By: D. Bruce Johnston, President, DBJ Associates
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s slightly relaxed oversight standard for interactive blogging in the money management world means tweets are here to stay, according to John Drachman, writer and creative director for The Drachman Group, Inc., and Advisolocity, a social media forum for advisors.
“This is something to cheer about,” Mr. Drachman added.
According to FINRA, if a blog is used to engage in real-time interactive communications FINRA would consider the blog to be an interactive electronic forum that does not require prior principal approval.
“The social media compliance solution has always been about the blog,” Mr. Drachman said. “Entanglement and adoption, which address where the content comes from and when a firm adopts it as its own, are easily avoided when the content is free and interactive.”
Save product discussion for a firm’s web site, he suggested. “The interactive blog, on the other hand, is a real-time conversation about a firm’s ideas.”
Mr. Drachman said that all of the attention being paid to FINRA this week has resulted in increased call volume, which has prompted the release of Advisolocity’s first white paper: One-2-One, How Social Media Lets You Have 1000 Conversations at Once. He invited financial professionals to register here and download their complimentary copy of the paper directly from the Advisolocity blog.