#SocialMediaStudies

Setting up an Asset Management- focused Social Media strategy - Key Considerations

Many asset management companies are finding that any decision on moving into social media is not driven by themselves, but rather by the demands of their customers for information. For investors and intermediaries, social media facilitates the process of obtaining information, guidance and market commentary, and it provides another channel to engage andmake more informed investment decisions. Furthermore, social media, with its direct interaction between company and user, has had a significant impact on customer expectations in terms of the speed of response.Whereas previously customers would post a letter to their bank, today, they expect a response to their query pretty much immediately. Social Media is not going to diminish in importance, nor is the asset management community going to shy away from social media en-mass. Asset management clients are already involved with social media, and there are considerable reputational and operational risks of not being involved. Here, we aim to make a case for establishing a social media strategy and give an indication of some steps to take and pitfalls to avoid when doing so.

advisor or distributor, can be influential in the end-investors’ decisions. For this reason, many companies’ social media presence and resulting interactions are geared towards assisting intermediaries by providing them with market information and other video content, such as CEO interviews or thought leadership presentations, which can be shared with potential investors and help indirectly to drive sales. Interestingly, our interview respondents stated that the users most often targeted were financial advisers (the B2B market), alongwith professional investors and retail investors. To target a social media strategy effectively and cover all the bases required by users, asset management companies need to look at how the social media sites can help them achieve their goals in terms of Information Dissemination, Investor & Advisor Education, User Interactivity and User Networking. Information Dissemination – An active Twitter account that can push messages to your investors, intermediaries and partners is essential to keeping them informed of your developments without inundating themwith documentation. Clear, concise messages from your company will stand out from the long-winded content of your competitors. Twitter is also a key source of information on your competitors, as well as of real time “investor sentiment”, allowing PR to counter or dampen any negative sentiment before it leads to a social media “fail”. In addition, you can engage with customers and intermediaries onTwitter, or use it to drive traffic and questions to your website or private forums.

I. Meet the needs of your audience

Muchof the content that assetmanagement groups disseminate is used by advisors and intermediaries to educate their clients and promote products to them, so focusing content on the needs of the advisor is critical. Intermediaries, in their role as

28