{"id":3025,"date":"2011-05-27T15:59:26","date_gmt":"2011-05-27T15:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=3025"},"modified":"2011-05-27T15:59:26","modified_gmt":"2011-05-27T15:59:26","slug":"worlds-largest-brokerage-oks-social-networking-by-financial-advisors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/worlds-largest-brokerage-oks-social-networking-by-financial-advisors\/","title":{"rendered":"World’s Largest Brokerage OKs Social Networking by Financial Advisors"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/p>\n
Memo heralds new media breakthrough<\/strong><\/p>\n

New York-based financial services powerhouse, Morgan Stanley<\/strong><\/a>, the world\u2019s largest brokerage firm, announced, not in a tweet or a blog, but in an old-fashioned, internal memo<\/strong><\/a>, plans to \u201cbegin a staged, roll-out for Advisors to use Social Media.\u201d<\/div>\n

Mincing no words about the implications of the announcement, the memo\u2019s author, Andy Saperstein<\/strong><\/a>, who heads the brokerage\u2019s U.S. operations, observed: <\/p>\n

\n“This will be a significant competitive advantage.”<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n

Morgan Stanley\u2019s decision to invest in social media by allowing, initially, a select group of about 600 of its financial advisors to use social media, will undoubtedly leave others in the highly-regulated financial services sector scrambling to follow the leader.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Regulatory Authority Guidelines Met with Industry Social Media Paralysis<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)<\/strong><\/a> had provided the financial services industry with social media guidelines<\/strong><\/a> in January of 2010, the highly-regulated financial services sector largely greeted the Authority’s invitation to participate in social media with paralysis<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 Responding, nonetheless, to a keen, continued\u00a0interest in social media by brokerages, FINRA even provided a session on social media compliance <\/strong><\/a>at its 2011 annual conference.<\/p>\n

Technology\u00a0Aids Compliance, Spurs Social Media Participation<\/strong><\/p>\n

A requirement of FINRA’s guidelines is the archiving of social media communications, a particularly challenging compliance mandate.\u00a0 To this requirement, Saperstein noted in his memo that:
\n <\/em><\/div>\n

\n<\/em>In the coming weeks, Morgan Stanley will implement a technology <\/em>solution <\/em>that will capture and retain all communications on approved <\/em>social networking <\/em>sites to comply with regulatory requirements.<\/em><\/div>\n

Although various archiving vendors exist, Saperstein’s memo suggests a “technological solution” that may well be proprietary in nature.\u00a0 Whatever it is, it will be closely scrutinized as an industry standard.<\/p>\n

Limited Launch in Late June; Full Roll Out Within 6 Month<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

Announcing a tight timeline, Saperstein explained that the first 600 advisors would begin their social media participation in late June, “with access to LinkedIn and partial use of Twitter”, with\u00a0“the rest of the field” having access within\u00a0six months.\u00a0 (It is worth noting that Morgan Stanley reportedly reaped huge fees from recently\u00a0underwriting LinkedIn’s IPO.)<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Firm to Provide Content for Sharing; Participation Preceded by Training and Profile Approval<\/strong><\/p>\n

Saperstein informed employees in his memo that the firm would provide “a tool for Advisors to distribute Firm approved research and content, providing you with a powerful way to share our unique intellectual content with clients and prospects.”\u00a0 Providing employees with content to share through social networks\u00a0to clients and prospects could have a two-fold benefit:\u00a0 it could ensure that the content shared was branded as well as scrutinized for regulatory compliance.<\/p>\n

The lucky 600, who will become Morgan Stanley’s social media pioneers, were also told that they would receive an e-mail “with more details on training and how to get started by getting your profiles approved.”<\/p>\n

No Mention of Facebook and Only “partial use of Twitter”<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Interestingly, the memo makes no mention of the largest social network, Facebook<\/strong><\/a>, while stating that the financial advisors “will have access to LinkedIn<\/strong><\/a> and partial use of Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.”<\/p>\n

The glaring absence of any mention of Facebook may suggest that that particular social may not be part of the brokerage’s initial social media roll out.\u00a0 Like the risk-adverse\u00a0pharmaceutical sector<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0another highly-regulated industry, wealth management may yet find too many unresolved compliance issues with Facebook.<\/p>\n

Morgan Stanley An Early Student of “Significant Share Gains of Internet Traffic” by\u00a0Social Networks<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2008, Morgan Stanley noted the fast-growing role of social media in online communications, outlining “significant share gains of online traffic”.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

What are your thoughts?\u00a0 Is social media a smart investment for the financial services?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Glen Gilmore<\/div>\n
\n

Please make one small investment in social media – join me on Twitter!\u00a0 <\/strong>GlenGilmore<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

For the text of the Morgan Stanley memo, see: <\/strong>Tweet on the Street<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Memo heralds new media breakthrough New York-based financial services powerhouse, Morgan Stanley, the world\u2019s largest brokerage firm, announced, not in a tweet or a blog, but in an old-fashioned, internal memo, plans to \u201cbegin a staged, roll-out for Advisors to use Social Media.\u201d Mincing no words about the implications of the announcement, the memo\u2019s author, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,85],"tags":[1258,1259,34,244],"class_list":["post-3025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-glengilmore","tag-brokerage","tag-morgan-stanley","tag-social-networking","tag-twitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3025"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3030,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3025\/revisions\/3030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}