What Happens When A Financial Advisor Dares To Mix Politics And Social Media

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What happens... when people stop being polite... and start getting real”
(MTV's The Real World)

Something quite fascinating is happening in the Comments area of an RIABiz article published Monday. The article is about a financial advisor using social media to build his business. That’s how reporter Kelly O’Mara explained her assignment when she emailed me Friday afternoon asking for a comment.

But, the devil is in the details and here are the specifics in this case. RIA and financial advisor Mark Matson of Matson Money is taking to the social sites to mount a campaign teeing off a statement made by President Barack Obama on July 13:

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On Verge Of Acquisition, Pioneering Social Media Archiver Arkovi Looks Back And Forward

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I guess you could call me a homer—I root for the home team when it comes to expectations about where financial innovation can come from.

For example, the reaction to last week’s announcement about Intuit opening up the APIs to its financial data service (underlying Quicken, QuickBooks, Mint and FinanceWorks) was irksome to me. The news was framed in terms of the opportunity it represented for start-ups. Why just start-ups and newcomers? I think there are plenty of innovative-minded types within financial services companies today looking to create something new out of what they know.

Enabling Regulated Firms' Participation

All of which I mention by way of easing into today’s post, which acknowledges the work and success of a few guys who were inside financial services and saw an emerging business opportunity: Namely, that regulated firms’ use of social networks would require a permanent archive to retain the records of communications of what the firms and the employees said on others' platforms.

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Harnessing Big Data To Gain Financial Advisor Insights

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A few months ago, “big data” was named “the Most Confusing Tech Buzzword of the Decade” (so far) by The Global Language Monitor. It’s deemed even more confusing than “the cloud,” which came in second.

So, what is big data? I like this generic explanation, which I'm paraphrasing from a few comments I've seen on Quora. According to Vikalp Jain, founder of mozvo.com, four Vs characterize big data:

  • Volume—so large that its size becomes a problem
  • Velocity—how quickly data is coming or changing
  • Value—data should have intrinsic value to justify the processing
  • Variety—which refers to the breadth of sources and the lack of common (or any) structure
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The ‘Safest’ Social Network? LinkedIn’s App Betrays Business Users' Confidence

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I read with horror this morning’s news that LinkedIn’s iPhone and iPad apps have been collecting details about meeting locations, participants, dial-in information, passwords, related notes and meeting attachments from those who opted into the feature. Read more in these posts and comments: LinkedIn’s Leaky Mobile App Has Access to Your Meeting Notes and LinkedIn’s iOS app collects and transmits names, emails and notes from your calendar, in plain text.

In response, a LinkedIn blog post at some point today commented on its mobile calendar feature and said, “We will no longer send data from the meeting notes section of your calendar event,” a change made to Android and submitted to Apple for the iOS devices.
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Really? LinkedIn Groups Are Asset Managers’ Most Important Social Media Offering?

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American Century Investments yesterday released an update to last year’s widely quoted survey on advisor adoption and use of social media.

Overall, the 2012 survey reflects progress that’s along the lines of what we all have been seeing:

  • Nine out of 10 advisors now have a social media profile or account—73% Facebook (vs. 71% in 2011), 62% LinkedIn (vs. 55% in 2011) and 27% Twitter (vs. 19% in 2011).
  • More advisors are active—56% (vs. 51% in 2011) say they’re either moderate or extensive social media users.
  • Access via a mobile device, which is the headline of the American Century announcement, has more than doubled.
  • And, something that will please Google, 19% of advisors created Google+ accounts in the nine months that social network has been live.

But there is one finding that’s quite surprising.

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