There is no faster method of social media suicide for the finance marketer than to be found spreading bad information about things like stocks, financial opportunities, investment strategies, etc. In any finance industry, the need for accuracy and transparency is obvious.
When people look to you for advice on anything, they expect you to be trustworthy. This is especially true in matters of their money, health, and other things that have positive or negative life-changing potential, should they decide to listen to you or trust you.
With such a weight of responsibility on your shoulders, how can you know that the information your curate, cite, or use to build your own content is trustworthy? It starts by simply knowing your sources and having a good paper trail that validates the claims in the content you create, curate, or reference.
Today’s message is for finance professionals of every description. Whether you’re a financial planner, broker, or even a finance content marketing pro, every word in this post applies to what you’re doing. What you do with this information could very well determine whether you will continue building the kind of credibility that makes savvy marketers in your niche successful. The types of content I want to comment on there are these:
• Content You Create
• Content You Curate
• Content You Share on Social Media
• Content You Reference in Emails, Blog Posts, and Site Articles
Think about the above content types as you read and ask yourself if anything about any of your content seems problematic when you’re done. Here are five questions related to content you should keep in mind before sharing it with anyone.
1. What Do You Know About the Source?
Far too often, finance marketers shortcut the vetting process and decide to share content that contains erroneous or dated information. Never be in such a rush to churn out that next blog post or respond to something on social media that you forget that you are responsible for the information you share. It has to be timely and it has to be accurate.
What that means is that it is typically a bad idea to share an article, video, or any other kind of content without knowing all the information it contains and whether it’s sound. Remember that everything you share is content through which you speak to your followers, customers, clients, and leads.
It’s an equally bad idea to base entire pieces of content or build marketing initiatives around unvetted and under-vetted sources. Before you send out that email blast, you might want to delve a little deeper. Before hitting “send,” decide if the advice contained in the content is the same advice you’d personally give a client over the phone.
2. Do They List or Cite Their Sources?
If so, better vet those, too. Major sources with built-in credibility, like Forbes or The New York Times, are typically safe spaces. Blog X typically is not — unless there is a continuing paper trail to the real source.
Whenever possible, trace information back to its original source. It’s far too easy a trap to fall into. Let’s say someone posts a powerful, motivational message that credits some celebrity as the person who said it. You retweet it. You build an email sequence out of it. You use the celebrity’s name in the subject lines. You do all that and get really, really excited, only to find out (read: only to be told loudly by some of your soon-to-be ex-followers) that Celebrity X never said any such thing. Please, don’t be that person. It will only wreck your credibility.
3. How Old Is the Content They Reference?
It’s also way too easy to get caught up in an idea to the point where you don’t realize how dated it is, especially in areas of finance. As an accountant, for example, you don’t want to curate content that references outdated information about tax law. Just because most of the information looks right after a five-second glance, that doesn’t mean it is. If you build a blog on information from 2016, someone is going to notice. See the parenthetical comment above about ex-followers.
4. Is the Information Verifiable Through at Least Three Credible Sources?
You can also test the validity of information by simply Googling the topic and a couple keywords that identify the subject and then seeing how many sources agree. You want to see identical reports in as many sources as possible. Set the bare minimum to three. Some examples of the types of content that demand this level of accuracy include:
• Stock Quotes
• Relevant News Stories
• Direct Quotes from Anyone
• Significant Dates
5. What if You Turn out to Be Wrong Anyway?
Hey, it happens. We all mess up once in a while. Whether it be the result of exuberance, lack of research, or just an errant keystroke that sets off a powder keg on social media, you need a quick fix. The solution may seem simplistic, but it’s very effective. Are you ready? Here it comes.
Apologize.
You would be amazed by the kind of mileage a little sincere mea culpa can get. Continue the thought by promising and delivering better-vetted finance content in the future.
Just Dodge the Bullet Altogether
However, you can avoid those mea culpa moments by working with a writing team that does all of the above and manages each type of content (and more) responsibly.
At BeezContent, we have a strong team of both in-house and freelance finance copywriting professionals who are ready to not only develop great content for your little corner of finance content creation but also protect your reputation. We do this by making sure the information in your content is sound, timely, and well-positioned to make you look good to everyone who consumes your content. Contact us today to learn more and discuss your next finance content marketing project.
