The Financial Services Institute unveiled Tuesday at its first Advisor Summit a revamped website and a social network called FSI Social to help increase its online advocacy and help independent advisor members grow their businesses.
FSI Social provides a secure virtual environment for both FSI member firm executives and financial advisor members so that they can collaborate and share best practices. FSI members "don't feel LinkedIn is enough," Chris Paulitz, FSI's senior vice president of membership and marketing, told reporters during a morning briefing. However, he said FSI Social allows advisors to import their LinkedIn profiles.
While FSI's membership has experienced rapid growth, FSI's website "has not kept pace with the success of FSI," Paulitz said. "We nuked our website and built a new one."
FSI President and CEO Dale Brown added that FSI's new website will help advisors "stay better informed and be more effective citizen advocates."
Via the site, advisors can learn about such issues as the 70 social media bills that are wending their way through state legislatures, Paulitz said. The state social media bills, which cover compliance with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, "are almost always in conflict with FINRA rules," he said.
FSI also unveiled two new resources to help its advisor members retain their current clients and attract new ones.
