7 Lessons For Training Financial Advisors To Use Social Media

The “number one barrier to success on LinkedIn is lack of education and awareness of what’s possible,” according to Brian Tietje, formerly of LinkedIn and now Vice President Sales RockTech.

Tietje recently moderated a panel, “Training Employees To Use Social The Right Way,” at Social Media and Compliance (SMAC) conference organized by Financial Technologies Forum. Panelists included Amy Watson, Vice President, Goldman Sachs, Corina Roy, Assistant Vice President, Digital Experience at MassMutual Financial Group, and Dawn Schricke, Executive Consultant, Schricke and Associates. All are veterans of social media deployment within the highly regulated financial services industry.

The panel confirmed that  training is essential to the success of any social media deployment as well as being required by regulators within the financial services industry. The training should illustrate your corporate social media policies and explain what is allowed and what is prohibited. The panels agreed that specific examples of “Do’s and Don’t’s” accelerate the learning process. There was also overall agreement that in addition to fundamental training required by the regulators, it is also effective to train on “Best Practices." This means that you need to be prepared to show participants how to set up profiles, engage with followers, contribute to communities, demonstrate expertise, grow their networks and analyze their effectiveness.

The panelists shared 7 lessons they learned when rolling out social media training to Financial Advisors:

1. Avoid having Financial Advisors understand social better than their supervisors . Roy explained that it’s important that Compliance and Supervisors understand the why, what, and how of social media as least as well as the financial advisors. Gather together the team that is helping you to roll out social media and explain why you want to use social and the value it brings to the firm and walk through the compliance and legal aspects. Demonstrate the what, meaning the tools such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and encourage Legal and Compliance to use the tools personally. Only after they understand why and what, train the team on how to use social media.
2. An enthusiastic Branch Manager will enhance training success and social adoption . Schricke said that the office culture is set by the Branch Manager and that Financial Advisors were much more receptive when their local management is on board.
3. Don’t assume that your Social Media Employee Use Policy will be understood by everyone.  Watson suggested conducting some in-person training to create a dialog, to hear questions and better understand how social is being used. You learn more when you have a dialogue. Then adapt polices accordingly. She also conveyed that training needs to be ongoing as the networks and policies change over time.
4. Ensure consistency among Compliance team reviewing activities on social media.  Make sure that compliance understands how the rules have been interpreted across the organization, said Watson. Make sure the message filters up and down. Everyone should have the same answer to the questions from the end users.
5. Share social success stories to increase adoption.  You can use technology to keep track of adoption and various metrics such as frequency of posts, however you need to conduct regular meetings with users to hear about success stories. And when you share those successes stories, you increase adoption, said Schricke.
6. One size does not fit all when it comes to social media training . Roy conveyed that it’s important to tier and tailor your training. Depending on the training culture of your firm, you may elect to offer in person coaching, Instructor-Lead Training (ILT), WebEx, video or e-learning that illustrate your policies. You may find that different modalities of training meet various audiences' needs.
7. Train Financial Advisors on the importance of listening on social.  Tietje concluded the session by reminding the audience of the importance of paying attention. After all, 90% of the people on social media are “wall flowers” who conduct research and listen to people around them. Not everyone is inherently outgoing and social. He suggests that Financial Advisors be taught to watch and listen and gauge the temperature of the conversation before jumping in.

Good advice for us all.