Powered by Socialware’s Compass solution, the new integrated offering combines our unique abilities around social media archiving, pre-review, feature-level policy automation and social media analytics with AdvsiorMail so firms can take advantage of the opportunity social media presents, in a compliant fashion.

As we’ve discussed before, the compliance questions around social media continue to grow. Should you open access? If you do, how do you supervise the content? How can you ensure reps and employees follow your policy? The list goes on and on. The fact is, every social media site poses its own unique challenges and considerations. To help firms get clarity in this area, we’ve published numerous guides and webinars which can all be accessed through Socialware Insights.

By combining Compass, AdvisorMail and our ongoing commitment to provide expertise from both a compliance and best practice standpoint, firms can now adopt social media confidently, quickly and on their terms – critical to managing the compliance issues that face this industry.

To learn more about this integrated offering please contact your LiveOffice representative.

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.

1. What percentage of advisors use social media for business purposes?
2. Are firms taking the necessary steps to support this activity and remain compliant?
3. Are financial advisors getting value from their investment in social media?
4. Are the myths around social media true? For example, the sites are only used by the younger generation, it takes too much time, advisors comply with their firm’s policies and many more.

The survey results answered these questions and many more. Before getting into the results here are a few statistics that describe the pool of respondents:

• The survey was completed by 196 advisors.
• Over 53% of the respondents have over 100 clients.
• Over 40% of respondents are 46 years of age or older.
• Over 21% are part of firms with over 100 financial advisors.
• Over 44% of respondents have an average account size of $300K or more.

The first thing that stood out with this survey is the fact that advisors have flocked to social networks. 60% of financial advisors currently use social media for business purposes and another 11% have plans to use social media in the future. Of the 29% with no plans to use social media in the future, 85% of those respondents are currently prohibited by their firm.

In addition to usage it was clear that investments in social networks are paying off by delivering real results. 47% of respondents reported having identified one or more referrals (new leads/prospects) from their social media activity. 36% said they acquired new customers through social media and 10% stated they identified over 21 new referrals!

It was also clear that firms are lagging behind their reps in this area. 57% of respondents were aware that their company had a policy and 11% of the respondents were unsure if one existed. Unfortunately, the 32% operating without a policy are in direct violation of FINRA’s recent guidance on social network usage.

And if that wasn’t bad enough firms are also at risk due to a lack of social media archiving – a very clear requirement from FINRA Notice 10-06. Only 12% of the respondents archive their data with an automated system. 22% of the respondents manually archive data through screenshots or a copy and paste activity. Not only is this time consuming it is also very error prone. The remaining 66% of respondents are in direct violation of FINRA/SEC guidelines by not archiving this information.

There is no doubt that this is a hot topic in the industry. In fact, the survey results were already picked up by the following outlets:

• Wall Street Journal
• ComplianceWeek
• Broker Dealer Week
• TechTarget
• InvestmentNews

If you are looking for more information please check out the official press release and also be sure to register for our upcoming webinar where we will be reviewing the results of the survey in more detail.

Yet another study of financial professionals – this one by American Century Investments – finds that advisors are using and benefiting from social media for their business.

• 44% of advisors who use social media for business or business and personal use agree that social media is an emerging trend with significant potential for businesses like theirs.
• 73% of the participants have a profile or account with one or more of the social media types mentioned.
• Facebook was in the top position with 55% and LinkedIn was next with 46%.
• Of those who use social media for business purposes, almost one-fifth (19%) do so daily – either once a day or multiple times a day.
• Respondents reported their top three business uses of social media as: A) researching people (e.g. prospects, contacts and current clients); B) monitoring industry and market news; and C) reading expert commentary and insights.
• 71% reported they have one or more future business uses planned for social media, primarily monitoring industry and market news, followed by reading expert commentary and insights and researching people.

So what keeps them up at night?

Nearly half (47%) of respondents named regulatory or compliance issues as their single biggest concern with using social media for business purposes.

“Understanding how to better navigate compliance guidelines and industry regulations on social media use could bring peace of mind to financial professionals and spur adoption of its use,” Jennifer Sussman, director, Online Marketing and Experience for American Century Investments, said.

The rest of the study continues to show that financial services representatives are ready – or already using – social media, and their concerns about compliance are holding them back. Of course, the firms that figure out – and efficiently execute – their compliance plans will enjoy the competitive advantages of being first to market with this invaluable channel.

If you are looking to educate yourself on the compliance issues raised by social media sites you can start with a few of the resources below. In addition, check back in about a week for details on our own study of Financial Advisors use of social media.

• The Companion Guide to FINRA/SEC Social Networking Compliance
• The Guide to Twitter Social Networking Compliance
• Previously recorded and upcoming webinars on issues of compliance to social media best practices

We hope these resources help you navigate the compliance risks and opportunity in the waters of social media.

Why? LinkedIn and Facebook, the preferred networks, allow them to be more visible, let people know what they do, have a platform for questions and answers, reconnect with old friends (who, in turn, provide introductions and referrals).

Like the rest of the marketing world, financial pros understand that social networking will be an important business development tool (even if they’re not using it already), and all of those surveyed said it was worth their time to be engaged in such networks.

This is no surprise, but it poses a challenge: some are using social networks with or without guidelines from the “home office.” And many who use LinkedIn or Facebook would love to go further – post presentations on Slideshare, blog, and more. Users at national financial services firms are more likely to be limited by strict corporate guidelines – worst of all, many users admit they don’t actually know what their companies allow.

“Compliance guidance is mixed,” says LederMark. “Whether it’s a no-use policy, unclear parameters or daunting approval processes, there is frustration among those who want to utilize social media for their practice and do it by the book. This is where we hope these survey results can shed some light on not just the status of social media use, but the challenges and impediments remain.”

And firms have reason to worry about compliance. According to this grid showing how reps currently use social media, firms will open themselves up to undo risk unless they are retaining records, pre-reviewing the content, and more.

There’s no doubt: Social networks are here to stay, and it’s time to create guidelines and processes that make it easy on reps – and firms – to remain in compliance, without a lot of heavy lifting.

To help jumpstart your initiatives I’d recommend viewing some of our recorded webinars. Today’s session with Debbi Corej from Prudential was especially helpful, it is jam packed with answers to your top questions, real world recommendations and tips for how to adopt social networks in a compliant fashion.

“This session addresses supervision of social media, including third-party networks, firm sponsored communities and blogs. Industry panelists discuss FINRA Regulatory Notice 10-06, what their firms do and do not allow, how they monitor activity and the types of applications they use.”

One of the panelists was Debbi Corej, a VP of Compliance at Prudential. Debbi has been a trailblazer in this space helping her firm to understand the risks and opportunities with social networks. She’s shared her insight most recently at the FINRA conference and has graciously agreed to participate in our upcoming webinar, FINRA Conference Recap on Social Media, Tuesday June 8^th at 1 PM CST.

If you haven’t registered yet please do so today. If you have a conflict we will record the session so you can view it at a later date or share it with colleagues.

Some of the topics we will cover on the webinar will be:

• Why you should enable social networking at your firm
• How social networking has surpassed email
• Clarifications from FINRA Notice 10-06
• What’s unique about social networking compliance
• Separating personal from professional on social networks
• The risks of using LinkedIn as a “business card”
• How you get started
• How you set your policy
• How you can manage the risk
• The Do’s and Don’ts, practical best practices

Most importantly we are devoting a large portion of the webcast for audience Q&A. Please register early and share any questions you have. We hope to see you Tuesday.

Some of the topics discussed were:

- Implications and questions of FINRA Notice 10-06 for financial advisors.

- Whether or not financial advisors will get value out of social networks.

- How you should treat personal vs. professional data while on these social networks (check back soon for a detailed blog post on this topic).

- Whether this new channel will overload the compliance department.

- Why firms and advisors are having a hard time understanding the compliance issues.

- Why firms are racing to adopt social media.

- Whether or not these are just tools for the younger generation.

- Best practices for advisors to get the most out of their social media investment.

- How long it takes to get a program up and running so advisors can start leveraging these sites.

I hope you enjoy the discussion and I look forward to seeing you at the CFDD conference in October.

Social Media compliance is a hot issue this year.  We’ve already seen thousands of downloads of our compliance guides, packed audiences for our weekly webinars, and there have been over 20 news stories written on the topic in the last 3 months alone.   There is also going to be a panel discussion at this year’s FINRA Conference on Thursday, May 27^th at 1:30pm ET, where specific issues facing social media compliance will be addressed.

As part of the event we are co-hosting a cocktail party with the Smarsh team (we announced a strategic partnership with Smarsh recently).  The party is invite only, so email us if you are interested in attending.

See you in Baltimore!

• “We aren’t allowed to use social networks but we can use LinkedIn”
• “Our firm allows us to use LinkedIn but the activity isn’t monitored”
• “LinkedIn doesn’t fall under Notice 10-06”
• “We prohibit use, and our employees follow that policy”

For those of you following the social media trends in this sector you will recognize right away the risk caused by the beliefs above. Before going any further let me make a few things clear. LinkedIn is a social network. More importantly, LinkedIn is absolutely governed by Notice 10-06. And last, firms that allow the use of LinkedIn without the appropriate policies and oversight are guaranteed to get fined by FINRA at some point soon.

Just look at a recent study by Ledermark. They found “more than 40% of professionals under 50 said a social media presence has led to doing business. They prefer LinkedIn for business and Facebook for personal use; however, both social networks allow them to be more visible, have a platform for questions and answers, and reconnect with old friends, introductions and referrals — all cited as how social media helped bring in business.”

If you think your reps aren’t using LinkedIn do a quick search to find out.  Just enter your company name and see how many profiles show up.

Now onto the assessment. To complete the assessment simply answer yes or no to each question below. Give yourself one point if you answer NO and zero points if you answer YES. Your level of compliance risk will be described below. Let’s get started:

1. Do you prohibit registered reps from using LinkedIn?
2. Is this practice defined in a social media policy?
3. Have you completed spot audits to ensure they are following the policy?
4. Are you pre-approving their profile content before it is posted?
5. Are you completing spot audits to ensure the content hasn’t changed?
6. Are you preventing reps from displaying recommendations on their profiles?
7. Are you archiving the content posted to and created on LinkedIn?
8. Are you supervising the content posted to LinkedIn after the fact?
9. Are you preventing reps from rating answers provided by other members of LinkedIn?
10. Are you preventing reps from emailing more than 25 connections via LinkedIn Mail?

Now tally up your score and match that to the table below.

Score = 0: Good news, you aren’t at risk but you likely aren’t getting any of the benefit of LinkedIn either because you are in total lockdown.
Score = 1-5: You are probably handling compliance in a highly manual fashion. Not only is this costly but it is also error prone.
Score = 6-10: You are at high risk for a fine from FINRA. Quickly find an automated way to manage site access, content archiving, supervision and discovery.

If you are concerned and need some more information here are a few resources that can help:

• Companion Guide to FINRA/SEC Social Networking Compliance
• Social Networking Compliance Webinar
• Summary blog post from the FINRA webinar discussing Notice 10-06

Some of you reading this may wonder, what does email archiving have to do with social media? As it happens quite a lot. Email (and IM) archiving is nothing new. Regulated firms have been capturing, retaining and supervising email communications for the last 7-10 years. With the advent of social media and it’s growing importance in the financial industry, FINRA, the largest independent regulator for all securities firms doing business in the United States recently clarified it’s policies on the compliant use of sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Notice 10-06 is giving firms the confidence to move forward with their social media plans but it also clearly dictates the need to define a social media policy, have a way to automate it and most importantly archive & supervise the activity.  While Socialware is a leader in social media policy automation and archiving we do not play in the email archiving space.

Why is the distinction important? Because, inevitably all of our customers want the same thing – an integrated solution to “messaging compliance.” This need will only accelerate with time as participation and the inevitable business use of sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook grows. The added benefit of managing policy and compliance from a single solution is that firms with established systems can adopt social media in a compliant fashion without having to create new business processes to manage the content and supervision on the backend.

Now, thanks to this partnership, if you are a Smarsh customer you can single-source an integrated solution to email, IM and social media archiving and compliance. If you are interested in learning more we encourage you to reach out to your Smarsh representative today.