Yes, I saved the most obvious social network for the end in this series. I tackled Twitter first because it is the least understood and most commonly overlooked tool by financial professionals who are getting started with social media. I then wrote about Facebook because it is the largest network of the big three and no social media strategy would be complete without a plan for Facebook. Now, let’s dig in to the power of LinkedIn.

LinkedIn’s Value is Obvious

A simple search for “financial advisor” results in over 361,000 people on LinkedIn who declare, or have previously declared,  themselves to be financial advisors and searching for “financial adviser” yields another 55,000 for a total of 416,000 FAs on the network. This is a 20,000 person jump from about a month ago when the same searches yielded 395,000 advisors. Financial professionals get that LinkedIn is important and they are there in big numbers.

The reason we see such big numbers is that LinkedIn’s professional network structure is very logical and natural for the financial pro to understand. Advisors, agents and bankers are used to listing their professional credentials and LinkedIn makes it easy to enter ones relevant information for others to discover. The concept of having a digital resumé for clients, prospects and referral partners to view and share is a no brainer.

Sadly, due to regulatory constraints and a lack of education on the ins and outs of new media this is usually as far as financial professionals get with LinkedIn. They create a profile, connect to a few people and that’s it.

The Problem: No One is Looking for You

Sorry, it’s true. Despite your amazing LinkedIn profile and the time, money and energy you poured into your own website, no one is looking for you. Sure, there will be the occasional connection request and you likely get a little traffic on your site. The hard truth is however, few people are searching LinkedIn or the web for “financial advisor” or “insurance agent” in hopes of finding the person who will be their trusted advisor. In order for LinkedIn and the web in general to work for you, you are going to have to do a few things. The good news is LinkedIn makes these things easy and if you do them you will have an unfair advantage over your competitors.

Three Game Changing Uses of LinkedIn

LinkedIn is not meant to be a static website. It is a networking tool. Use it as such and you will stand out. Why? Because most people rarely use LinkedIn and your activity will stand out significantly. So, what should you do?

1. Listen for Job Changes – The average person only visits LinkedIn for two reasons. To add or accept a connection into their network. Or, to update their profile with their new job information. When someone changes jobs it frequently means there is money in motion, excitement, anxiety and a lot of questions in the offing. If you are listening, you can be the one to reach out with a hearty congratulations or a comforting tone (in the event of an involuntary separation) and be the trusted professional during a person’s time of need. LinkedIn makes it really easy to listen for job changes. Just open that email you receive each week and scan through the profile updates or go to LinkedIn and view profile updates in your stream.
2. Choose a Path of Pursuit – Do you have a market niche? One of the first rules of business is to “niche thyself” as my friend Guy Kawasaki likes to say. All businesses should have a target market whom they feel they can serve better than their competitors. Your market might be women in tech or Austin area professionals working at software companies or Boston area doctors or even in some circumstances employees of a specific company. LinkedIn’s advanced search makes it really easy for your to find the people you serve best. As an example, if I were your client you would already have knowledge of my 401(k) plan and Socialware’s options program. You would likely know what Socialware does and be able to have a knowledgeable conversation on the topic of social media in financial services. And since referrals are the lifeblood of the financial professional’s business, you would ask me to refer you to other Socialware employees.
3. Build a Big Network – One could argue that this should have been number one. But, I think having an understanding of why LinkedIn is so powerful and how you will extract value from your networking efforts needed to be discussed first. Now that you “get it” you need to get busy building a robust network. Listening for job changes from a network of 20 people or choosing a path of pursuit from a small network will likely not produce the results you are hoping for. As I wrote in an earlier post, connecting to active social media users is the key to success. Think of it like this, if 10% of your connections on LinkedIn were to change jobs each year (likely a conservative number) how many prospects with money in motion would your network produce? If you are connected to 20 people, you’d have 2 prospects. Connecting to 200 people, which is well within reach for anyone, would yield 20 prospects a year. And of course you can enhance this further by building a network with the path of pursuit concept.

LinkedIn may not get the attention of the masses like Facebook and Twitter but as the Grand Daddy of the big three, it was my first social network, it has proven to be a necessary tool for any professional who is serious about building lasting business relationships.

I’d like to hear from you. How are you using LinkedIn in your practice? Have you had success finding clients using LinkedIn? Are you connected to your current clients there? Did I miss anything that you think is really a game changing use of the tool?

This week I would like to talk about Facebook and its importance to the financial professional. Like Twitter, the tool is often mocked by those who haven’t used it or who have created an account and have yet to spend any appreciable time on the service. Additionally, many of those who understand the personal significance and utility of Facebook struggle to see the true business value inherent in all the photos, status updates and games being played on the site.

Like last week, I ask you to stop and think about this concept for a moment.

There is a site where nearly everyone you know (there are over 139 million Americans on Facebook) has an account. On this site, these people are sharing details about everything that is happening in their lives. True, some people overshare but to them what they are sharing is important.

The average user spends over 15 1/2 hours each month on Facebook. During their time on the site each month, the average user shares 90 pieces of content. They are connected to a network of 130 people on average and are actively adding new connections.

Facebook is bigger and much more important than you can imagine.

It is hard to watch TV, read the paper or a magazine or visit a website without seeing a call for action on Facebook. The reason for this is the collision of the social graph and the interest graph that happens on Facebook.

• Social Graph – People connect with everyone who is important in their lives on Facebook and many connect with people with whom they have only a casual relationship. These connections and how they overlap across populations create a social graph. And since people tend to connect with people who have common interests, beliefs and lifestyles this graph offers marketers a powerful medium for targeting their message to a relevant audience. The logic goes, “if your friends like this, you most likely will too.”
• Interest Graph – People also declare their interests on Facebook on every facet of their human experience. They share what they are reading, what TV shows and movies they are watching, what music they like, their favorite sports teams, their politics, religion and more. They share this information either explicitly in their profile or in the pages and content they like or they share it passively through their behavior. As a result it is really easy to target an audience of people who have already indicated an interest in what you are sharing.

While all this might sound a bit creepy and a little big brotherish it also creates a lot of value for the user. An experience designed around what YOU find interesting, relevant and important is much more desirable than a haphazard random walk.

How can you use Facebook in your financial practice to drive value?

To answer this question I think it would be helpful to ask you question. What are some things that your clients, prospects or referral partners might share that would be helpful to you in terms of bringing in new assets or improving the profitability of your business?

To frame the approach you should take on Facebook let’s use the five steps in the Social Business Activity Cycle:

1. Connect – Build a robust network. Reach out and connect with as many relevant people as possible. Think about friends, family, colleagues, classmates and beyond. Imagine how powerful it would be if you could connect with all the great people you have met in your life? This is so important because it’s hard to see value in a social network without connections. Use Facebook lists to categorize your connections as clients, prospects or referral partners. The recent updates to the list feature on Facebook give you a lot of control and efficiency both in terms of sifting through the noise for relevant posts and who see your posts for greater message targeting. Think social and interest graph here.
2. Listen – Use your lists to listen to your network. FINRA has a rule that requires you as a financial advisor to “know your customer.” Your clients are sharing all sorts of things daily. Pay attention! Your prospects and referral partners are also sharing things daily. Some of the things people share like job changes, expecting a baby, getting engaged or experiencing a death in the family are indicators of money in motion. If you are listening, you can seize the opportunity to help.
3. Respond and Amplify – It’s odd to think that a person would take a picture of a tarantula crossing the road, post it to Facebook and expect a reply but that’s exactly why they are doing it. People use social tools to connect and engage with other people. We are social beings, we crave interaction and validation. Your clients and prospects will love that you chime in from time to time on things they post. That’s why they posted. You can be their most engaged and caring advisor. You can be the one who helps spread the word about the cause they are raising money for. You can share the link to their most recent blog post. Using the list approach mentioned above makes it quick and easy to scan your clients for opportunities to respond or amplify.
4. Share – People want to hear from you too. What did you read today that was interesting to you? Was there a Facebook share button on the article where you read it? If not, grab the URL for the webpage and paste it into a post on Facebook. What topics do your friends find interesting? What do you like? Share stuff about that. Be the one who shares the good stuff. And of course you should share timely content about relevant topics for your business.
5. Expand Your Network – Relationships are the lifeblood of a financial practice. Growing your network is a sure way to keep your pipeline full and your referral engine strong.  As you go about life you are going to find new people and new people are going to find you. Friend the ones that look most relevant. Remember, everyone you know has the potential to send you business.

There is a reason why companies have historically advertised on television, radio and print. You put your message where the people are. The same can be said of Facebook as the stats I shared earlier indicate. But there is something much more valuable here. Instead of broadcasting your message to the masses in hopes that your target customer might happen to see it and pick up the phone, you now have the ability to build a large network of highly relevant individuals, build and maintain relationships with them over time and be there for them when they need your services.

So what do you think? Do you see value for your business on Facebook? Are you using Facebook for business already? If not, what’s stopping you?

Three things happened soon after that completely changed my mindset about Twitter and more broadly expanded my understanding of the potential of social media.

1. My one Twitter follower/followee, Aaron Strout, added a link to his Twitter profile to his email signature. That seemed absurd to me until I clicked the link and saw that he had some 600 followers. I thought “Whoa! That’s a lot of people following him. What’s going on here?” My next move was to Google his name and low and behold his Twitter profile showed up in the first page of results. “Ah! Twitter is Google juice!” I realized. Every tweet (post) creates a unique URL with your name in the content of the page. Each time someone from your network on Twitter mentions you, your name shows up on a page. The SEO benefits of Twitter, and other social networks, alone made it worth exploring.
2. I attended a Jeff Pulver social media breakfast event. I had no idea who Jeff was but a friend of mine suggested I attend the event since I was showing interest in social media. I later learned that Jeff is the founder of Vonage and very influential in the social media space. At the event I met dozens of people who were all interested in social media for business. What was really interesting was that everyone was on Twitter. Each time I met a new person we exchanged Twitter handles allow with our standard contact info. I left the event connected to a bunch of new people who were all excited about social media. My network had legs.
3. It turned out that two of the people I met at the breakfast were already very active and having great success in the social media world. Laura Fitton and Doug Haslam each already had a couple of thousand followers. One thing I noticed about both Laura and Doug on Twitter was that when they asked a question they would get a lot of replies. I immediately realized that having more connections on a social site lead to an increased likelihood of engagement from ones network.

Lessons Learned and How You Can Benefit From Them

I learned a few key lessons about social networking in those early days. While these concepts may seem basic to my friends listed above, most people in the financial services industry are just getting started in social business at the time of my writing this post.

1. Attending social media events are a sure way to fill ones network with people who will be actively using social media. At first this might seem like a time waster for the financial advisor or insurance agent but beyond the benefit of building a network and learning social, you’ll meet a whole bunch of potential new clients. So…trust me…start looking for Social Media Breakfasts, PodCamps, Social Media Clubs, Meetups and Tweetups in your area.
2. 100 connections is a magical number. It is not necessary to have tens of thousands of connections to be successful using social media. This is especially true given that most financial advisors need only 100 clients or so to have a very profitable business. Network size does matter however. If you only have 40 followers or friends or contacts the social sites are going to look very stale to you. You will have a hard time seeing value with only a few new updates to look at each time you visit the site. A small network also means that it is unlikely that you will see a lot of interaction with the content you share. Ask a question and you’ll hear crickets. I noticed something magical happen when my connections rose above 100. Suddenly I was seeing something interesting each time I looked at my stream. On Twitter and Facebook I started to see people reply to me when I posted something. I don’t have any science to back up the 100 connections equals a tipping point to value creation assertion but I think you’ll agree it makes sense.
3. Connect with some highly active social media users in real world, offline, friendships. I was very lucky to have met and become friends with the people mentioned early when I did. Very few people were turned on to social in those days and even fewer had thousands of connections. Now, it is relatively easy to find people who are going gangbusters. These people are not only going to fill your stream with frequent, high quality content, they will also help you grown your network and encourage you through their example.

In the Social Business Activity Cycle you will notice that “Connect” is the first step in the process of deriving business value from social media. It makes sense doesn’t it? Social networking requires people to network with. More quality people in your network naturally lead to more opportunities for to spot money in motion events from clients, prospects and referral partners. More connections who are active users of social also means you will be more likely to see people retweet and share your content with their networks.

Activity breeds activity is something I say frequently when asked “How do we get advisors (or agents) moving on social?” The surest way to ensure activity happens is to connect with enough people so there is never any dead air.

A survey of almost 3,300 executives from various industries reveals significant increases in the percentage of companies using social networking (40 percent) and blogs (38 percent); and the number of employees using Web 2.0 technologies continues to increase — respondents at nearly half of the companies that use social networking say, for example, that at least 51 percent of their employees use it.

Among respondents at companies using Web 2.0, a large majority continue to report that they are receiving measurable business benefits—with nearly nine out of ten reporting at least one. These benefits ranged from more effective marketing to faster access to knowledge.

Three levels of social networking integration

McKinsey found three levels of social networking business integration. Internally networked organizations tightly integrate Web 2.0 into their daily work flows, sharing information easily and among all business silos, easing collaboration.

Externally networked organizations spread interactions beyond corporate borders to interact with customers and business partners. While collaboration internally isn’t usually as smooth, these businesses gain advantages from outside sources, and usually have larger percentages of their customers, partners, and employees using Web 2.0.

Three percent of organizations surveyed were fully networked enterprises, deriving very high levels of benefits from Web 2.0’s widespread use, involving employees, customers, and business partners, according to the survey. These firms are much further along than others, seeing the benefits of internal and external collaboration, breaking down organizational barriers that impede information flows.

By forging close relationships with customers, fully networked and externally networked organizations see the largest market share gains. McKinsey finds this correlates with these companies by effective marketing through social networking and involving customers in customer support and product-development efforts. Companies that are internally networked also see some market share gains.

Fully networked organizations also see higher operating margins. In these organizations, Web technologies let frontline staff make local decisions that lead to greater agility.

Most surprising? Increased market leadership correlated most with internally networked organizations, but externally networked organizations correlated negatively with market leadership. However, McKinsey does not believe that external uses of Web 2.0 decrease market leadership; it’s more likely that market leaders use Web 2.0 to strengthen internal collaboration, seeking to enhance the organizational resiliency required to maintain their leadership positions. Market challengers, by contrast, may be more focused on external uses of Web 2.0 to win customers from industry leaders.

SOURCE: “The rise of the networked enterprise: Web 2.0 finds its payday,” McKinsey, December 2010.

Overall, McKinsey finds that 27 percent of the companies have both market share gains against their competitors and higher profit margins. This kind of performance clearly makes these companies profit consolidators in their industries, with earnings growing faster than the rest. And highly networked enterprises are 50 percent more likely to fall in this high-performance group than other organizations were. This finding suggests that the fully networked enterprise could become the benchmark for more vigorous competition in many industries.

Direct impact for financial advisors

A report from Aite Group, based on a survey of 402 advisors, showed that, of advisors who use social media professionally, 36 percent say it has helped them increase awareness of their practice and differentiate them from the competition. While many firms have policies that decrease the use of social media, advisors who use Web 2.0 believe it benefits them.

SOURCE: “Financial Advisors’ Use of Social Media,” Aite Group, December 20, 2010.

“Beyond the benefits that they have already realized,” says Ron Shevlin, senior analyst with Aite Group and author of this report, “advisors using social media feel that the tools can help support a range of business objectives, from building customer relationships to supporting customer acquisition and employee recruitment efforts.”

So what keeps organizations up at night, in light of all these changes? According to 2010 Forrester research, data leakage and ensuring regulatory compliance in using these platforms are among the top concerns of organizations.

Data leakage is the biggest concern, with 82% of large organizations reporting themselves as “very concerned” or “concerned.” In the transparent social web, organizations – especially those with more than 5,000 employees, which is where this research is focused – have cause for concern. Regulatory compliance is another big concern – 66% of those surveyed said they were concerned or very concerned about maintaining compliance while enabling these social sites.

To address these fears, many large organizations restrict access to these and other “non-essential” programs, with almost 60% of enterprises reporting such restrictions. However, as we’ve talked about in the past, prohibition is not the answer.

Smarter companies are creating guidelines and implementing finer-grained controls on a feature-by-feature basis. This gives employees the opportunity to use key social networking capabilities while still giving the enterprise a degree of control. Up to 86% of enterprises have or plan to have such access in place which would allow advisors to, for example, establish a Twitter account or leverage LinkedIn to the fullest, all in a compliant fashion.

This aligns with our philosophy of enabling users to make the most of social networks for business, rather than blocking them. Innovative organizations seek to understand how social networks are used or can be used to build personal and professional networks, then analyze potential risks. The next step? Develop a policy that works by addressing regulatory issues, educating users on the policies, then enable them to use the social networks in appropriate ways. Over time, firms will review actual usage and results, policies will be updated and new ways to make the most of these networks will be discovered.

In short, while enterprises – including financial institutions – have cause for concern, ignoring the power of social networks isn’t the answer. There are many ways social networks will impact business – including creating new referral sources, helping advisors keep in touch with customers and recruiting new talent.

The companies that “get to yes” first will create a competitive advantage, establish themselves as innovators in the industry and enjoy the financial rewards this new communication channel has to offer.

1. LinkedIn Groups Overhaul

Groups are a great way to connect with the broader LinkedIn network, to find new contacts through shared interests and to discuss specific topics. And now this great resource has gotten better. Last month LinkedIn rolled out an improved look and feel with the goal of replicating face-to-face conversations. The new design also makes it easier to use. With a new voting system, content that is valued by the group will rise to the top and will be surfaced for all to see. Combined with the new following capability, LinkedIn has made it easier than ever to stay up to date on group discussions.

2. LinkedIn Inbox Updates

Speaking of email, LinkedIn has completed an overhaul of their built-in email system. Like Groups it all starts with an improved look and feel that you will notice right away on the home page. In addition, they’ve made it easier to manage emails through bulk actions, something we are all used to in our traditional email clients. And although it sounds strange you can finally delete messages in LinkedIn. This is great from a user’s perspective but compliance officers should take note that real-time archiving should be the goal if you are going to open up access to LinkedIn in a compliant fashion (as it relates to FINRA 10-06).

3. Improved Twitter and LinkedIn integration

I’ve shared before my belief that you get the most value from your social networking investment when you integrate your activities together. LinkedIn just made this process easier. They’ve updated their Twitter application to follow LinkedIn Connections directly from LinkedIn.com. Once you’ve installed the application, access it using the “More” menu and start following your connections.

4. LinkedIn “Likes” Addition

We are all familiar with this concept. You read a status update on Facebook, see a picture, watch a video and you click that little “Like” button letting your network know what you are reading or watching and the fact that you appreciated the content. Well this functionality is now available on LinkedIn. Liking a piece of content in LinkedIn will trigger a news feed update so your network can see what you are reading. On Groups, members who consistently contribute to discussions, and have a large number of followers, will be marked as “Top influencers”, making their ‘Like’ worth more than others. Keep this in mind as you work to grow you reach and influence across the 70 million LinkedIn users.

5. LinkedIn Compliance Guide

With all the opportunity LinkedIn provides many regulated firms have been grappling with the compliance issues and trying to balance those with the business benefit. To help jump-start your efforts we’ve outlined almost 30 LinkedIn features, explaining each in detail, associated it with a content type (based on FINRA 10-06), classified it according to the FINRA/SEC guidelines, offered a set of compliance considerations, and provided a specific recommendation to help jump-start the creation of your social networking policy and plan. If you haven’t downloaded this free guide, get yours today.

6. LinkedIn Best Practices (Webinar)

Like many people we talk to, the conversation quickly turns from “how can we open up access” to “how do we get the most out of our investment.” Thanks to Kip Gregory, Principle of The Gregory Group, and Mike Williams of Socialware, you will get answers to this question and so much more. They share their expertise on how advisors and agents can use this great resource to help drive their business. While the webinar took place in June you can watch a recorded version here.

6.5 Upcoming webinar on LinkedIn Social Networking Compliance

If you are looking for more information on understanding the compliance issues with LinkedIn be sure to register for our upcoming webinar taking place on July 13th. Learn more and register here.

I hope you find these resources helpful. Stay tuned for more great content and updates. And don’t forget to check out our newly revamped site for Socialware Insights – all of our Guides, Resources, Webinars and more now live under one roof.

We would hear it time and time again. We are still trying to understand the FINRA Guidelines. We are still trying to define our policy. We have a policy but haven’t defined how to best use these social networks. Comments like this were repeated by financial firms, from insurance to broker-dealers to RIAs, of all sizes across the country. One thing was clear, everyone was focused on figuring it out in the shortest amount of time possible but the information gap had to be filled.

That’s about the time we came up with the idea for Socialware Insights. It is not a piece of software but rather an information service. Once launched, it will include detailed compliance guides for each social network, best practices for the business to maximize the impact of these new channels, real-world case studies, a monthly update on changes to these social networks that impact not only compliance but the ways businesses can utilize them, assessments of where the industry stands and where it’s heading with social networking and last policy templates that can be implemented directly in our Compass solution for social media policy automation.

As I mentioned above it isn’t launched yet. If you would like to be one of the first to learn about the launch please let us know. What is available today is the first Guide to be included in Socialware Insights – The Guide to Twitter Social Networking Compliance. The guide outlines all the opportunities and pitfalls of Twitter usage in the highly-regulated financial industry. Here is a snapshot of what is included:

-       Executive Summary
-       A Social Technology Primer
-       Getting Started with Twitter
-       Key Twitter Terms
-       Twitter, Financial Services, and FINRA/SEC Guidance
-       Twitter Compliance
-       Quick Reference Guide
-       Choosing a Social Networking Compliance Vendor

Whether you are a Twitter novice or an avid user you will want to download this guide. This is the first time a social network has been dissected at the feature level to outline the compliance risks and recommendations based on the recent FINRA guidance. This Guide will answer all the questions you have as to whether a piece of content is interactive or static, whether or not a re-tweet is an endorsement and why Direct Messages (DM’s) can create a major compliance risk for firms unless they take steps to ensure content is archived properly.

Sample of the Quick Reference Guide for
Twitter Social Networking Compliance

With the Twitter Guide officially published we’ve shifted or focus to finalizing the LinkedIn and Facebook Guides. Please let us know what you think so we can incorporate your feedback into future versions of this, as well as our upcoming Guides.

“Our new collaboration cloud is the latest SaaS-based app to enable new levels of engagement, uncovering real-time influencers that gets translated into a listening grid so you can better automate outreach, nurture leads and convert high-value traffic.”

While this is all completely made up you are probably trying to think where you heard about this product. Unfortunately, marketers get sucked into the latest buzzwords (me included) and before long you can’t make heads or tails of what it is they are trying to communicate.

Since the launch of the new site last week I’ve gotten a lot of questions. Like, did you finally get some sleep? A: No (I have a 4 month old at home). Who designed the site? A: We have a very talented designer who did all the work on the site and product. And finally what is the difference between Socialware Sync and Socialware Compass? This last one came up the most so I’m going to take my own recommendation and try to shed some light on the topic.

When it comes to Socialware Sync think of it as your social networking insurance policy – similar to wearing a helmet when out on a bike ride. Whatever example you prefer, the underlying principle is the same. We all make decisions and investments every day to reduce our risk and give us greater peace of mind. Sync does this for anyone with a Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account. There are so many things that can go wrong. Your account can get hacked. Regulators, like FINRA, SEC, FSA, FDA, IIROC, can require you produce electronic records. Or a citizen can make a record’s request to a government agency and compel you to produce an old social media message.

Without a backup of your social activity and an easy way to search across it, you could be looking at fines, litigation or at a minimum emotional stress if your content ever gets lost. So if you are looking for peace of mind to ensure you comply with regulators, want to ensure you never lose your record of social interactions or just want a simple way to search across your entire social archive, then Socialware Sync is your answer.

Now let’s shift gears and talk about how companies enable social networking use. To date companies will start by creating a policy, some will train employees on how to use these tools and then they open the floodgates and hope that the directions are followed. This is similar to someone starting a trip with an old paper map. They plot their course and head out on the journey. Periodically they make some wrong turns but usually get back on track. Often you will run into a stretch of construction that you didn’t know about and then in the hope of making up time you go past a speed trap and are staring at a $200 dollar ticket and 6 hours of drivers education classes.  When the trip is over you have no idea how long it took you, exactly which way you went (thanks to those wrong turns) and of course this experience will be repeated on the way back home with one change – you will be driving the speed limit.

Now compare this to a GPS system. You search for your address and quickly tell the system to calculate directions. You can tell it if you want the shortest distance, shortest time, least use of freeways and more. As you start out on your trip you get notified of changes in real-time like traffic, speed traps or construction. If you need to make an unplanned stop the unit will re-route you and give you all the guidance you need to get to your destination quickly, safely and on your terms. When you finally arrive you know exactly how far you traveled, how long you were driving and the route you took.

Socialware Compass is like a GPS unit for companies that want to help employees navigate the social networking superhighway. Most companies, especially those in regulated industries, have a policy of which features can be used, which topics to avoid and who needs to review any content that is in question.  Socialware Compass does all of this and more. It automates a social media policy providing real-time guidance for any employee using sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Employees don’t need to worry about where they “might” violate policy; the system will guide them the entire way. In addition, it archives everything so enterprises can comply with industry or federal regulations and analyze usage across the business.  And best of all, it is as easy to use as a GPS unit – you setup the policies (where you want to go and how you want to get there) and let the system guide you along the way.

I hope this helps shed some light on how the two solutions compare and helps you decide which one would best suit your needs.  If you are looking for more information there are videos, tours and a wealth of other resources on each site (Compass, Sync). In addition, you can sign-up for a free 30-day trial of Sync to give it a test drive.

Here are 25 reasons I came up with, plus a bonus reason in case 25 isn’t enough to convince you to start archiving today.

You should back up your social activity because…

1. Accounts can get hacked or hijacked
2. You should always have access to your data 24×7
3. It’s too hard to search for tweets or status updates
4. You shouldn’t limit yourself to Twitter’s 3,200 tweet caps
5. One day you are going to say “back in my day I tweeted about…”
6. It’s required to comply with FINRA/SEC guidelines
7. Repurposing your posts for SEO purposes is a great way to get more value from your social activity
8. Bad things happen to good data
9. Adding an integrated feed of your posts to your website further increases engagement
10. Murphy’s Law states that the fail-whale will show up the exact time you need a Tweet from Twitter.
11. It is required to comply with the Freedom of Information Act guidelines
12. Discovery fees are expensive if you don’t have a reliable archive
13. Your social networking passwords are probably not as strong as they should be
14. You will wish you had a historical record of your social activity
15. It can be used as a monitoring tool to tip you off to odd behavior
16. It’s your social autobiography
17. You never want to lose a valuable thought or idea
18. It is too hard to repurpose content for blog posts without it
19. You don’t want to limit yourself to the last 30 days of Facebook activity
20. Losing a twitter DM again sucks and can be costly
21. It may be required to comply with your corporate social media guidelines
22. Screenshots simply don’t work
23. When government agencies get a records request they can’t tell people to just “go to Twitter”
24. You have insurance for everything else, why not your social activity
25. It’s your data and you should have control

And finally bonus reason #25½…Because time machines are cool (even if this one just takes you back in time)

I’m sure I forgot to mention some other good ideas. Please add yours below in the comments section and after that head over to Sync and give it a 30-day free test drive.