The Socially Savvy Advisor + Website: Compliant Social Media for the Financial Industry

Chapter 18How Do We Decide Which Social Media Platforms to Use?

You have to use the networks as a listening device.

—Blane Warrene, co-founder, Arkovi

With new social media platforms popping up every year, it's hard to know where to start when building a social media strategy. There are the obvious ones, but there are a host of others. Who would have thought Pinterest or Vine would now be something advisors or asset managers might use?

In other chapters in this book, we guide you in ways to manage specific social media networks. Here, we want to talk about how you might go about choosing particular platforms, how to use platforms simultaneously, and how your goals and audience fit in. As always, be sure to read on; while you may think you know what to do by the headlines, some valuable nuggets of help are within our discussion.

Three Questions to Ask…And it all Starts With Compliance

For financial professionals, choosing the right platform(s) might first be dictated by your compliance policy. Oftentimes, as we address later, firms will develop a specific social media policy to guide their activities.

But in choosing the best platform, one needs to answer these three questions (see Figure 18.1):

1. What do we want to accomplish?
2. Where are our clients, prospects, or influencers? What social networks do they frequent?
3. Can I remain compliant using those platforms?

Figure 18.1 ...