10 Commandments of Social Media for Financial Services

Financial Services National Regulatory Authority (FINRA), “the largest independent regulator for all securities firms doing business in the United States,” issued Regulatory Notice 10-06, a set of ten social media guidelines for financial firms and their registered representatives, in Question and Answer form, recognizing that “Americans are increasingly using social media.”

More recently, on June 28, 2011, at the IRI Government, Legal and Regulatory Conference, in Washington, D.C., Richard G. Ketchum, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of FINRA, issued a statement that FINRA’s “goal is to provide further guidance on these issues in a Notice to be published later this year.”

Importantly, however, in all the statements addressing the forthcoming additional guidelines, FINRA representatives have emphasized that any new guidelines will supplement rather than change the social media guidelines presented in Regulatory Notice 10-06.  This news, coupled with the the announcement of Morgan Stanley that its nearly 18,000 financial advisers will be tweeting on Twitter and posting on LinkedIn before the year is out, has awakened a new interest in the use of social media within the Financial Services sector.

To help financial services firms, broker-dealers and their registered representatives better understand the opportunities and obligations of Regulatory Notice 10-06, the 10 Commandments of Social Media for Financial Services Slideshare has been prepared to review the guidelines that are expressly to remain core principles for social media engagement by the financial services.

Glen Gilmore