Part 1 of 3 — The securities business is now free to participate in social media, thanks to the new FINRA guidelines. This should have a significant impact on the investment community interacts with customers. Needless to say, the financial sector is late to the social media party, but there are advantages to arriving late. One of the biggest advantages is that the early arrivals figured out the basics and created the standards. This could lower ramp up times and reduce false starts, but it requires paying attention and studying the lay of the land. I suggest borrowing a page or two from the community benefit sector. Nonprofits have taken to social media like ducks to water and the financial sector could do well to study what works for them.
A great place to start is with big picture thinking from Hildy Gottlieb’s, The Pollyanna Principles. The book has absolutely nothing to do with financial services; it’s about creating change in communities. Since social networks are communities and social media is all about building communities, this is a good, yet unorthodox place to start. The financial sector has a new opportunity to communicate important information and to create needed changes in how we spend, save, give and invest. Ultimately, taking a look at the big picture through such a different lens should dispel some of the trepidation of getting involved with social media.
Gottlieb has identified six Pollyanna Principles that can be used to guide organizational change and create a new future. Over the next three posts SPURspectives will examine each of them. They answer many of the major objections that I’ve heard from the financial sector about social media such as:
How can we participate in social media when no one has the time? Why should we get involved? Two Pollyanna Principles speak to that:
• We accomplish what we hold ourselves accountable for.
• Each and every one of us is creating the future, every day, whether we do so consciously or not.
While this can come across as preachy, remember that it was written for guiding nonprofits, but I believe it is important to the financial sector because of the following. According the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, as of September 2009, 74% of Americans are online, 57% use online banking and 47% use social media. Social media isn’t going away. It has been growing since the first emails were sent in the 1970’s. Social media isn’t a burden of additional work; it’s an opportunity to shift efforts to communicate with people in the manner that they desire. You and your firm’s founders have relied on social interaction to build the business over the years even though you use radically different communications channels. Change is happening again and FINRA says it’s time to get on board. Tomorrow SPURspectives will continue this discussion with a look at some other common objections and more of the Pollyanna Principles.
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Really enjoying your look at social media in the securities field through the lens of the Pollyanna Principles. Looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
[...] can be applied to social media use in the Financial Sector. The start of that series can be found here. Having recently spent a week immersed in the Pollyanna Principles, I couldn’t agree with [...]