By John C. Drachman

Will money managers soon be showing their customers more love?

According to D. Bruce Johnston, due to pressures from outside the industry, most notably from banks, the answer is a resounding “yes.”

Loud and clear: customers want attention

“As the customer service benchmark is being raised outside of the industry, money managers too will find themselves held to a higher standard by investors and advisors,” added the president of DBJ Associates.

Banks have raised customer service bar

Johnston sees part of the pressure coming from the rise of mobile technology, especially  iPads, which “are conditioning people to expect instant access to information 24/7.”

According to Johnston, such initiatives are not unknown in investment distribution. “It’s something asset managers have been trying to teach through value-add programs — to be more sensitive to the clients’ needs,” he said in a recent Hannah Glover article for Ignites. “It’s time for asset managers to apply the same standards to both advisors and investors,” he added.

Johnston, co-author of Introduction to Social Media with R. Jeffrey Young of Huntington Asset Services, added that “As firms study and adapt to the new world of enhanced customer service, they should not overlook creative and cost-efficient solutions that are close at hand.”

Johnston concluded that social media blogs and networks offer financial marketers a convenient and inexpensive way to provide more service-oriented communications to customers.

Mutual fund marketers and compliance officers are cautiously cheering the social media guidelines from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

D. Bruce Johnston, distribution media consultant for DBJ Associates, and Advisolocity, a new social media forum for advisors, said this week, “The financial professionals I’ve been speaking with are feeling good about FINRA’s hard work.”

He cited two areas he termed positive for advisors and money managers looking to expand their social media presence.  “Archiving technology, for one, is here today to meet the FINRA rules requiring record retention.”

The requirement for in-house development of social media policies is a big plus, too, Mr. Johnston added. “It’s more work in the beginning for a firm, but it will allow a lot of smart flexibility. Some firms have already said that they want to use interactive blogs  to emphasize thought leadership and subject matter expertise only — and leave investment marketing to their web site. Why not make that the official policy?”

Mr. Johnston invited interested professionals to register and download their complimentary copy of  One-2-One, How Social Media Lets You Have 1000 Conversations at Once, directly from the Advisolocity blog.

Mutual fund marketers and compliance officers are cautiously cheering the social media guidelines from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

D. Bruce Johnston, distribution media consultant for DBJ Associates, and Advisolocity, a new social media forum for advisors, said this week, “The financial professionals I’ve been speaking with are feeling good about FINRA’s hard work.”

He cited two areas he termed positive for advisors and money managers looking to expand their social media presence.  “Archiving technology, for one, is here today to meet the FINRA rules requiring record retention.”

The requirement for in-house development of social media policies is a big plus, too, Mr. Johnston added. “It’s more work in the beginning for a firm, but it will allow a lot of smart flexibility. Some firms have already said that they want to use interactive blogs  to emphasize thought leadership and subject matter expertise only — and leave investment marketing to their web site. Why not make that the official policy?”

Mr. Johnston invited interested professionals to register and download their complimentary copy of  One-2-One, How Social Media Lets You Have 1000 Conversations at Once, directly from the Advisolocity blog.

Financial social media marketing just received a welcome boost from the nation’s largest independent securities industry regulator.

Social media age: Investor education begins at 13

The Alliance Library System of East Peoria, Ill. received a grant of  $100,000 from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Investor Education Foundation and the American Library Association (ALA) for social media and other education programs.

FINRA steps up

The library system will deliver saving and investing information through social media targeting individuals ages 13 to 35, according to Earth Times.

The demographically and technologically attuned library system in rural, central Illinois will also provide online and face-to-face investor education programs through six of its public libraries.

What next?

“This move bodes well for financial marketers,” social media consultant D. Bruce Johnston said recently. “FINRA is supposed to provide new guidance about social media vehicles this March.  I think the fact that they are funding this investor education program is a clear tilt toward the benefits of this engaging and cost-efficient communications trend.”

For FINRA, the inference is clear: “How can you say social media is right for younger investors in central Illinois, but not for mutual fund shareholders in general?,” Mr. Johnston concluded.

FINRA’s intentions, however, still remain closely held. The term “social media” appears nowhere in both the text of a new rule under FINRA’s consideration, nor Regulatory Notice 09-55, the comment notice, also currently under review.

You can download your copies of Proposed New FINRA rules and Comment on Notice here.

The notice also invites interested readers to call Joseph P. Savage, Vice President and Counsel, Investment Companies Regulation, at (240) 386-4534; or Thomas A. Pappas, Vice President and Director, Advertising Regulation, at (240) 386-4553 to state opinions.