Many Fund Companies Exhibited At Schwab's IMPACT2010— These 3 Had The Twitter Hashtag To Themselves

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Asked to provide public examples of where social media participation has paid off for asset managers, we’ve got nothing…yet.

The best public argument we can offer in favor of mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) firm participation in social media right now is this: Asset managers visible on social networks are most likely raising awareness. As cognizant as we are of the work that precedes a regulated firm’s debut on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook, the first reason to do it is to see and be seen.

Social media offers a glint of promise that more clients, more engaged clients, more revenue and assets under management will follow but for now here’s where we are—a promising show by a handful of asset managers at the Schwab IMPACT2010 conference.

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    5. iSharesETFsWe'll be at Schwab IMPACT tomorrow tweeting live…Check back for coverage throughout the day. #SchwabIMPACT ^KF27 Oct 2010from SocialOomph

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      For reasons related to their own Compliance restraints or whatever, most firms continue to use Twitter as a few-times-a-week broadcast channel. Some of the tweeting last week advanced the state of the art of how money managers are taking part in Twitter-based “conversations.”

      @iSharesETFs, Northern Trust Investments’ @Fixedology and @RochesterFunds (OppenheimerFunds) mixed it up—and by that we mean, they followed others, they re-tweeted, they sent natural, medium-appropriate marketing messages, they tweeted insights from presentations and they engaged in ongoing hashtag themes.

      If your firm has a Twitter account or is planning one, these three firms elevated the bar some for asset manager online engagement. Practically speaking, they also serve as an example of how social media capabilities need to be introduced and integrated across the enterprise, including with your event planning.

      Hashtags Make Sure Tweets Get Noticed

      On Twitter the # (hashtag) is used as a way to cluster content on a subject. Twitter accounts include hashtags in their tweets when they want to be sure that their content gets noticed not just by those following the Twitter account but also by people who are tracking the hashtag topic. The usefulness of hashtags kicks up a notch when an event hashtag is included in tweets. Attendees who refer to the event hashtag during the conference are better informed as most conference providers will use it as a channel for updates.

      But because there are no limits on who uses a hashtag, savvier communicators today pile on. The result of all this? A rich archive of what happened, who said what, what were the takeaways and what was the larger community’s response.

      An event hashtag stream mirrors the diversity you’d find on a conference floor—it’s a collision of news and announcements, content highlights and commercial tweets from the conference sponsor, presenters, exhibitors and even the AV staff working the events. Take a few minutes to scroll through the 35 (as of this morning) pages of #SchwabIMPACT tweets.

      If you’re not comfortable reading tweets, the stream may take some getting used to. Oh and also, the better tweets get re-tweeted not just by those at the event but by those at home following the event. And then their tweets are included in the event stream, providing visibility for those not onsite. What you don’t see in the stream are the one-to-one messages that take place using Twitter’s back channel—the direct message (DM) capability.

      We took the above snippet from the Schwab stream. The first tweet is from Leslie Banks, a Morningstar director of marketing whose @LeslieBanks Twitter account has lots of advisor followers. Banks wasn't at the conference but she tweeted a re-tweet. (Hang with me here.) The Banks' tweet is followed by a Schwab event programming note. Then see the RochesterFunds tweet, rocking not just the event hashtag but three others (#Rochester #muni #investing).

      The benefit of the event hashtag is that it enlarges the audience and extends the reach of all those who use it.

      Greater Reach, Better Return

      Asset managers that pay to exhibit at Schwab or any conference do so to fly the flag, among other things. The list of fund firms that paid to sponsor something at IMPACT reads like a who's who; the list of fund exhibitors would be even longer. For Schwab-supporting firms that weren’t on Twitter or weren’t prepared to tweet using the hashtag, the flying of the flag last week was limited to those they could reach onsite.

      Schwab delivers one of the single largest gatherings of advisors (1,600 RIAs according to a @Schwab4RIAs tweet). But iShares, Northern Trust and Rochester Funds leveraged their investment with their tweeting.

      According to BlastFollow.com, 111 Twitter accounts used the #SchwabIMPACT hashtag. We recognized about a dozen financial advisors using the hashtag in their tweets to their connections (and see our latest AdvisorTweets blog post about shadow advisors on Twitter). Most of the leading advisor publications included the hashtag in their micro-reports.

      While iShares, Northern Trust and Rochester Funds all gained followers last week, we think they also benefited from their tweets being part of the weave of the online conversation about the conference and its themes.

      The examples below will give you an idea of what your peers said. To fully appreciate how this works, you need to read the tweets in context, preceded by and following others who have an online voice.

      Tweets To Boost Booth Traffic

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        5. FixedologyLet's talk fixed income at #SchwabIMPACT! Visit Fixedology at booth 91728 Oct 2010from web

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          Tweets To Support A Speaker

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            5. RochesterFundsMuni fund mgr Dan Loughran knows all about Contrasting Strategies. He’s made a career of them & is on a #SchwabIMPACT panel @ 2:15 Thurs.28 Oct 2010from web

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              Tweets As An Onsite Correspondent

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                5. iSharesETFsIn 5 years? More wireless, more filtering, more integration of FB/Twitter into everything . Social media is evolving. #SchwabIMPACT ^KF28 Oct 2010from Twitter for BlackBerry®

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