Crafting Engaging Finance Content

No one is waking up at 7am, sipping coffee, thinking, “Wow, I really hope someone explains holistic wealth architecture today.” People want clarity. They want content that feels like a conversation, not a lecture. They want to understand what you’re saying the first time they read it. Write like you're talking to a real person. Not trying to win a Pulitzer. - Use short sentences. - Cut the jargon. - Sound like someone they’d trust with their money, not someone who spends weekends writing whitepapers for fun. Confused clients don’t ask for clarification. They move on. Here’s how to make your content clearer: 1. Ask yourself: Would my mom understand this? If the answer is “probably not,” simplify it until she would. No shade to your mom, she’s just a great clarity filter. 2. Use the “friend test.” Read it out loud. If it sounds weird or overly stiff, imagine explaining it to a friend at lunch. Rewrite it like that. 3. Replace jargon with real words. Say “retirement income you won’t outlive” instead of “longevity risk mitigation strategy.” Your clients are not Googling your vocabulary. 4. Stick to one idea per sentence. If your sentence is doing cartwheels and dragging a comma parade behind it, break it up. 5. Format like you actually want them to read it. Use line breaks. Add white space. Make it skimmable. No one wants to read a block of text the size of a mortgage document. Writing clearly isn’t dumbing it down. It’s respecting your audience enough to make content easy to understand. What’s the worst jargon-filled phrase you’ve seen in the wild? Let’s roast it.

Many financial advisors struggle to build a strong social media brand. But you don’t have to be one of them. When I first started, my social media presence was stagnant. But I quickly realized how crucial it is to build trust and credibility online For financial advisors, it's especially important to understand that your audience values authenticity and expertise above all else. I knew I needed a better strategy to grow on social media. So, I worked hard to understand my audience and experimented with different types of content. Over time, I figured out what works, and now I’m sharing these strategies with you. ✅ Share Your Daily Habits: → Let people in on the routines that shape your day and your financial expertise → Authenticity helps build a stronger connection with your clients. ✅ Highlight Your Unique Traits: → Make sure your posts reflect your true personality and financial philosophy. → Be yourself; it’s the best way to stand out in the crowded market. ✅ Understand Your Audience: → Get to know your clients' needs and connect with them on a deeper level. →Tailor your content to what they find valuable and interesting. ✅ Be Open About Your Thoughts: → Share your decision-making process and market insights. → Transparency fosters trust and credibility in your financial advice. ✅ Show Your Passion: → Don’t hesitate to be emotionally open about why you do what you do. → Genuine emotions resonate deeply and build loyalty. ✅ Engage Consistently: → Regular interaction builds trust and familiarity. → Make engagement a daily habit to stay top of mind. ✅ Share Success Stories: →Highlight your clients' achievements and how you helped them reach their goals. → Real success stories motivate potential clients and provide valuable insights. ✅ Provide Value: → Offer actionable insights or tips that can help your audience in their financial journey. → Valuable content keeps your audience coming back for more. Your authenticity is your strongest asset. Use it to build real connections and make a lasting impact. How do you keep your social media content engaging and authentic? P.s. ✍🏻 I am Benjamin Loh, CSP, a strategic growth coach and consultant who has taught over 65,000 leaders in over 20 global cities and constructed some of the leading icons (TOT, Award Winners) in the financial industry in Asia through the power of authentic storytelling and authority building. 💪 Enjoy this post? Follow me for personal brand and growth insights. #topofmind #millennials #business

I don’t know what to post on LinkedIn. Every financial planner says this… until they realise they’re sitting on an endless stream of content ideas right in front of them. Most planners struggle to generate leads from LinkedIn, NOT because they lack expertise. But because they’re too close to their own work to see what actually matters to their audience. When I work with financial planners, I ask them to do one simple thing that unlocks endless content ideas. → Record your client conversations (with consent) and review them later. While doing so, we’re not hunting for content ideas. We’re looking for patterns. After a few weeks, recurring themes show up in the conversations: “Will I have enough to retire by 55?” “What if my SIPs stop performing?” “How do I balance saving for kids and enjoying life now?” These aren’t just questions. They’re content hooks waiting to be written. How does it help? The moment we turn those conversations into posts, the engagement spikes. Existing clients engage because they see their own thoughts reflected in the financial planner’s posts. Potential clients engage because it feels like the financial planner is reading their minds. That one exercise unlocks endless content ideas that actually stick. See, great content doesn’t come from thinking harder. It comes from listening better. So if you’re a financial planner (or any service professional), try this for one week 👇 - Record your client calls (with permission) - Revisit the questions they ask most often - Turn every repeated worry into a post You’ll never run out of content again, and your voice will instantly sound more human than 99% of your competition.

Most finance sites chase traffic by publishing more data. Investing.com became a top 100 global website by ignoring that advice. Instead of relying on traditional market data or financial news, Investing.com built micro-communities around each of the 165,000+ financial instruments they cover. Rather than treating visitors as passive consumers, Investing.com turned them into active participants by embedding discussion forums directly onto every stock, ETF, and commodity page. Visitors who initially arrived seeking market data found something more valuable: real conversations, insights, and debates shared by fellow investors. This shift created two clear advantages: First, Investing.com began ranking highly for keywords their competitors overlooked. Terms like "Tesla stock discussion," "Nvidia stock forum," or even "corn futures forum" brought in millions of visitors looking for community-driven insights. Second, these visitors quickly became loyal community members, returning not only for financial information but also for ongoing, engaging discussions they helped create. These forums continuously produced fresh content at virtually no cost, building a unique competitive advantage that's difficult for others to replicate. Investing.com extended this approach beyond forums. Each day, they publish hundreds of user-generated articles: market analyses, news, and insights–all created directly by their community. This steady stream of content further reinforced user engagement and community growth. Without venture capital, Investing.com bootstrapped itself into becoming one of the world's 100 most-visited websites, now reaching more than 200 million monthly visitors. Sometimes, growth means stepping back from producing content yourself and instead creating spaces where your audience can create it for each other.

How to Hook an Audience—Even If Your Subject Matter Is Dry or Serious Most people find finance boring or intimidating. At first, I said no. Then I said heck no. But my client pushed back. “You have a finance background. Why not help demystify it?” And I couldn’t help but think… Can I make finance fun? I love finance. I spent 15 years on the trading floor—I still geek out over financial markets. But I also know this: Most people find finance intimidating or boring. So I took on the challenge. How do you hook an audience—even when your topic is complex, dry, or just plain serious? Simple. You don’t teach it like a textbook. 🚫 Ditch the jargon. 🚫 Ditch the formulas. 🚫 Ditch the “this is how it’s always been taught” mindset. Instead, make it human: ✅ Start with what they care about (not what you want to teach). ✅ Use stories, analogies, and real-world examples. ✅ Help them see the impact—not just the information. Because people don’t engage with data—they engage with meaning. And that’s the real lesson here—great teaching isn’t about dumping information. It’s about making people care. 💡 Want to be memorable? Meet your audience where they are. Make it relatable. Make it relevant. Make it fun. And then, at the end of the session, my client turned to me and said: “Anna, I think you should teach finance more. You made it so much fun! I can see you as a star in this area. I’ve sat through so many finance trainings, and yours was really engaging.” 🤦🏻♀️ (Face palm.) 💬 Ever had to make a dry topic engaging? What worked for you? #whatsyourstory #storytelling

After posting on LinkedIn for 2 years and growing my audience to 50,000+, here's what I've learned and why CFOs, FP&A and Accountants must know: 1. Engagement is earned, not bought. Chasing likes and shares is tempting, but real engagement comes from meaningful conversations. My post, ‘FP&A is not about VLOOKUP or INDEX MATCH,’ sparked comments because it focused on what truly matters: people, partnerships, and decision-making. Use real dialogue, and the engagement will follow. 2. Your audience doesn’t want to read a textbook. Finance teams are busy. They don’t have time to sift through complex, long-winded content. In my most successful posts, I keep things short and to the point. A sharp, insightful takeaway, delivered in a few lines, is far more impactful than an information overload. Make your message simple, direct, and easy to consume. 3. Authority comes from sharing real failures. My post about JP Morgan's $6B Excel error outperformed everything else. Why? Because it exposed systemic risks everyone fears but few discuss. When I broke down how a simple error cascaded into billions in losses, it sparked urgent conversations about controls. Big consequences command attention. Your personal story is your brand. Forget hiding behind corporate words or your company's name. People want to connect with the human behind the post. When I started sharing my authentic perspective and insights, I noticed deeper, more meaningful interactions. Authenticity isn't just a strategy. It's what cuts through the noise. WHY AM I TELLING YOU THIS? The future is more human. If you're in FP&A or any part of finance and you're not sharing your ideas on LinkedIn. You're leaving opportunities on the table. Share real failures. Help others avoid them. That's how you build trust and influence at scale. Forget about getting likes. Forget about looking smart. Forget about being an expert. You are human and you learn from your mistakes. The least action you can do to get started is comment on posts.

Before writing finance content, ask yourself: why would anyone care? James Eagle dropped this at the Geneva CFA annual gala last week. The room went quiet. Think about that. We spend hours perfecting market updates. Polishing presentations. Crafting client notes that nobody reads. But we skip the most basic question. During our fireside chat, James laid out why financial communication fails: ↳ We write for ourselves, not our audience ↳ We hide behind jargon instead of clarifying ↳ We forget humans need stories, not just data The truth is, most investment content reads like it was written by robots for robots. Client updates gathering dust. Market commentary that puts people to sleep. Presentations dying in inbox purgatory. James spent 20 years inside large asset managers before becoming the visual storytelling guru that firms like Vanguard, JPMorgan, and Fidelity hsve relied on. His journey taught him something critical: Clarity isn't dumbing things down. It's the output of truly understanding your subject. Because if you can't explain it simply, you probably don't understand it yourself. Sometimes it feels as if we've been optimizing for the wrong metrics. Word count. Technical depth. Regulatory compliance. When we should be optimizing for one thing: does anyone actually care? My two cents: This applies beyond finance. Every LinkedIn post. Every client email. Every team update. Before hitting send, ask yourself James's question. Because if the answer is "probably not," you just saved everyone's time. Including yours. What's the most valuable communication advice that actually changed how you write? PS. If you made it this far, ♻️ share this with your network and 🔔 follow my profile!