The Best Social Media Compliance Products for Financial Advisors

Amy McIlwain
Amy McIlwain • Posted on Mar 31, 2011

 

 

As a financial advisor compliance can be a nightmare…especially when it comes to social media. The question is, how do you successfully manage your social networks while remaining compliant?  There are myriad products that give you the ability to organize, manage and execute a winning strategy.  In addition to our handy Social Media Compliance Guide we’ve done our research and have found the top three social media compliance products that will help your business succeed.  Here’s the breakdown:

Arkovi
Created by financial services professionals, Arkovi is a social media archiving tool that records and files social content for your use.  When certain content is posted from social networking sites like Facebook or LinkedIn Arkovi archives your users content and then filters and exports it to your 3rd party collection service.  Why is this important to you and your business?  Monitoring the content of you and your connections is crucial to the successful management and exposure of your brand.  Not only does Arkovi have powerful tools for search, reporting and exportation of your content, but it is also in compliance with FINRA and SEC regulations for record keeping of electronic communications.  Here’s a snapshot of just some of the content Arkovi archives for its users:

  • Facebook
    • Personal Profiles & Fan Pages
    • Public Status Updates
    • Photos
    • Messages
    • Comments by others
    • Groups
  • LinkedIn
    • Status Updates (you and your connections)
    • Profiles
    • Connections and Recommendations
  • RSS
    • Blogs and Blog comments
    • RSS feeds from web sites
    • RSS feeds from social networks
    • Saved searches from Twitter
  • Twitter
    • Any public Twitter stream
    • Direct Messages
    • Mentions
    • When your Tweets reTweeted

Smarsh
Smarsh’s list of products and services covers a broad range of social media archiving and compliance services.  Their main focus is to provide message archiving solutions that help your company manage compliance and record retention.  With Smarsh, you can record emails, instant messages, and even enlist a virtual compliance officer that automatically supervises tasks for efficiency and policy enforcement.  If you are worried about compliance, Smarsh is the way to go.  This snapshot of their products and services list will give you a good idea of how they can help your business:

  • Message archiving and compliance
  • Messaging security
  • CRM and document management
  • Website services
  • Email hosting services
  • Additional services such as secure backup, file storage, and hosting custom applications

Socialware
Acting as a social middleware platform, Socialware has several different program mediums that give users the ability to decide at which level they’d like to manage their business’s social networking usage.  You can regulate your social media policy company wide, archive your company’s social network activity, and learn about the latest compliance regulations.  Here are the tools they offer:

  • Compass: automate your enterprise social networking policy
  • Sync: Archive your social identities and activities
  • Insights: Social networking research, best practices and policies

Social media software products are essential to the success of your business.  They can save your company significant hassle, time and money, as well as protect it from the ramifications of non-compliant participation in social networks that are growing more and more common.  Ensure that your business is following the best practices and stay on top of your social networks by utilizing these services.  Each company offers a unique advantage and I would suggest investigating all three to determine which one is ideal for you and your business.

CEO-Graham

About Advisor Websites, A Snappy Kraken Company

Founded in 2012, we specialize in helping financial advisors stand out and grow their business online with conversion-friendly, personalized websites and targeted digital marketing solutions, all of which follow FINRA and SEC guidelines.

Disclaimer: The content of this article is for informational purposes only. If you are planning to implement a new marketing practice and are unsure what the regulations are, always contact your compliance department first.

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