Tag Archives: Twitter

FPPad Bits and Bytes for February 22

Posted on February 22, 2013 by in Bits & Bytes

The Mobile Adviser, debuting at FPA Business Solutions 2013, March 7-9, Chicago

The Mobile Adviser, debuting at FPA Business Solutions 2013, March 7-9, Chicago

My latest slide deck is finally complete. It’s titled The Mobile Adviser: Everything financial advisers need to know to be safe, connected, and productive in the Mobile Age.

I’m debuting The Mobile Adviser at FPA Business Solutions 2013 in Chicago on March 7-9, so register for the conference here to be among the first to see it.

Here are this week’s stories of interest:

HiddenLevers Launches Portfolio Stress Testing App to Help Advisors Generate Leads from MarketWire.com

[Highlighted in my update from T3 (see: T3 2013: Top technology to put on your radar), HiddenLevers officially announced their lead generation add-on component to portfolio stress testing. Check out http://rca-online.com/ and click the button on the right-hand column to see this in action. I think it’s a great feature.] HiddenLevers, the portfolio stress testing toolkit of choice for RIAs, Private Wealth and Family Offices, launches a lead-gen application to help Advisors promote their portfolio stress testing capabilities.

Which Portfolio Rebalancing Software is Right for You? from WMToday

[Craig Iskowitz, Managing Director and founder of Ezra Group, has been a part of the financial planning technology blogosphere since February 2009, but I only just encountered his content. If you’re not following Craig (@CraigIskowitz on Twitter) or subscribing to his content, consider doing so. Craig also attended T3 last week and provides a great two-part recap of the rebalancing software panel discussion. If you’re in the market for rebalancing software or want to see how yours compares with new entrants in the market, Craig’s coverage is a must read.] This is a summary of panel discussion from the Tools and Technology Today (T3) Conference that took place February 11-13, 2013 in Miami, FL.

Your Tweets Are More Important Than Your Résumé from BusinessInsider.com

[I’m branching out a bit here with an interesting take on the résumé of the future. Here’s a company that isn’t taking traditional résumés for a job opening (granted, they’re hiring a “six-figure senior social media position”), but rather considering social metrics like Klout score, active Twitter followers, and more. If you’re hiring, do you take social influence into account? And what if your top candidate has significant social influence, do you think that’s actually a risk to your organization?] By now, many employers think that who you are online is more revealing of your character than a résumé. Some companies have decided to stop accepting paper résumés altogether.

Portfolio Pathway and Redtail Technology announce integration from PortfolioPathway.com

[Portfolio Pathway is now in my watch list as another web-based portfolio reporting solution. Their straightforward pricing on top of the typical account aggregation, client portal, and custom report features should be attractive to up-and-coming RIAs as well as breakaway brokers looking for a light footprint when they start out on their own. This announcement of a Redtail CRM integration is also a good sign of collaboration with the industry’s leading software providers.] Portfolio Pathway, the web-based portfolio management system, announced today they have completed integration development with Redtail Technology’s innovative web-based Client Relationship Management (CRM) solution. Advisors using Redtail will be able to view all account data from Portfolio Pathway.

RedBlack Integration with Scottrade® Advisor Services from RedBlackSoftware.com

[Increasing integrations is the best way for any financial services technology provider to gain wider adoption. Here, growing rebalancing software provider RedBlack now connects with Scottrade to retrieve account information from the no-minimum-assets-required custodian. According to RedBlack Chief Software Architect Roel Vlemmings, this marks the company’s 22nd integration with a 3rd party provider.] RedBlack Software today announced the successful integration with Scottrade® Advisor Services. Registered Investment Advisors that custody with Scottrade® Advisory Services can now seamlessly import their portfolio data into RedBlack, use the RedBlack platform to rebalance and trade client accounts and households, and submit trades to Scottrade® for execution.

1st Global Announces New Partnership with AppCrown LLC from 1stGlobal.com

[Very interesting! Having lived in Dallas for three years, 1st Global had a good footprint with regional (and national, too) CPAs and wealth management firms seeking technology solutions from an affinity partner. Now, AppCrown’s Salesforce ISV platform (see: Salesforce for financial advisers solicits bipolar reactions; AppCrown attempts to resolve disjointed CRM) will be rolled out to all of 1st Global’s 400 affiliated firms by the end of the year.] 1st Global, a research and consulting partner of select CPA and wealth management firms, and AppCrown LLC announce a strategic partnership to deploy a cloud-based solution that delivers client relationship management, straight-through processing and business cycle management for wealth management clients.

Preview files in Google Drive from GoogleDrive

[You have dozens of choices among cloud file storage services, including Google Drive. Subtle features differentiate the services, and since you’re trying to be as efficient and productive as possible, you shouldn’t waste time trying to preview documents stored in the cloud. In a race to match file preview features present in other services, Google Drive now offers preview for roughly 30 file types.] It may sound obvious, but sometimes the best way to find something is to start looking. Beginning today, Google Drive will let you quickly preview more than 30 file types and quickly flip between files until you find the one you want.

Social currency might just be the answer to financial advisers’ frustration with social media

Posted on November 15, 2012 by in Podcast

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Have you heard of social currency before?

Justin Wisz, co-founder of Vestorly

Before you buy a book, do you visit the reviews on Amazon.com to read what other people said about it?

And before your next dinner out, do you pull up Yelp to find 4- and 5-star restaurant reviews nearby?

Those are examples of social currency. You’re seeking feedback curated by social networks to find the best resource (be it a book, restaurant, mechanic, etc.) for your needs. Many times, recommendations from your immediate social network on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter point you to products and services that have already been vetted by your friends and colleagues.

So how can financial advisers take advantage of social currency?

To answer that question, I connected with Justin Wisz, co-founder of Vestorly, an investment adviser matching service powered by social communities. Hear what he has to say about social currency and how Vestorly can help advisers get the most out of it.

PODCAST: Smarsh president Stephen Marsh addresses Pinterest and compliance

Posted on August 29, 2012 by in Compliance, Podcast, Social Media

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Founder of email archiving provider says advisers can use Pinterest without skirting compliance requirements

I had the opportunity to connect with Stephen Marsh, Founder and CEO of Smarsh, Inc., a company well-known for its email and social media archiving services.

Smarsh Founder and CEO Stephen Marsh

By now, most advisers are aware of multiple archiving solutions for social media websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, but it’s not so clear whether updates to emerging social media sites like Pinterest can also be archived.

In this podcast, Marsh shares information on his company’s Web Archiving product and how it allows advisers to “pin” updates to Pinterest and archive them for compliance purposes.

Marsh also addresses the company’s annual Electronic Communications Compliance Survey report with key statistics.

After listening to the podcast, use the following link to download the free compliance survey: 2012 Electronic Communications Compliance Survey

Click to view/download the PDF podcast transcript.

Financial advisers need a smarter approach to manage social media

Posted on May 25, 2012 by in Efficiency

So you decided to dip your toe in the social media waters. At first you start with, say, a LinkedIn profile update, then create your own Facebook page, and follow up with your first tweet on Twitter.

Pretty soon this innocuous activity grows into a larger drain on your time. What’s especially challenging is keeping all of your profiles updated with information you want to share with your audience.

There has to be a better way!

Fortunately, my Quickview post this month for Morningstar Advisor tells you about one tool that can add some smarts to your social media management.

It’s titled Make Your Social Web Smarter, and you better go read it right now!

A public thank you to Alex Murguia, CEO of inStream Solutions, for the tip.

 

G-Day is January 20! Don’t be left out.

Posted on January 16, 2012 by in Technology

Friday January 20th is “G-Day” where you can discover the value (or lack thereof) of Google’s social network, Google+

Social networks have propelled themselves into modern culture, so much so that our lexicon doesn’t bat an eye at words like “tweeting,” “liking,” or “linking-in” anymore.

Abundant, and trivial, information of all kinds is being shared across these networks on a second-by-second basis. They can be a great source of information if you can successfully separate the signal from the noise, but the big three networks are not without their drawbacks.

Facebook, the world’s biggest social network with over 800 million users, wins the ubiquity title because of its critical mass of users. Practically everyone is on Facebook.

But one of Facebook’s drawbacks is the fact that that everybody on the service is your “friend,” whether you’re related by blood or had a chance meeting at a networking event two years ago. It makes little difference to Facebook. You’re connected, so you’ll see updates from plenty of people, and chances are, most updates are not too relevant to your network of actual, real-life friends (though you can group Facebook friends if you can find the lists feature buried in a stockpile of menu items).

Twitter certainly has a healthy stream of information shared by users, but its 140 character limit on posts truncates any real discussion on all-but-the lightest topics. Well-constructed replies often span several tweets, and pretty soon, your stream of well-intended thoughts can be viewed as a diatribe from a spammer filling up a tweet stream.

And LinkedIn. Other than a virtual resume site for professionals, are users doing any real sharing or collaboration on the site? LinkedIn Groups are a mixed bag, as just when the good groups foster useful information, spammers take over and blast their tomes, crowding out the original participants.

Enter Google Plus (Google+, or simply G+). Google’s latest attempt at a social network and sharing service started out slow, with invitations shared only among a select few early-adopters, but now the service is open to anyone.

Google+ attempts to offer alternatives to the limitations outlined above: profile updates can be any length, most often include embedded photos or video, and connections with others can easily be sorted into circles.

Despite its clever interface, Google+ largely lacks the key ingredient to a successful social service: active and diverse users.

So leave it up to Mike Barad. Barad is the Sr. Vice President and business manager for Morningstar’s Financial Communications Business. After a discussion with several advisers sporadically using Google+, he encouraged everyone to abandon all social networking platforms for one day and focus exclusively on Google+.

Here is Barad’s post on Google+: https://plus.google.com/101852363593249198257/posts/e35VNqaJZoy

So this Friday, January 20, get on Google+ and join the conversation. If you’re setting Google+ up for the first time, add advisers who commented on Barad’s post to your circles to get started.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for December 30

Posted on December 30, 2011 by in Bits & Bytes

Happy New Year!

Here is this week’s story of interest:

Early adopters of social media, RIAs are growing disenchanted with its power to drum up new business from RIABiz.com

[I said it on Twitter and I’ll repeat it here: advisers looking for a quick score on social media should look elsewhere. Social media is an extension of brand awareness and relationship building that firms have been doing for decades.] Registered investment advisors have embraced the world of social media earlier and with more zeal than their competitors in the last couple of years. But as a result, they are more quickly discovering its limitations.

Is this the right way for advisers to use social media?

Posted on November 22, 2011 by in General

There isn’t one “right” way to use social media. Opinions cover a wide spectrum on how advisers can best use social media to market their practice, create their brand, and listen to conversations by clients and colleagues.

But there certainly are some uninspiring ways to use these new communication channels. I submit to you Exhibit A:

(And what’s up with the Socialware app? When you look at individual tweets on the web, they’re white text on white background. QA fail!)

Tweets Cost One Broker $10,000, One-Year Suspension

Posted on July 15, 2011 by in Compliance

I caught this article from the New York Times (thank you Pat Allen at AdvisorTweets) detailing one broker who was penalized for sending a series of “misrepresentative and unbalanced” messages on Twitter.

Click here to read Tweets Land Broker in Trouble.

FINRA brought disciplinary action against Jenny Quyen Ta for several violations, including undisclosed outside business activities, undisclosed outside brokerage accounts, and of importance to this post, undisclosed tweets. For violating several rules, Ms. Ta was fined $10,000 and suspended from associating with any FINRA member firm for one year.

Despite just picking this story up today, FINRA actually brought the disciplinary action forward on November 23, 2010. So this information has been around for half a year, but we’re hearing of it only now.

Ms. Ta posted at least 372 tweets from her Twitter account from April to December 2009, 32 of which were about “overwhelmingly positive” mentions of imminent price increases in Advanced Micro Devices stock (NYSE: AMD). One example of Ta’s tweets:

Its going 2 b a good Xmas & 2010! Ck out AMD! Like I have said, it should b @ least a $10B co. which should b @ $ 15/shs. HappyTrading!

Most readers would agree that this type of tweet is a blatant violation of FINRA regulations.

So don’t think FINRA isn’t watching social media activity for questionable content. And if you’re interested in reading the full disciplinary action report, click here.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for May 27

Posted on May 27, 2011 by in Bits & Bytes

This week’s Bits and Bytes is a big one! There are a few stories carried over from the previous week, as updating this page when traveling exclusively with an iPad is not the easiest thing to do, but a lot of great stories entered the wires this week, too.

And a reminder, Bill will be attending FPA NorCal next week in San Francisco, presenting Cultivating Clients in a Connected World on Wednesday afternoon. If you’ll be there, stop by and introduce yourself!

Here are this week’s stories of interest:

Choosing Software That Works for Your Advisory Firm—Part 6: Ensuring New Technology Meets Your Business Goals from AdvisorOne.com

The sixth update in a series by Spenser Segal of ActiFi designed to present best practices to advisors on how to choose, implement and monitor new technology for an advisory firm.

Compliance and Connectivity from Financial-Planning.com

Well, well, it seems that Bill’s presentation Cultivating Clients in a Connected World has persuaded Bob Veres to consider adopting social media for purposes other than marketing and search engine optimization. See what he has to say about advisers considering this new communication medium (and follow @bobveres on Twitter).

Smarsh Report Identifies Electronic Communications Compliance Gaps at Smarsh.com

Smarsh, the email and social media archiving solution provider, released results from a survey of compliance professionals regarding the use of electronic communications including social media. In summary, it confirms what you already know: compliance professionals aren’t up to speed on supervising and archiving electronic communication, specifically social media.

Tweet on the Street from NYTimes.com

Morgan Stanley is ready to unleash its 17,800 brokers into popular social media service Twitter (their archive and monitoring solution is Socialware). But nothing they post will be unscripted. Good luck with that, we say.

IPS AdvisorPro® and Redtail Integrate Technology Systems from IPSAdvisorPro.com

IPS AdvisorPro® and Redtail Technology announced the availability of a new data integration between their industry leading technology platforms for financial advisors. The new integration will streamline the preparation of Investment Policy Statements (IPS) by automatically populating IPS AdvisorPro® fields with client information contained in Redtail’s CRM solution.

After tortoise-like beginnings, AssetBook is now on-the-hop in portfolio management software from RIABiz.com

One smaller but fast-emerging portfolio management software firm is AssetBook. Based in McHenry, Md., it has burst onto the portfolio management software scene thanks to a recent marketing push and now has 150 firms using its services.

 

Slide Deck: Best Practices When Using Social Media for FPA Business Solutions 2011

Posted on March 3, 2011 by in Practice Management

Due to illness, Bill was not able to travel to FPA Business Solutions 2011 this week. He prepared a short slide deck for today’s panel session titled Best Practices When Using Social Media.

We’re posting the slide deck below so you can enjoy a few tips Bill recommends for advisors seeking to gauge the efficacy of their social media efforts (iPad users click here to open on SlideShare.com). Please send us your comments and feedback!

Best Practices When Using Social Media for FPA Business Solutions 2011