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Who Says You Can’t Talk Product in Social Media?

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Jun 20, 2012, in Thoughts , tagged with , ,

“Anything but product.”

That’s what a client said to us recently as we worked through content options for social media. It’s a point we hear regularly and one that the industry seems to generally believe in, either because of regulatory concerns or because of the potential perception of “pushing product”.

Then there’s this:

A BlackRock Tweet from June 3, 2012.

That was followed by another Tweet on June 10th highlighting BlackRock’s Global Dividend Income Fund. And, in fact, the June 3rd Tweet wasn’t even the first. BlackRock specifically mentioned its LifePath Portfolios back on May 28th.

At the very least, this challenges the widely-held notion that product-specific promotion is an absolute social media no-no. It will be interesting to see if this type of content becomes more common moving forward.

Client Quotes: The Pace of Digital Change

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Jun 07, 2012, in Thoughts , tagged with , , , ,

In almost every client meeting I hear something memorable. It’s usually something funny, because my brain retains that stuff better. But it’s also always something that reinforces an important idea for me.

Still a dominant force, and a reminder that digital change happens slowly.

This week I heard two things that reminded me just how far our industry has to go when it comes to digital strategy and execution. Every day we hear about a new cutting-edge mobile initiative, or another firm expanding its social media presence, or a unique piece of content.

We hear less on the reality that in many ways the digital evolution is a slow one. Here are two client quotes from last week that hammer that home:

1. “When terrorists send a threat, they don’t do it via PDF.”

This got a big laugh from me. It was a moment of stand-up comedy in an otherwise serious discussion. In this case, the client was lamenting his firm’s struggle to produce compelling output in light of video’s immense impact on how people communicate memorable messages.

The fact is that the industry has gotten markedly better in using video, specifically by:

  • Mixing multimedia content in alongside traditional printed material
  • Keeping videos short, given viewers’ attention spans are at all-time lows
  • Finding the sweet spot among production quality, production speed, and cost

Even so, there’s an entrenched printed material legacy, and clients still prefer the printed option to multimedia in many cases. Video may have killed the radio star, but it hasn’t yet done major damage to the asset management PDF.

2. “I just received the regulatory ‘OK’ for two Tweets I posted in December.”

/re-checks calendar

Ouch.

We recently wrote a piece about the barriers to social media implementation (subscription) for Ignites. We didn’t delve into the issue of regulation if only because it’s so well-established as THE major contingency in many firms’ social media strategies.

That said, we have two active social media projects right now, and this client hammered home the potential negative impact of regulation. Not only do the rules need to be better crystallized, but the processes do as well.

Six-month waits for approval of 140 characters will put the brakes on some firms’ continued adoption of social media.

Vanguard Making Use of Old Content

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Oct 12, 2011, in Thoughts , tagged with , , ,

This is outstanding:

Vanguard references an article it first published in 2009.

The reason? Vanguard re-used a solid piece of content it initially produced almost two years ago.

In the constant battle to create more and more new content, firms too often forget that they’ve produced tons of great material in the past. Most of it is buried, never to see the light of day. Often this is because firms simply don’t have good organizational memory on what they’ve previously created.

But there is definitely ongoing value in certain less-than-new pieces. It’s good for clients and easy for the firm. Nice job here by Vanguard.

Vanguard & Twitter

Posted by Anu Heda on Jun 16, 2011, in Thoughts , tagged with ,

I decided to look through the 835 folks Vanguard follows (follow the link and you can too) on twitter.  Why?  Besides having a bit of evening time and a lot of curiosity, I wanted to understand how Vanguard participates in social media.

Here are five typical accounts Vanguard follows:

  1. YoungMoney – magazine targeted to financial & business matters of young Americans
  2. LipperLeaders – mutual fund industry research pioneer
  3. IRSnews – yes, that Internal Revenue Service
  4. BrandRyantInsure – a Virginia-based insurance agent
  5. RedCross – the Red Cross

This says that Vanguard is (a) engaged in social media, (b) interested in other opinions and thoughts, & (c) charitable.  Also, none of these accounts have fewer than 691 followers themselves; so there’s a good opportunity to hear from their followers via retweeting.

We’re not advocating that all firms need to use social media.  But if you do consider it, examining Vanguard’s usage and engagement is a good, early step.

How Do You Want Advisors to Follow-Up?

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Apr 06, 2011, in Thoughts , tagged with , , , ,

I spent an hour last week monitoring an asset manager’s quarterly conference call with advisors. As the call wrapped, the executive moderating the call invited advisors to follow up via the firm’s:

  • Web site
  • Twitter feed
  • Sales team

What was interesting to me is that is the exact order in which these outlets were introduced. Web, then Twitter, and finally the wholesalers. Besides the order, the voiceover did even more to reinforce the primacy of the Web and Twitter relative to the sales team.

Obviously this a minor, tactical part of the call. But I’m intrigued by the order. I would not claim that online outlets provide more effective follow-up than a wholesaler in this case. And the call did not have enough advisors to raise concerns about an overwhelming volume of inbound calls/e-mails.

So was this a conscious decision? Is there a reason why the Web and Twitter were prioritized? I can think of a few good explanations, and will follow up here when I get a concrete answer.