Women advisors use social media more often than men advisors, but the men reported gaining more assets from using it, says Putnam Investments.
Putnam released the fifth edition of its Social Advisor Survey on Tuesday. The global asset management firm surveys a little more than 1,000 financial advisors in the U.S. annually to study the industry’s social media usage.
The study mainly focused on how advisors are taking advantage of social media and also examined usage differences between men and women.
More women (89 percent) than men (84 percent) in the survey have used social media activity to gain clients. In asset gains though, women lagged behind men by an average of $1 million. Putnam found that male advisors reported an average increase of $5.1 million and a median of $1.8 million in assets gained, while women reported an average of $4.2 million and a median of $900,000.
The study showed that advisors with $100 million in AUM were more likely to have acquired clients through social media. Eighty-seven percent of these advisors have used social media to attract clients, and their assets gained averaged $7.8 million with a median of $4.2 million.
Women represented 24 percent of the advisors managing more than $100 million in AUM and they acquired the most assets from social media. The women reported they brought in an average of $16.2 million from their social media use compared with an average of $14.3 million for men.
Financial Advisor magazine talked to a few advisor who are very active on social media. They said they find social media helps prospects to their site and lessens the courting period, but it doesn’t impact their practice much.
“It’s the website -- and specifically the blog -- that helps me reach and impact (and eventually do business with) both other advisors and consumers,” said Michael Kitces, who writes the Nerd’s Eye View Blog and is a partner at Pinnacle Advisory Group. “Social media channels are conduits to the website.”
Barry Ritholtz, the co-founder and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management, said he doesn’t believe his practice gets clients from social media. In fact, he believes Google search drives business. Social media is just another communication tool to share messages, he says.
Unlike Kitces and Ritholtz, Winnie Sun, managing director and founding partner of Sun Group Wealth Partners believes social media has benefited her practice. She told FA in a previous interview that one of her Twitter followers who liked her Twitter presence messaged her about her services. Sun didn’t mention how long it took her to transition that follower to a client, but she did say the follower turned out to be a multi-million dollar client.