I had the pleasure of recently listening to a podcast by Eric Schwartzman, social media expert, interview Mike Langford, the CEO of finservMarketing about financial institutions’ use of social media, the regulations behind it, and why its so valuable in today’s social media driven online world.
The premise of the interview was Mike explaining social media and its impact on leading financial institutions and their employees. Wall Street’s entrance into social media has caused quite a commotion for FINRA, the SEC, and the controllers of those social media accounts. He noted in the podcast that roughly 44% of financial advisors use some form of social media to reach their targets. At the end of the day, the overriding principle is that Wall Street can’t live without social media - both for B2B and B2C purposes. To maintain a bullish attitude about social media, there are social media learnings for financial companies to consider if you’re with a financial company and want to invest in your social media portfolio.
Compliance Helps You Follow the Rules - Final review by your compliance or legal department doesn’t have to be lengthy, litigious episodes every time you want to post something, but it never hurts to run your online posts by other eyes. Whether its a social media post to Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, an email to clients, or a blog post, a financial institution is ultimately responsible for what’s posted, including visitor comments, and compliance can help keep that on the straight and narrow.
Social Makes it Easier To Reach Customers - Social Media is becoming a popular method for financial institutions to reach new and existing clients. Twitter direct messages, Facebook posts, LinkedIn connections, all serve the purpose of connecting financial institutions to their audiences with a targeted message. Like #1 above, just make sure they’re compliant as Social Media is a powerful way to reach just a few people, or maybe thousands, with your latest financial news or product information in a short amount of time.
Maximize Available Online Technology - First, it’s necessary for all digital financial communications - email, social media, online posts to be archived - to maintain social content. FINRA even says you can’t use tools that automatically erase content. Twitter for example, will archive tweets for 90 days, but new technologies aide in the archiving process, so explore your options. Second, you need to drive your audience, whether its B2B or B2C, to a destination for more info - that could be your website’s product pages, an online newsroom or IR page, or possibly a social media hub that presents all your channels. Driving your audience to one place will increase your traffic and possibly even your sales. That is accomplished through PR or IR software readily that is affordable and easy to use.
Wall Street’s success is backed by talented financial minds that are still getting used to the idea that Social Media has the potential to be their greatest marketing and communications ally. Whether its Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, a blog, whatever the social channel, the opportunities for increased growth through the use of Social Media are endless, and I encourage you to invest in these channels.
On the Record Podcast: http://ontherecordpodcast.com/pr/otro/default.aspx
