Update: LifestreamBackup recently changed its name to Backupify. The points in this post are still applicable despite the name change!

Many advisers who consult with me regarding the use of social media are justifiably concerned about compliance when it comes to using such services. Advisers can use outlets like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to communicate with others and to broadcast information to targeted niche markets. These tools are fantastic ways to build brand recognition for an adviser or a firm and to identify the level of services offered to the public.

I’ve written here previously how FINRA and the SEC may determine that any message disseminated through social media services constitutes marketing and/or advertising and at the very least should be archived and retained in a compliance file. If you are a representative regulated under FINRA, you likely need pre-approval from compliance before posting any messages through social media services. SEC-registered advisers should consult with their Chief Compliance Officer before posting messages as well.

Now let’s assume that an adviser decides to use social media to grow the business. Terrific! But what can be done to efficiently archive and retain those messages sent through social media services?

A new service called Lifestream Backup can help reduce the burden of retaining social media content for compliance purposes.

Configuring Lifestream Backup is very straightforward. After activating the service, users only need to enter login credentials for each social media website to be backed up and select appropriate backup preferences. Lifestream Backup then proceeds to backup various types of messages and content posted through supported social media services.

The content that Lifestream Backup saves is stored on the Amazon Web Services network, another “cloud computing” service. In other words, until the backups are saved to a local computer or server, they are subject to loss in the event the service experiences unexplained data loss. So I recommend that users of Lifestream Backup download data saved by the service. Downloading data once per month is likely sufficient, but it may be prudent to perform this task once every week.

Lifestream Backup currently supports eight social media services:  Twitter, Flickr, Photobucket, Google Docs, WordPress, Delicious, Basecamp, and Zoho. Backup functionality for Facebook, Gmail, and YouTube are expected to be added in the future.

The Lifestream Backup service costs $4.95 per month. This is a very reasonable expense considering the time it would take for an adviser to manually track down and save social media content from various sites to a local compliance file.

In the end, this service (along with previously mentioned Smarsh Twitter archiving) allows regulated advisers to take a proactive stance about meeting compliance requirements when using these rapidly evolving social media services.

Enjoy FPPad.com? Get FPPad updates via RSS or get updates by Email

This entry was posted on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 2:33 am and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.