Bond MBA student Karin Hanna has been named one of 12 national finalists in the running for the 2013 Financial Standard Social Media Influence, Leadership + Excellence Scholarship, otherwise known as ‘the Smileys’.
The annual scholarship aims to recognise and support financial advisers who actively use social media tools to improve their business practices, and connect with their clients.
The 12 finalists are the top scorers based on a 100-point selection criteria that look at their social media presence, quality of connection, level of amplification of their social media message, creativity in execution and vision.
Karin has been highly active on social media for many years, and says without it her business would never have been born.
“Remarkably, my business evolved out of my involvement with social media, rather than me jumping on the social media bandwagon to try to promote it,” Karin said.
“I am an avid user of social media like Twitter, Linked In and Facebook to build relationships and to listen to what people are thinking and talking about,” she said.
“From this insight and understanding, I built my online financial planning business, Financially Fabulous, to address what I saw was an untapped need.
“Financially Fabulous is very different to anything else currently on offer in the financial services sector; it was created for women, by a woman, to get them talking about money in a fun, easy and comfortable environment.
“Our online video content is highly engaging, entertaining and empowering, which is what the research conducted as part of my current Masters studies at Bond, indicated was what women wanted.
“Finance and financial planning can be scary and confronting for a lot of women. In reality, what women actually want is positive education and coaching, and to learn in a supportive, fun environment.”
Karin is gearing up for the last class of her final semester for her MBA at the end of November. On 19th November, Karen and her business associate Amanda, whom she met and connected with on social media, are heading down to the Smileys Awards ceremony.
From the ‘digital dozen’ finalists, Financial Standard will award three winners: recipient of the Smileys Scholarship, the Influencer Prize and the Conversationalist Prize.
The scholarship recipient will win a $3,000 cash prize and participate as Guest Editor of the Financial Standard Social Media Special Report, while winners of the Influencer Prize and the Conversationalist Prize will take home $1,000 each.
You can follow Karin on Twitter @luvyaa, contact her on LinkedIn or check out her website or the Financially Fabulous Facebook Page.
Good Luck Karin! Our thoughts, tweets, tags and posts are with you!