Making Finance Clear and Searchable

Cassidy Clement reflects on the creation and impact of the Cents of Security podcast, which was designed to fill a gap in beginner-friendly financial education. She also shares insights from her work in SEO and content at Interactive Brokers, highlighting the importance of making complex financial topics accessible and searchable.

Summary – Cents of Security Podcasts Ep. 107

Mary MacNamara

Welcome back to the Cents of Security podcast. I’m Mary MacNamara, Producer at Interactive Brokers. Today, I’m your host for our podcast, so welcome to the program. Our guest is the one and only Cassidy Clement, the senior manager of SEO and Content, the host of over 100 Cents of Security podcast episodes.

Cassidy is off to a new adventure this week, so we thought it would be good to interview her about the podcast. Cassidy, tell us what was the genesis of Cents of Security, how did it get started?

Cassidy Clement

We at IBKR campus offer several different items when it comes to free educational information, but a lot of it was framed around the idea that you may be entering the area with a little bit more information about being in the financial space, and there wasn’t too much for the beginner investor.

Or maybe our podcast information involved those who were coming in who already took economics or maybe had a minor or major in the field. So, they knew all the jargon and all the things associated. So, I think at this stage of the game, maybe it was three years ago, at this point, Mary, you and I sat down and said, Hey, there’s a bit of a market gap here.

And also, with the work that I do in SEO, I can see what people are searching for, what the analytics show engagement wise. And there were a lot of people who young and old may have just been entering different topics of financial information that they weren’t fully fledged experts on, or maybe they weren’t super familiar with.

So, we looked to create something that formed a foundational aspect that you can listen to in a commute or on the ride to a dinner party or something of that nature. So, you know, the basics and the foundation. So, you know, if you want to learn more about a specific facet or maybe a company within those sectors or those ideas, you have enough information now to deepen that learning or deepen your search to find more.

Absolutely. At Interactive Brokers, we’ve always been dedicated to our professional investors.

Mary MacNamara

So now hosting this podcast has not been your only role here at Interactive Brokers. You are also the Senior Manager of SEO and Content. So, what does that really involve?

Cassidy Clement

Yeah, sure. So, SEO is something that is very near and dear to most electronic brokers hearts because at its core, we allow you to do many different things in finance electronically. So the way that people are entering business these days, it’s not necessarily they see your billboard and they’re on Main Street and they come, and they knock on their door and they say, “Hey, let me get one of those”.

So, the modern-day main street, if you will, in the yellow books of its time is search engines. So, what I work on is optimizing our websites and our content and some of our elements on our websites to be optimized so those search engines are able to add our information to a larger index and that we can be found for people searching and that also goes deeper.

Pass that into, let’s say local listings, mobile search, voice search, AI, search engines, things of that nature. So, all together, if you are searching for it, voice, thumbs or large language model that is done by yours truly, and our team here for digital analytics and UI/UX.

There is a lot going on here with that. Okay. So, looking back, right over the past couple years, are there any surprising elements from the Cents of Security podcast? Did anything make you change your mind about things, especially regarding finance?

Initially, you start out, you’re just trying to understand what’s the flow of conversation, what’s the best way to get the most information when it’s a 20-minute interview, things of that nature.

And once I got that down, I was able to really absorb so much more than just our briefing or kind of reviewing the summation of what we did on the interview. And I think some of the things that were very interesting to me, I always found the behavioral finance side very interesting. So, we had done a podcast with Morningstar’s Behavioral scientist Danielle Labotka, Ph.D., and she went through, Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z about all of the different environments that they were in financially, how it shaped their spending habits and the world that they leave for the generation next that was very interesting.

Looking at the cost of the American Dream was very interesting. We recently did a podcast on the US National Debt explaining the idea of the toddler who ate too much candy. It’s delicious. You want a lot of it, and then you get a tummy ache and initially, not everybody understands the underlying idea of that huge number.

So, there are so many different things. It’s hard for me to pinpoint. I am very interested in somebody with a marketing background, very interested in some of those with a psych area. But also thinking about things like leveraged an inverse ETF’s or items like the understanding how an IPO goes from an idea to getting underwritten, to actually getting a price.

How do we even get there? Those types of things are so important to understand as you start to move through your financial journey. Because your portfolio is always going to change with your financial goals and your time horizon. So, if you’re going to start to incorporate those or the previous items I mentioned, if they go into your research about how you’re going to have to pivot within your portfolio, all of that was very interesting to me.

And I think both the younger generation and anybody who was looking to expose themselves to new areas of finance found that very informative. Also, with the large network that our teams work in within IBKR, we had some really great guests who are top of their field and really brought some great research and really crucial points to what makes or breaks research or understanding of these concepts that a lot of people make common mistakes in.

And I think that’s the real value with Cents of Security is we didn’t only just touch on what we are looking to explain, but we also said, hey listen, these are the common misconceptions here. Don’t just think everything is better on this side of the fence.

Mary MacNamara

Absolutely. There’s a big wheelhouse here, right? It’s good that we can leverage different contributors and also find some new ones too!

So, Cassidy, as we’re coming to the close of this podcast, definitely want to say thank you again and again for your professionalism, your sense of humor, just all those wonderful things that you’ve given this podcast. And then to top it off your SEO knowledge so we know how to get it out there and so that people can see it and find it more importantly.

So, are there any other parting words you’d like to share with us before we you go off to your new adventure?

Cassidy Clement

Yeah, of course. So, first and foremost, thank you so much to everyone who’s listened along the way and all of the guests that have joined us for what seems to be at least over a hundred episodes by the time this goes out, maybe over 110. It’s been an awesome experience for myself. So much learning in all senses of the word.

It’s been really great, and I am so thankful and lucky to be able to have gotten all of this exposure through my time at IB and the great connections that I’ve made here.

Mary MacNamara

So, I think with that said, Cassidy, and we wish you great success with your new position.

And as always, listeners can learn more about our array of financial topics for free at interactivebrokers.com slash campus and just follow us on your favorite podcast network and feel free to leave us a rating and review. Thank you so much.