[Hat tip to Barron's Electronic Investor)
A financial services research firm, Corporate Insight, recently published a 173-page report aptly named, Social Media: Trends and Tactics in the Financial Services Industry (see table of contents here). While I don’t have a spare $12k to purchase the report (anyone want to comp me?), it appears to be the first full-blow
n look on how well (or poorly) the financial industry has taken to web 2.0 technologies and community building.
On the firm’s blog, Corporate Insight summarizes its findings, many of which are familiar to readers of this blog. Some of the findings:
- Financial firms have a long way to go: CI likes what Zecco and Quicken have done. Others seem to be much further in properly adopting social media.
- Compliance demands continue to hamper social media rollout: Compliance to SEC and FINRA requirements continues to color the way financial firms look at content, especially when it comes to investor-generated content.
- Gaps in populating networks: Getting account holders to adopt social media practices is proving tough for brokers and other online finance sites. Putting together a cool place to hang out doesn’t work if someone shows up and there’s no party going on.
- Start small: CI recommends starting small for some of these firms. The firm recommends beginning with a blog and then incrementally layering in other facets of a social media strategy.
I’d love to see how the research firms sizes up these various efforts vis-a-vis what others are doing. If someone has access to this report, ping me and let me know what you think.
