How to Walk the Social Media Tightrope: Doug Wilber

Financial professionals should avoid using partner content as their sole content source, though. Social media should be an extension of a professional's real-life relationships.

Think about it this way: If you wouldn't have a solely promotional conversation in real life, you shouldn't do it on social media either.

Is creating a post from scratch different from sharing someone else's post?

Whether a financial professional is creating or sharing a post, they should consider themselves and their firm responsible for the content.

One financial professional's social media can impact the entire firm brand, after all.

Social media compliance is complex and requires marketing, compliance, and individual advisors to work together.

While we recommend every advisor be active on social media to share thought leadership and amplify the brand, they definitely shouldn't go it alone or execute a strategy by posting natively to social media networks.

A social media management tool built for compliance can ensure every new and shared post is reviewed and approved by the right experts.

How can financial professionals avoid complaints about use of other people's content?

Whether it's financial information or cat videos, it's good social media etiquette to give credit to the original creator.

The greater risk is a financial professional posting misinformation that could damage the reputation of a firm or non-compliant content that draws the attention of regulators.

What should financial professionals do if they see standard, compliance-approved social media content and want to personalize it?

Financial professionals should definitely be personalizing content. This is a great way to make social media posts more authentic, but an approval workflow in a social media management tool is essential.

Once a financial professional personalizes a post, they can submit it for approval to ensure their commentary is factually correct and compliant.

Without the right tools, scaling a review and approval process is impractical (if not impossible) and opens up a financial institution to risk.

In your opinion, are there any drawbacks to financial professionals using packaged content from outside content? If so, how can financial professionals address those challenges?

Standard and packaged content can be a great tool, but it has to be personalized and useful to be effective. Think about the value a follower is getting from the post. It needs to matter to them.

Today's financial professionals must be social selling, not just building the brand by sharing content.

Smart financial professionals are using social media to build personal relationships, showcase thought leadership, engage with prospects, interact with existing customers, and ultimately build trust and rapport that will eventually lead to sales.

Doug Wilber. (Photo: Social Denim)