By D. Bruce Johnston, President & CEO, DBJ Associates

We are pleased to offer our readers an on-demand link to the popular webinar: “Social Media: Can Advisors Afford to Miss It?”

To hear the latest thinking from the industry leaders in financial services social media marketing — Fidelity, American Century, Socialware and Advisolocity — please click the accompanying thumbnail link.

Hear Jennifer Sussman, Director of Online Marketing for American Century provide highlights from her firm’s recently completed “Financial Professionals Social Media Adoption Study.”

Next, benefit from Ross Ozer’s insights. As Vice President of Marketing for Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services, Mr. Ozer comments on how social media can help advisors generate more referrals, greater marketplace awareness and extend their reach.

Do you consider compliance to be a major barrier to adopting social media in your practice? If so, you are not alone.

Eighty percent of webinar attendees saw compliance risk as a key obstacle — until they listened to Chad Bockius, CEO of Socialware, who had much to contribute to understanding how to overcome social media’s compliance risks.

I was pleased to be able to deliver the results of one of our case studies as an example of how social media can work effectively in advisors’ day-to-day practice to raise AUM and revenue.

Also, if you missed out on the opportunity yesterday to download a FREE copy of Advisolocity’s white paper: “One-2-One: How to have 1000 client conversations at once,” please do so on the link provided.

Topics covered during the 45-minute Q&A session ran the gamut from:

• What are the implications of FINRA Notice 10-06 for financial advisors and are there solution sets available to comply with the archiving requirements?
• Are clients really using social networks for financial advice and, more importantly, for advisor selection?
• Will social media overload the compliance department?
• What are the nuances of the compliance demands social media poses that make it so difficult for firms to understand?
• Why are some firms staking a claim to social media applications while the vast majority sit back and watch?
• What about advisors who have primarily older clients? Should they consider social media tools as strictly suited for Gen Y and X, and not baby boomers?

If you have questions that were left unanswered after you listen to the discussion, please contact Bruce Johnston at bruce@advisolocity.com. I will get your question answered for you in short order. In the meantime, enjoy!

By D. Bruce Johnston, President and CEO, DBJ Associates

Commerce on the Internet continues to skyrocket.

Chad Levitt, author of the “New Sales Economy Blog,” recently wrote a post, “Sales Reps, Are You Ready for the Digital Universe?,” based on information he gleaned from a recently released IDC report on predictions for the year 2020.

Here are some of the major findings from the IDC report:

• Between now and 2020, the amount of digital information created and replicated in the world will grow to an almost inconceivable 35 trillion gigabytes as all major forms of media – voice, TV, radio, print – will complete the journey from analog to digital.

• Last year despite the global recession, the Digital Universe, set a record. It grew by 62% to nearly 800,000 petabytes. A petabytes is a million gigabytes. Picture a stack of DVDs reaching from the earth to the moon and back.

• This explosive growth means that by 2020, our Digital Universe will be 44 times as big as it was in 2009. Our stack of DVD’s would now reach halfway to Mars.

• Most of the digital universe begins with an action by a consumer – an email typed on a laptop, a digital photo taken at a wedding, a movie downloaded from Netflix. In fact more than 70% of the Digital Universe this year will be generated by users – individuals at home, work, and on the go.

• The social media invasion has just begun. IDC estimates that by 2020, business transactions on the internet, B2B and B2C, will reach 450 billion a day.

While Chad asks, “How do sales reps rise to the top when the waves of information keep crashing on their heads,” I ask,  “How can advisors, money managers and distributors prepare themselves?”

Say it with content

Everyone needs a clearly articulated story that represents a big idea for what a firm represents. “Begin to create content so that you can get found in search engines, social search, and the blogosphere,” Chad wrote. “Do not get lost in the tsunami of digital information.”  I’ve noticed that most firms already have content, but have been slow to package it for different applications.  For instance, those comments from the Chief Investment Officer on the corporate website can be refreshed for corporate blogs, Twitter and Facebook.  The Holy Grail here is a firm’s key word recognition on Google page 1. Consistency, timeliness and relevance are all critical to  claiming one’s “social media turf.”

Thought leadership spoken here

Chad added, “Learn a thing or two about search engine optimization (SEO)…  to be a search engine and opportunity magnet.”  I’ve observed and mentioned before, SEO is the outgrowth of taking a strong thought leadership position.  For example,  Charles “Chuck” Steege, CFP® of SFG Wealth Planning Services, recently authored a white paper which discussed the merits of performance shares.  He quickly dominated Google page 1 rankings for keywords “performance shares executive compensation.” Individuals are hungry for such specialized  content and will engage with firms  that carve out their niche with keywords associated with their subject matter expertise.

Work the net

Chad pointed out the importance of daily digital networking. An interesting article about a company is a reason to reach out to that company’s CEO and other employees on Linkedin. Social networks beget digital conversations that can turn into a real relationship over time. Relationships turn into deals. Social Media Examiner recently pointed out that a significant 85% of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated exposure for their businesses.  Improved traffic to their sites was the second major benefit, followed by building new partnerships.

Branding is a two-way street

The amount of content being created every day, Chad noted, is almost incomprehensible. The personal branders that are striving to solidify their personal brands now, will be the staples of their niche tomorrow. Asset management and wealth management firms that continue to sit on the sidelines are missing an important opportunity to win new customers now. We are discovering that major rebrands are not necessary.  Rather advisors and money managers are finding out they are able to evolve and grow their network with a “brand refresh”,  a more cost effective and efficient way to capitalize on the opportunity.

Find out more about the latest developments in social media for the highly regulated financial services industry on June 2, 2010. Sign up: brighttalk.com/webcast/20874 to join me and panelists from American Century, Fidelity and Socialware as we discuss:  “Social Media: Can Advisors Afford to Miss It?”

Click on Chad Levitt to access his full blog.

By D. Bruce Johnston, DBJ Associates

Researchers and compliance officers are rallying around FINRA’s landmark 10-06 rule on social media-driven investment communications to give guidance to legions of newly energized investment marketers.

Marketers rejoice: Hedges

“We’re seeing new levels of enthusiasm among marketing communications project managers,” said Zach Hedges of Advisolocity recently. “Marketers on a tight budget see sunlight through the clouds.” He credits freeware networking site Linkedin, Twitter and WordPress for a lot of the investment marketers regained optimism.

“They are  just glad they can start telling a story again. That’s all,”  he added.

Financial research firm Nemertes signals happy days for thrifty marketers too in an online report: “The new guidelines bring clarity, but remove excuses for delay.”

Without delay, it’s full speed ahead for SMM.

However, Nemertes cautions the tidal wave of consultants, archivists, communications specialists, compliance firms and social media strategists, to get busy carefully: “Plan to converge or add social media features and capabilities with security solutions for communications media like email and IM.”

Meanwhile, the legal profession is hard at work decoding 10-06 for peers and marketers. Winston & Strawn’s Robert Boresta is scheduled to speak at Knowledge Congress’ Live Webcast on FINRA Guidance on Social Networking Sites on May 4.

Will low budgets prevent marketers from taking advantage of all of this good news? Not likely: media types can breathe easier following a new study quoted by Marketing Pilgrim that while 40% of marketers report budgets down for the year, 70% plan to redeploy their resources from traditional print and advertising to Twitter and Facebook marketing.

The resource shift is sure to accelerate as marketers and compliance officers now find common agreement.

The last impediment to utilizing the cost-efficiencies and creativity of social media programs has been removed. Perhaps a new era of responsible, spontaneous, transparent communication can help put back some heart in the troubled securities industry.