Tell us a bit about Marlborough Trust
Our Head Office is based in Guernsey which was established by Nick Hannah, Adrian Howe, Ben Tustin and David Enevoldsen in 2003, however since then, we have grown at an incredible rate and now have offices in Ireland, Malta, UK and Dubai.
At Marlborough, we pride ourselves on being slightly different to other fiduciary organisations; we are very proactive, forward thinking and creative which is key to keeping ahead in this industry.
You have been an early adopter of social media in the finance industry, what have been the benefits of being one of the first?
We have being using social media tools for over 2 years now, which within the finance industry is a long time. The main benefits of using social is, being able to communicate directly with our contacts and introducers in real time and we have been able to build more meaningful relationships with them.
As a result of our social media strategy, we have managed to create a stronger presence online and we are able to respond instantly to any changes within the industry. For example, we used Twitter to give updates on the budget, however we put our own spin on things which made our tweets interesting and amusing to read, but still factual and relevant.
In which areas of business has social media been most useful?
For us, it’s not just pushing out information and updates to our followers or fans, it’s also being able to have access to instant news regarding regulatory or governmental changes.
As soon as the HMRC released information about the changes to the regulations on QROPS, we were able to respond instantly by analysing what rules were being amended and in turn we were able to inform our advisers about how this would affect them and their clients.
Which social media platform do you feel is the most successful? How do you use each platform and how do you find the audience differs on each?
We use Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn each day, however between the 3, we use Twitter more frequently, as it’s the platform most of our target audience use and from our experience and analytic reports, it’s the one which drives the most traffic to our website.
Facebook has played a key part in allowing us to build relationships and our profile locally. We use FB as an informal platform which is a great way of allowing us to express our personality by posting updates, photos and information about events we sponsor.
Have you found that utilising social media has generated success or exposure both locally and to wider audiences?
We have had time to review our digital strategy and ascertain if we are heading in the right direction. We have had so much feedback from our introducers, clients and competitors; and all of them have said they are impressed with the way we have integrated social media into our marketing strategy and most are now looking at how to develop this themselves.
Have you encountered any problems using social media?
The only hurdle we had to get over was convincing some of the management team how valuable and necessary social media was to drive the business forward. We explained to the management that integrating it into our marketing strategy was essential for brand awareness and building relationships online.
We use a management platform which gives us reports on our activity on Twitter, Facebook and our website, this allows the team to see the benefits of using social media.
Have you come across any misconceptions or myths surrounding social media that you would like to comment on – especially for those considering using social media marketing for the first time?
A lot of people think social media is a fad and that people will soon get bored of it, however from our experience, our followers and fans have grown and we engage more and more with influential people. As long as you have the time, commitment and support from your colleagues and managers, then embrace social media, because in time, it’s going to be one of the most used and valued tools used in marketing and business development.