social media

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.”

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12 Most Important Ways to Build Relationships and Get ROR

If you want to continue to reach your market in this social media age, the marketing focus needs to be on building relationships, and metrics need to expand beyond ROI (Return on Investment) to include ROR: Return on Relationship. So how do you build and strengthen relationships with your audience (as a whole, and as individuals) to increase your ROR? Here are 12 ways to do so:

1. Listen

If you want to be heard above the growing social media “noise,” you need to first listen to your consumers so when you do speak, you get it right.  What are they saying, what are they feeling, what are their pain points, what solutions do they need?

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How Do You Handle Social Media While on Vacation?

I was going to talk to you today about goals. After all, we’re now in the second half of the year (can you believe it?!) and it’s a good time to see if you’re on track and consider any adjustments that need to be made.

But, I decided that no one wants to talk about goals when we’re headed into a long weekend. I know I don’t.So, instead we’re going to talk about something far more fun – VACATION! 

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Don’t overlook the Baby Boomers!

If you think that the place to reach Baby Boomers (born between 1946 – 1964) is anywhere that does not include technology, think again!  Boomers in the U.S. are technology-savvy enough to comprise 1/3 of all TV viewers, online users, social media users and Twitter users.

If that’s not enough to make you think twice about where you’re putting your social media marketing dollars, consider that there are 78 million Boomers in the U.S., many who have “shown a willingness to try new brands and products.” In fact, they spend 38.5% of CPG dollars! (source: Nielsen).  You can’t afford to overlook them!

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Hitting The Lazy Button

Aided by social communication tools, are we becoming lazy communicators with lazy friendships?

Yesterday I posed this question on Twitter: do you ever feel that your use of social media is resulting in more, but SHALLOWER relationships? Even perhaps making long-term friendships shallower? A few people responded with a hearty AMEN and few people said NO WAY. How about you?

It’s not “social media’s fault”; the word choice of “your use of social media” was very intentional. The tools are what we make of them, just like the tools that came before. And you know I love them as much as the next addict enthusiast. Through them, I have met all of you amazing people and I don’t take that for granted.

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Do you have a strategy or are you simply “doing” social media?

I had lunch with some friends last week who shared with me that they often get asked to just “do some social media” for their clients.

Oh, if it were only that simple.

I think a lot of businesses think this way. They believe that simply throwing some social media icons on their website is enough or that they need to have profiles on every single social media site because “everyone else does”.

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It’s Time to Give Your Brand Advocates a Promotion

Marketers are starting to realize that Brand Advocates are important enough to be part of our marketing strategies… but in my view, we need to take this beyond our Advocates just being “a part” of what we do.  We need to value our Advocates enough to promote them – in both meanings of the word: to bring visibility to, and to raise up.

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The importance of brand “appeal”

More and more, I like the word “appeal” and its implications for marketing and facilitating the building of relationships.

The definition of “appeal” (according to the World English Dictionary) is “the power to attract, please, stimulate, or interest.” So, if we apply that to marketing, it means thatbrands that think in terms of “appeal” are more likely to try to attract, please, stimulate, and provide interest for the consumer — all behaviors of engagement, which is the foundation of relationships.

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Two Big Lessons from Morgan Stanley’s Social Media Investment

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Image from Wikipedia.com

1.  Tell Your Story in Social Media or Someone Else Will
Wall Street brokerage powerhouse, Morgan Stanley, made a bold investment decision:  within the year, all of its 17,800 financial advisors will be tweeting on Twitter and connecting on LinkedIn.  Bullish on Social Media, its head of U.S. sales, Andy Saperstein, proclaimed:

MSSB is committed to continue leading our competition in innovation.  This will be a significant competitive advantage.

So where did Morgan Stanley break this bold announcement?  Well, ah, it didn’t….That announcement came in an internal memo that was leaked to the press and whizzed through the corridors of social media until Morgan Stanley finally acknowledged that the memo was genuine.  Social media moves in real time.  Not having a presence in social media assures that you will be chasing the story rather than telling it.

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