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At the end of Chapter 1, I alluded to examples of how different industries in the United States responded to changes in behavior by their customers – new safety features in automobiles, less sugar and salt in food, and so on. It also happens that many American industries also are au courant with developments in social media as well.

Whether it's fashion or food, they not only have embraced social media, they've incorporated it into their businesses or built online communities around niche markets. Think of Yelp or Hotels.com for locally rated restaurants or overnight stays. Amazon.com has refashioned retail, not only by making it easier for consumers to buy what they want, but also by tracking customer interests and using that data to suggest other products their clients might enjoy. Even in our personal lives, places like Match.com have, for nearly a decade, transformed the way consumers can find their life partner.

Sitting Out the Game?

And yet a good portion of the financial industry remains skeptical about this revolution. To be sure, there is a healthy and growing presence of financial advisors on professional networking site LinkedIn, yet participation in other key social media channels is still pretty thin. A 2013 survey by InvestmentNews showed that only one out of four advisors used Facebook, and participation in other channels was markedly lower.1

Industry experts say many firms are just tiptoeing into this new channel – testing tools to allow content distribution, piloting basic regulatory compliance through social media, and shaping their online voices. The goal is to build brand and awareness or increase engagement with investors, although many in the industry remain concerned about how strong the impact will be on revenue growth and the return on their investments (see Figure 2.1).

Figure 2.1 LinkedIn Leads Among Advisors

Source: InvestmentNews' Advisers & Social Media Survey 2013

And yet the pace is picking up, says Alan Maginn, an analyst at Corporate Insight, which follows developments in the retail financial services industry and conducted one of the industry's earliest studies on social media involvement.

“In 2008, there were just a few early adopters of social [media] in the financial industry,” he says. “Now, the ship has sailed: most financial firms who are going to be involved in some capacity are…Those who do a good job are the ones that are able to effectively engage with their audience.”

Still, the difference between social experience by investors and that of advisors is striking; it's almost like comparing a go-cart race to the Indianapolis 500. For example, the Pew Research Center found in 2011 that 70 percent of millionaires use social media; of those investors, 46 percent used Facebook, nearly double the 26 percent in 2010.2 By comparison, a recent survey by TD Ameritrade found that more than 90 percent of advisors have a social media profile of some sort, but only 5 percent of their referrals come from social media.3

So the good news is the financial world is moving – gradually – into the social media universe. The problem is, their customers are already there in large numbers, numbers that are growing at a far greater pace than that of the financial industry itself (see Figure 2.2).

Figure 2.2 Advisor Talk as They Begin to Think Social

Source: Finect

Financial Advisory World in Flux

And yet, while some advisors are hesitant about going more deeply into social media, their world already is being reshaped.

Take the wirehouse channel, for example. These top-of-the-food-chain brokerages have long had established ecosystems in which information and services were organized and the roles of brokerage, advisor, and investor client were fairly clear. Wirehouses could dictate products and fee structures, and their advisors and clients would get in line (see Figure 2.3).

Figure 2.3 Traditional Wirehouse Ecosystem

But advisors increasingly are finding alternatives to toiling in the wirehouse world. They're moving toward independence, bolstered in their efforts by third-party providers of every service from technology needs to asset management. Indeed, the registered investment advisory channel alone grew from 34 percent of all financial industry advisors in 2007 to an expected 47 percent in 2013, according to the industry research firm Cerulli Associates.4

Through technology and social media, advisors are finding new communities and capabilities to build their business – capabilities that allow them to work with open architecture brokerage platforms that don't dictate what securities they must buy, for example. And there's change occurring at the bottom of the investor market as well. So-called robo-advisors– firms that offer automated financial advice to low-asset investors for cut-rate fees – are growing as demands grows for advice among the mass affluent and tech solutions proliferate in response (see Figure 2.4).

Figure 2.4 The New Ecosystem Provides Greater Access to Advisors and Investors

Source: Finect

This shift is presenting both new opportunities and challenges. Financial professionals and firms face increasing pressure to discover, market, and network more efficiently and cost-effectively. And while business growth and marketing remain top priorities, regulatory changes and compliance issues also rank among the top concerns weighing on leaders and advisors. As a result, more than half – 63 percent – of all registered investment advisors say that investing in technology is far and away the top infrastructure investment they anticipate making over the next six months to accommodate business growth (see Figure 2.5).

Figure 2.5 Top Business Concerns among RIAs

Source: TD Ameritrade

And there's one other critical trend: the aging client base. We all talk about the generational wealth transfer – by some estimates totaling $41 trillion over 40 years – that is taking place. But have we thought about who, really, will be making those financial decisions – and how? By 2020, two-thirds of wealth is expected to be held by women. Already, the majority of women change advisors after the death of their spouses, according to LIMRA research (see Figure 2.6).

Figure 2.6 Top Industry Trends Pose a Challenge

Source: TD Ameritrade

And how are these busy women juggling work, family, and elderly parents? By going online and using their mobile devices. Yes, women continue to rely on the Internet more than men – a trend we saw in the early Internet days – and with new hubs and networks now at their fingertips, social media is the way to connect and engage with them.

So it's a changing world, both for investors and the advisors they work with. Social media clearly will accelerate the pace of that change in the years ahead. And yet, in many ways advisors feel held back in the social world (see Figure 2.7).

Figure 2.7 Asset Managers Talk about Going Social

Source: Finect

Four Obstacles to Greater Social Media Engagement

While social media use is practiced widely by Americans, many people simply avoid it. Some find the platforms unfamiliar or counterintuitive, while others see little value in sharing and engaging on the Web. Among financial professionals, however, the reasons for avoidance tend toward the technical and the specific. To look at why many in the industry feel held back in social media, let me just briefly touch on the “Four Multiples”:

1. Multiple Platforms– Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter all have growing value for our industry, depending on how those platforms are used. But if marketers are just now learning how to use these platforms, how can we expect compliance officers to also understand? Moreover, focusing on any one platform could be nearly a full-time job by itself.

2. Multiple Employees– If you have multiple employees on multiple platforms – or even one platform – how do you track and monitor them? It's enough to make you stop right there: Is it worth the risk to your compliance record? “Let's see how others do” is a common mode of action.

3. Multiple Regulations– Let's not forget the regulators. And this is problem one for many in the industry. You might be overseen by Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), or even the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). How do you cope with all of those requirements for approvals, archives, recordkeeping, and more? Of course, no professional concerned about his or her job would want to do anything until they get some green light from officials that it's okay to use social media. But as we'll discuss later, that's one of the common myths. The good news is that regulators seem to be moving more quickly as they, too, embrace social media for their own purposes.

4. Multiple Internal Layers– Thanks to regulations and legacy bureaucracy, particularly at large firms, many organizations have multiple approval layers. It takes time to work through those layers, not to mention instituting new policies to abide by regulatory requirements.

What Does This Mean For the Industry, CEOs, CCOs, and Marketers?

Obstacles to social media adoption are real in the financial industry, but that hasn't frozen its professionals in their tracks. In the last year alone, we've seen major brokerages like Raymond James and Morgan Stanley, top asset management firms like BlackRock and Putnam Investments, and one-man financial advisors and everything in between begin to adopt social media in some way.

It's a channel that can't be ignored. Whether your clients are retail investors or financial advisors, firms are recognizing they have to figure out social media. Marketers are partnering with compliance officers to increase their understanding and ensure the right processes are in place. Many firms are using social media at two levels: the corporate level, for building the company's brand and leveraging content; and the individual employee or advisor level, helping them build their individual brand and customer base.

Here's how it breaks down across the different advisory channels:

▪ Broker/Dealers– Many brokerage firms have taken some initial steps toward embracing social media. For example, Cambridge Investment Research, with some 2,400 advisors on social media, permits them to post on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, subject to a post-use review. Others, such as Commonwealth Financial, prohibit product recommendations. The majority of Commonwealth's 1,400 advisors operate on at least one social media platform. At LPL Financial, more than 5,000 of their advisors operate on some platform: 36 percent on LinkedIn, 10 percent on Facebook, and about 6 percent on Twitter, former Chief Marketing Officer Joan Koury says. LPL advisors are required to get pre-approval for YouTube videos but, other than that, only static content needs to be approved.

▪ Asset Managers– Asset managers' use of social media truly depends on their audience. I recall meeting with a top consultant to the John Paulsons of the world who said: “They'll never be on social media. They prefer to keep private and operate with their own closed networks.” But other asset managers are embracing social media – indeed, they view it as a more efficient way to distribute education, research, and other content more efficiently. “It's easier than going here to Schwab and there to Fidelity to post our content,” one CMO told me. For now, CMOs and even CEOs at asset management firms tend to view it as an opportunity to build their brand and compete, for the first time ever, against larger, more established firms. As new consumer-oriented hedge funds are developed, we expect that they, too, will embrace social media.

▪ Independent Financial Advisors– Independent financial advisors have an easier time: Many are essentially their own compliance officers. That means no approvals and a more timely ability to get in on trending news or react to a client or prospect. Take financial advisor Jim Ludwick, CFP, formerly with Bank of America and now running Mainstreet Financial Planning. He's tweeting regularly and sending summaries of his top personal finance tweets to his followers. Or Winnie Sun, of Sun Group Wealth Partners, who reports how she's strongly built her client base through social media and snagged a $31 million client through LinkedIn. Indeed, Putnam found that some 29 percent of advisors had acquired a client with more than $1 million in assets via social media.

What the Future Holds

Clearly, different segments of the financial industry demonstrate wide differences in the degree to which they are embracing social media. But the involvement of individual advisors or firms will depend to a great extent on their ability to adapt to some of the changes already under way. As you or your firm look to use social media, what are some of the key things to watch for?

▪ More communications to record– Whether you're a compliance officer or technology leader, you'll have to address the massive amounts of content that may require approval and will certainly require archiving.

▪ More internal partnering– Firms that are successful work hand-in-hand with their compliance officers. Today's CCOs recognize they can't be gatelockers when the world is quickly moving ahead. Successful firms are working together to build a mutual understanding of the business case.

▪ Increase in data collection– As new laws open up the doors to product marketing online and as investors adopt social interactions for decision-making, we can expect a greater opportunity to capture data. This could be data at the government level or even firm level – data that can be used to detect the next Bernie Madoff or ensure that investors are matched up with suitable products.

▪ More regulatory direction– Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, drew the SEC's attention in 2012 when he put up a Facebook post that referenced a big increase in the firm's streaming hours – an announcement that was promptly followed by a sharp jump in the stock's price. In the end, the SEC opted not to file charges against Hastings; instead, it said that disclosures on social media were appropriate as long as investors were alerted in advance to which channels on which they could expect to receive such information. We continue to see more timely comments from nearly all key agencies, and we also see their presence at industry events, providing more proactive guidance perhaps than ever before. The SEC also made it plain that CEOs are always speaking for the firm when they speak about the firm. Hastings' tweets were attributable to his firm.

The financial industry has often felt hogtied and handcuffed by compliance issues in the past. The arrival of social media on the landscape – a game-changing dynamic that both regulators and financial professionals are still getting their arms around – in many ways has exacerbated the tension wealth managers feel as they plan for business in the twenty-first century. And yet the history of the industry shows that it can, and does, adapt. The tools exist for the advisor who wants to move forward.