Don’t Fear the Future, IAA Social Media Panel Says
Ah, the good old days of the mid-1990s, when business people debated whether they needed a website. Lately there’s déjà vu in the air now that social media is playing a greater role in the affairs of financial advisors. Do I need to be on Facebook, or have a Twitter account? Do my clients really care?
It seems that they do, a panel assured more than 100 advisors at this week’s Investment Adviser Association conference in San Francisco. Two-thirds of LinkedIn users consult their network on investment issues, said Lee Kowarski, principal at kasina, a New York-based financial services consultant. Those social media users are more likely to share information about their advisor with their networks, he said.
Taking a casual poll of the audience, Kowarski found that just 10 to 15 percent of those assembled are active users of social media. Nationally, nearly 76 percent of financial advisors are using social media in some fashion.
