The good news is that this is the right first step. And if you are FINRA regulated, 10-06 explicitly points out that having a policy in place is required if you are going to adopt social media for business. By not employing a policy, businesses are leaving themselves open to unnecessary risk. Research shows that firms are behind here. 43% of respondents from a recent survey said their firms either did not have a social media policy in place or were unclear if one existed.

To help kick-start this process Socialware has extended our Insights offering by creating a Social Media Policy Accelerator Kit (read the press release here). The kit provides in-depth analysis and guidance on the key areas your policy should address. In addition to the sample policy language, the kit provides an overview of the corresponding procedures your firm should address. Also included is a policy checklist to help guide you through the process and ensure all steps are addressed before activating your employees on social networks.

Every firm still needs to work through the process of defining their business needs, possible risks and the appropriate ways to leverage social media. What you no longer have to do is repeat the hundreds or hours of research required to pull together best practices and answers around creating a formal policy.

Wade Wilkinson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Securities Service Network, Inc. (SSN) summed it up well. “The guiding principle for our early adoption of social media is to support the growth of our affiliated registered representatives and obviously, we have to use social media in a manner that complies with the rules of our industry. The Social Media Policy Accelerator Kit from Socialware helped us write policies that ensure compliance and afford SSN registered representatives the best opportunity to succeed in their social media endeavors. This guidance has been key to our progress and will continue to provide direction moving forward.”

In addition to the Social Media Policy Accelerator Kit please join Steve Selby (LIMRA, Director of Regulatory Services) and I this Thursday at noon CST for a webinar where we will discuss moving through the Policy Stage of the Social Media Adoption Lifecycle. If you miss the live session you can register and view the recording at any time. In addition, head over to SocialTurns to continue the discussion on this topic.

Social media has so much to offer the financial services industry yet education, awareness and questions are holding it back. Our hope is that by bringing together industry experts, passionate users and those standing on the sidelines that we will be able to accelerate the adoption of social media.

To help foster and grow the community we’ve created the SocialTurns Council. The Council is made up of compliance, marketing, technology and financial services professionals who are pioneering social media adoption in the financial services industry. Please join me in thanking all of our Council members:

• Pat Allen, Principal, Rock The Boat Marketing
• Debbi Corej, VP of Compliance, Prudential
• Julie Gebert, AVP of Compliance, Cambridge
• Kip Gregory, Principal, The Gregory Group
• Bruce Johnston, President & CEO, Advisolicity
• Kristen Luke, Principal, Wealth Management Marketing
• Christina L. Nelson, Senior Editor, Financial Planning Association
• Stephanie Sammons, CEO, WiredAdvisor
• Stephen Selby, Director of Regulatory Services, LIMRA
• Jennifer Sussman, Director of Online Marketing and Experience, American Century Investments
• Pete Chiccino, EVP and CIO, The Bancorp Bank

In the last few weeks we’ve invited users to sign-up for the preview and the reaction has been tremendous. To date we’ve had almost 500 users join SocialTurns from 13 different countries and the discussions are off and running ranging from enterprise social media adoption, to FourSquare, to employee guidelines.

We invite marketing, technology, compliance and financial services professionals to join the conversation. As you navigate the social media waters this community is here to help you make the right turns to get the most out of social media for your brand, your employees and your customers.

And don’t forget to let us know what you think or how we can improve. Here is one review from David Rosen at The B2B Formula.

See you on SocialTurns.

PS: After you join please add a badge to your website, blog or Twitter profile to help grow the awareness of SocialTurns and help fuel the discussion.

Social Media in the Mutual Fund Industry
Tuesday, August 3^rd at 1PM EST Unified Fund Services is hosting a webinar on the use of social media in the mutual fund industry. Mutual fund managers and financial advisors will learn the best ways to use social media in their businesses, along with updates on recent regulatory changes and new technologies that make social media communications easier to manage. Speakers include: Jeff Young, Unified Fund Services (Huntington Asset Services), Bruce Johnston, Advisolocity, Ellen Bruno, Compliance Advisor Professionals and Oat Ruchira, Unified Financial Securities.

“Although a significant number of financial services professionals use social media professionally, many are not effectively using these tools to grow their businesses,” said Brian Blomquist, president, Unified Fund Services (Huntington Asset Services). “Our web seminar will help participants learn how to make the most of this growing opportunity while remaining compliant with industry regulations.”

Register here.

Best Practices: Driving Business on Facebook
Tuesday, August 3^rd at 2PM EST Socialware will be joined by Stephanie Sammons, CEO of WiredAdvisor, for a webinar titled Best Practices: Driving Business on Facebook. This webinar examines best practices for driving business and connecting with customers using Facebook, keeping in mind the compliance challenges associated with using this site. Learn innovative strategies to Re-Connect, Discover Insights, Distinguish yourself, and Make Fans & Friends through Facebook. Ultimately driving new business and deeper relationships with your customers.

Register here (and if you can’t make it live just check back to watch the recorded version and to also download the slides).

Success Stories: How Advisors are Using Social Media for Business
Thursday, August 5^th at 12PM EST Socialware is moderating a roundtable discussion on how advisors are successfully using social media today to drive their business. We will be joined by Paul Hrabel of One Fund and Curtis Smith of Interactive Capital Management. This interactive roundtable will discuss the use of social media by advisors, how this integrates to an overall marketing strategy, success stories and strategies, embracing social in a compliant fashion and finally tips on how you can sell your firm on opening up access.

Register here (and if you can’t make it live just check back to watch the recorded version and to also download the slides).

And as always if you’ve missed any of our previous webinars be sure to check out the Socialware Insights webinar page.

While LinkedIn is still the preferred social network for business use, Facebook is gaining steam. In our 2010 Advisor Survey we found that 24% of respondents currently use Facebook for business use and this number is expected to grow to 43% by the end of the year. Consider that Facebook is currently banned by 38% of the respondent’s companies and you can see that there is still tremendous room for growth.

But before that growth can come to fruition firms need to address the compliance challenges posed by Facebook. Should agents be able to use Facebook Chat? Should they “like” comments made by other users? Can they actively participate in Facebook Groups? What about Facebook Mail? The fact is there are over 30 different features that compliance officers need to consider before opening up access.

To help firms accelerate their adoption of Facebook we just released our Guide to Facebook Social Networking Compliance. We analyzed every feature, explaining each in detail, associated it with a content type, classified it according to the FINRA/SEC guidelines (based on Notice 10-06), offered a set of compliance considerations, and provided a specific recommendation to help jumpstart the creation of your social networking policy and plan. Download your free copy today.

And finally, don’t forget to register for our upcoming webinar on Facebook Business Best Practices.

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. 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.

If I’m an advisor with a choice of firms, I’m looking for a place that is going to help me achieve not just success, but overwhelming success – for my clients, the firm, and myself. Sure… reputation of the firm will be important, cultural fit, and the portfolio of products available. However, at the end of the day, the advisory business is about building relationships, acquiring clients, and delivering value. What is step one?  Networking.  And you can argue that steps two through five are the same: Networking.

Advisors and agents now have an unprecedented ability to access, grow, and build networks. Social Networking tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter provide innovative and revolutionary capabilities for enabling success.

Why are social networks important?
There are many, many ways that social networking can help an advisor be more productive – with greater efficiency. Here are four key elements: Visibility, Speed, Assistance, and Information.

Visibility
Never before have financial advisors had the capability to connect actively with their “first degree” network that social networks allow. Have you noticed the “People You May Know” recommendations that LinkedIn provides on your homepage? How do they know that I could be connected with Leslie, a person that I met ten years ago when we were working on a critical project – but we were working at different companies? And, who knew that through 203 contacts on LinkedIn, a person can have 70,400+ friends of friends connections?

Speed
It’s one thing to try and list out on a spreadsheet all the people you have ever met, and then try to find their phone numbers or their email addresses. How long will it take to contact even half of that list? How about this? Start by connecting with ten contacts on LinkedIn or Facebook and see how quickly your ten connections turn into 20, into 50, into 100. You get the picture. Unprecedented. Tip: LinkedIn also makes it easy to download contact information should you have misplaced that business card from 5 years ago.

Assistance
I’m going to attend a week-long conference in San Francisco. Who do I know in San Francisco? That works in high-tech? I can find that with a few clicks. Who have I always wanted to meet? A few more clicks and I am getting introduced by a friend. The value of my trip has just multiplied.

Information
When I make a new connection or research a prospect, I now have more background than ever before. Not only do I know that my new contact, Joe, used to play poker with the friend that introduced us, but now I can see that he belongs to a local triathlon club – and I now have an instant opportunity for a personal connection.

Back to the recruiting pitch… what is your message? Are you demonstrating the firm’s willingness to invest and support advisor success? Or, are you going to wait and see what shakes out with these “personal” tools? The first movers will have an advantage. Don’t be surprised to start hearing stories about losing reps to a firm that has embraced and supported social networking.

Join us on June 22 for a complimentary webinar where we will be sharing Best Practices on how advisors and agents can leverage LinkedIn to drive productivity.

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.

“It’s the dumbest policy in the world to block your employees from going to social media sites,” said Mark Ragan, a Chicago-based corporate communications specialist. “You get Gen Y entering the workforce, and those people live on Facebook. … They’ll laugh at you.”

Does this bring back memories from the 90’s when the Internet started penetrating businesses? How long did companies resist? What about email? How long was your organization able to resist that movement? Then came instant messaging, then text messages and now social media. History is repeating itself all over again and the companies that get social first will separate themselves from the pack, both in the eyes of consumers and in the resulting profits.

As I pointed out in my previous blog post, “10 reasons you should use social networks for business,” an Accenture survey of Millennial preferences found that recent grads prefer to communicate via instant messaging, text messaging, Facebook and RSS feeds. One Millennial MBA said, “I need to access my Facebook in order to do my job.” Shut down access to social networks, and you may shut down access to top employees.

“I think there’s a greater risk not to” give employees access, said Mary Henige, director of social media and digital communications for General Motors. “If you want to be an employer of choice, especially with younger people, they’re going to completely expect to do this.”

The connection coefficient remains in full effect. The more connected employees are (to other employees, partners, customers, prospects, etc) the more value the employees and therefore the enterprise will experience. This applies in all areas of business – recruiting, marketing, and even sales. In fact, a July 2009 study by the Altimeter group found that brands deeply engaged in social had an “18% increase in revenues over the last 12 months, compared to the least engaged companies who on average saw a decline of 6% in revenue during the same period.”

“One of the things they’ve talked about is how e-mail was looked at 10 years ago — as risky — and now it’s accepted so much as a business tool,” said Kristen Cislo, branch manager for information technology staffing company Robert Half Technology. “Are we going through the same thing with social networking?”

In short, lines are blurring between business and personal use of social networks so companies that want to keep increasing sales, attract the top talent and meet customer expectations shouldn’t shut down these activities. Instead create your policies, be upfront with your workforce and customers, and automate your policies so everyone wins.