Jumping into social media can be intimidating for Financial Services, but you don’t need to let the challenges of compliance and regulations hold you back from getting out there. There are many ways you can use social media within the growing financial community. Starting your social media journey is a lot easier than you think. Let’s highlight some of the first steps to follow when you are just getting started.

Policy, Policy, Policy

• Developing a strong social media policy is your first step in becoming social in the regulated financial industry.  Your policy should address what information is suitable to share and how company engagement is recorded and archived.
• Decide who will be responsible for your social media initiatives and educate them. Make sure those involved in your social media efforts have a firm handle on compliance as it relates to the financial industry, and your policy has strict but clear engagement guidelines that are accessible to everyone.

Do your Homework

• Your community is already out there discussing you, your competitors and the overall financial industry, now it’s up to you to tap into this incredible resource to understand whether the buzz is about loans, insurance, gains or losses.
• Learn the media types (blogs, twitter, mainstream news) that your community uses and how they interact. Take a look at what hot button industry terms they use the most like “investments”, “equities” or “brokers”.
  • Now that we understand the social financial landscape and the audience we’re reaching, listening is the next step.
  • By actively listening to your community you will unearth the topics most frequently being discussed by your industry leaders. This will point you in the right direction when you’re ready to share content and connect with your community.

Listen up

Listening is half the battle, especially in an industry that has regulations to consider. Once you have a strong social media policy and strategy in place, actively listening to your community will help you understand the lucrative opportunities social can bring you.

Have you started your social media journey? What is your community saying about you and the Financial Services industry? What regulations are stopping you from listening?

Julie Meredith is a Community Engagement Specialist at Radian6. She blogs about beer, films and social strategy as it relates to Finance. You can follow her on Twitter at @julie_meredith.

Tags: banks, Community, compliance, finance, FINRA, insurance, investments, policy