AdvisorBid has rolled out an updated user profile allowing advisors and financial firms to load an unlimited amount of photos, videos and other media to the site.
Brandon Spottswood, AdvisorBid’s founder and CEO, said that, inspired by some of the world’s leading social media networks, the firm chose to completely redesign its profile pages.
“We scrapped the entire code for the last version and rebuilt it from scratch,” he said. “Now every advisor, and any user, can showcase all their knowledge and expertise alongside images that display their personality and sense of fun. It can all be integrated.”
Updates to user profiles were rolled out last month, said Spottswood, and the company is introducing similar updates for firms and companies.
The new profiles allow AdvisorBid users to more deeply personalize their profile page with a customizable background image. Visitors to the profiles of firms and advisors can play YouTube videos directly from the site.
Firms and advisors using AdvisorBid can also share their profile and their posts on the platform across LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook with one click, said Spottswood, who added that the platform is also available via mobile device apps.
“I now have the entire financial industry on my phone,” he said. “It’s one thing to have a bunch of information, but we’re trying to tap into the entire emotional experience of relationships in our industry and put it in your pocket.”
AdvisorBid was founded as a connection site for advisors and firm leaders interested in merger and acquisition activity, but Spottswood has greater aspirations for the platform as the social network that connects the entire financial services industry together and with clients and other stakeholders
Earlier this year, the social network added a new “Leaderboard” feature allowing users to search and sort through advisors and firms by average payout, number of producing representatives, AUM and other characteristics.
“This year, we’ve gotten tens of millions of dollars in new annual growth revenue in motion, advisors new to our platform who want to sell all or part of their businesses, or who want to transition o a new broker-dealer or RIA, or start a new RIA and retain 100% of the ownership,” said Spottswood. “We’ve had a tremendous amount of new activity. We’re doing so much volume that sometimes someone will transition their business and I won’t have even spoken to them – and I try to speak to everyone.”