I’ve made several mentions on FPPad about Socialware, an emerging provider of social media archive and policy enforcement tools, but I’ve yet to include a full feature of their services.

Today, Socialware announced several new initiatives to better serve the market of individuals and small and medium businesses (SMBs). The full announcement can be viewed on the Socialware blog.

What do these changes mean to advisers?

For one, the Socialware Sync service is aimed directly at tackling the capture and archive process for social media messages. Record retention is the starting point of any process intended to be compliant with FINRA and SEC regulatory guidelines.

In addition to archiving, Socialware Sync features a robust search function to identify messages containing any keyword of interest. This search feature may provide an answer to the dilemma of how to monitor various social media channels supported by an adviser.

While other sites such as WordPress blogs or YouTube channels aren’t supported, Socialware Sync focuses on the big three in social media; Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

So who else is competing for adviser attention in this space? Social media archive services are currently offered by Smarsh, LiveOffice, Arkovi Backups, and Backupify. I imagine I left a few off my list, so please leave a comment below about other services. Now each provider offers different features and price points, so they can’t all be compared directly with Socialware’s product offering.

What’s clear is that social media websites are not going away, and new technology like Socialware Sync exists to allow advisers in regulated industries to use these communication mediums compliantly.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 at 9:33 pm and is filed under Compliance, 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.