5-Step Social Media Plan

With more than 800 million active users across Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, social media cannot be ignored. Financial institutions must adapt or face mass customer migration.

In researching and writing my social media books, The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Market, Sell, and Innovate and How to Make Money Marketing on Facebook, and in my subsequent work with thousands of financial professionals, I have seen the many ways financial institutions are making new technologies work for them, ultimately succeeding in the LinkedIn and Facebook era. These five guidelines could help you develop your best practices.

1. Address regulatory compliance. As you probably already know, there are a number of federal regulations governing online communications. SEC Rule 17a-4 and NASD Rules 2210, 2211, and 3110 require records retention for a minimum of three years on all incoming and outgoing business-related electronic communications, including all social network messages, status updates and posts.

FINRA enforces these SEC regulations as they apply to broker-dealers, and last year issued Regulatory Notice 10-06 to underscore the importance of extending good governance practices to include social media. While the specifics of Dodd-Frank are still being determined, new laws governing other mainstream financial professionals are likely on the way.

The most successful financial institutions and their representatives possess the forethought to implement sound records retention and review procedures as they integrate social media initiatives. They exercise cautious but not exclusionary best practices from the onset.

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Source: americanbanker.com
By: Clara Shih