"It’s good to see that governance is increasing for social media usage but there are still too many adviser firms who are trusting to luck and not putting in place formal social media policies."
This figure is up from 58% in 2014 when Intelliflo’s survey began and 70% in 2016.
The survey also found that Facebook has increased in popularity, with 41% now using this for business compared to 36% in 2016.
LinkedIn, however, remains the most popular social platform for business, with 59% actively using it in 2017.
Twitter usage also increased slightly, up from 40% in 2016 to 43% in 2017.
Other social media platforms, such as Google+ are static at 6%, the same as when the survey first ran in 2014.
Asked why their company gets involved in social media, the top answer (60%) was ‘to attract new clients’.
Other reasons included being seen to be keeping up with modern communications systems (56% compared to 54% in 2016), to communicate with existing clients (46%, the same as in 2016), and to keep up to date with financial news and events (44%, compared to 42% in 2016).
43% use social media to help with search engine optimisation and 12% want to see what competitors are doing.
For the 27% who don’t currently engage in social media, lack of knowledge and understanding about how to engage with it to provide business benefits remains a barrier for almost a third (31%). However, lack of time and resources is becoming less of a factor, with just 38% highlighting this in 2017 compared to over half last year. Relevance to the business continues to be a concern for some advisers, with 54% of those who don’t currently engage highlighting this, up from 51% in 2016.
Governance continues to be an issue with those that do engage in social media, with advisers potentially putting themselves at risk of falling foul of the regulator. Less than half (48%) have formal written policies for using social media that all employees must follow, with 42% saying they don’t. This is better than in 2014 though, when just a quarter (25%) had policies in place and over half (52%) had no idea if they had or not.
Nick Eatock, Intelliflo’s Executive Chairman commented: “It’s good to see that governance is increasing for social media usage but there are still too many adviser firms who are trusting to luck and not putting in place formal social media policies. The FCA has made clear what it wants to see in terms of governance. This includes the requirement for advisers to keep a record of all social media interaction. Relying on the social media platforms to do that isn’t good enough, which is why we’ve partnered with the Hearsay social media system, which guarantees a traceable time-line for all social media activity if used across the platforms.”
