, this information sharing continues to keep individuals coming to LinkedIn, which allows for more opportunities for a brand to be discovered. Plus, if advisors can be part of the information that is shared, it is almost like a recommendation when it is forwarded.

4. Marketing Is Changing
Christie Campbell, director of marketing at Socialware, provided a quick historical view of marketing, in which brand management was traditionally a centralized function by a marketing team. Through those individuals the controlled messages went out to the marketplace. She added, "Now there is different exposure." That is because in today's environment, marketing messages are sent out by more people and the messages do not always go direct to the target market; they often they pinball from connection to connection.

Nate Isaacson, manager, digital marketing, The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, said, "The train has left the station. It is not about you. It is about your customers, as your customers are going to be your brand. They are the ones that are going to be talking about you." For this reason, he later added, "Social media can improve client retention." He told the audience, "Sit back, listen and learn."

5. A New Media Landscape
Paul Gillin, an author, columnist and social media marketing strategist, noted the average age of those who read daily newspapers and watch the evening news is now in the high 50s to low 60s range. The reason? Younger folks are online. Gillin shared a lot of statistics, including the biggest one: Facebook will reach 800 million users this year.

Gillin also talked about the power of search engines, saying they are powerful tool to help people learn. Google bases its ranking results on value delivered, so even an individual can beat The New York Times, coming up higher in the rankings.

According to Gillen, social media is about creating one-on-one relationships. "It is not about broadcasts, it is about narrowcasts," he said, adding later, "If you're not helping, they're not listening. Stop thinking 'how can I sell?' Think 'how can I help?' Nobody has to listen to you anymore."

None of the conference attendees raised their hands when Gillin asked if they do ROI analysis on their social media efforts. Gillin explained the importance of this and shared a simple formula that uses the lifetime value of a customer, the monthly visitors and the conversion rates. He explained how a firm like Disney Resorts knows that their customers provide $62,000 in revenue over their lifetime. The formula to figure out your own client statistics, is "lifetime value of a customer = (longevity * revenue) * margin."

Gillin ended talking about the nature of media, saying, "It will crystallize and then break apart." He continued to say, "Barrier of entries have collapsed," citing The Huffington Post as an example of a new news outlet that has disrupted a 300-year-old media market. On the other hand, Gillin believes, "Influence will continue to concentrate."

Mike Byrnes founded Byrnes Consulting to provide consulting services to help advisors become even more successful. His expertise is in business planning, marketing strategy, business development, client service and management effectiveness, along with several other areas. Read more at www.byrnesconsulting.com or by typing in his last name in the search field on fa-mag.com.