The trend hasn’t gone unnoticed, with The Wall Street Journal recently reporting on the matter.

While some advisors fear that such content may distract from the quality of the services they provide, lifestyle content can go a long way in helping investment professionals deepen their relationships with clients. At the same time, advisors need to be careful in how they present lifestyle content and the types of topics they explore online.

Marketing, of course, depends heavily on having clients developing an affinity, or a natural liking, for an advisor, which can typically be achieved by exploiting a shared background. Former education employees who are now financial advisors, for example, can forge affinity among prospects and clients who are currently employed in the education industry.

Such advisors may want to add web content that talks about how working in education helped them develop teaching and listening skills, which are integral to helping clients. Affinity marketing, of course, doesn’t have to be limited to vocations: it can focus on more universal topics, such as eating, wine, and sports or it can seek an association with prospects by asking age-old questions that may never be resolved.

As an example, Putnam Chief Executive Officer Robert L. Reynolds, whose tweets typically focus on professional football, recently used Twitter to gain insight on an unresolved automotive question. The tweet—Do you prefer an automatic transmission over manual?—is another simple advantage of providing lifestyle content to engage clients. Unresolved questions, and similar types of communications, illustrate an advisor’s human side, which is crucial when trying to build affinity with investors.

In addition, lifestyle content can build trust. Advisors often gain confidence with clients by volunteering with charitable or civic organizations. By volunteering, advisor can illustrate that they have a compassionate side as opposed to singled-mindedly seeking to make money.

Highly regarded financial planning firm Evensky & Katz Wealth Management, for example, has a reprint of a newspaper article about the volunteer activities of one of its principals, Lane M. Jones, who serves as chair of a foundation for a local children’s hospital. Advisors should use their web content to leverage their charitable activities by going beyond simply describing volunteer work.

One simple approach is to use Internet communications to encourage web surfers to join an advisor’s charitable outings, including golf events or other fund raisers. Advisors can then use their charitable activities as a way to rub elbows with clients and prospects, which of course, can be a powerful way to deepen relationships. Lifestyle content can also help drive traffic to an advisor’s website.

In some cases, clients and prospects may get their fill of financial data and market commentaries and then feel no need to return to an advisor’s website – at least until further investment outlooks or other financial matters are provided.

Yet, engaging lifestyle content that can help clients chose a restaurant or select a golf course can go a long way in keeping web surfers’ interest. Advisors need to avoid common pitfalls in providing lifestyle content. For the most part, common sense is the best guide.

Needless to say, advisors should avoid providing strong politic opinions, discriminatory views, overly negative comments and other offensive content. In that regard, the rules for producing content are the same as for traditional printed communications.