Advice practices have a significant presence on social media but converting their online activities into business referrals remains a challenge, a BT survey has found.

About 78% of the nearly 400 participants at BT’s three-part social media webinar series are on Facebook and 75% are on LinkedIn.

However just 37% have obtained up to five referrals through social media in the last 12 months and 51% have not.

Most advice practices spend less than 10% of their marketing budget on social media and 61% perceive the most effective social media activity is their own employees’ posts.

Only 11% find that advertising through paid posts is effective.

BT says it conducted the survey to understand advisers’ social media usage and their perception of the online interaction platforms.

About 14% of advisers say building referrals is their top goal when asked why they are using social media as part of their marketing activities. Around 40% say increasing band awareness is their key objective and 39% say they do it to share information with clients.

“These results suggest that advisers may be trying to get the balance right between engagement and sales activities on social media,” BT Head of Platforms Distribution Christopher Mather said.

“And, as with any digital media usage, there tends to be a cohort who are early adopters and, in this case, may be using social media to obtain referrals more proactively. Meanwhile, others are still making their way up on the learning curve.”

Mr Mather says BT hears from an increasing number of advisers that establishing referral relationships is an area that they are looking to improve on, as part of their growth plans.

BT says there is room for improvement with updating information on LinkedIn. While LinkedIn is the preferred platform on an individual level – 69% compared with 60% for Facebook – a third could not recall the last time they updated their LinkedIn profiles.

Just one in two advisers have updated their LinkedIn profile within the last six months.

While the majority of advice businesses surveyed are on LinkedIn, only 41% are actively posting on their company page and 31% of company pages are inactive.

“Over 10 million Australians are on LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking platform,” Mr Mather said. “It’s surprising that advisers aren’t more active on LinkedIn; they may be missing opportunities to expand their client base and referral networks.”