Taking Social Media Seriously Q1-15 Update Jonathan Bentley – Chief Content Officer The Parents have Joined the Party With social media continuing to gain traction among key investor demographics, we periodically revisit the trends to underline the significance of the change these ecosystems represent for financial services sales and marketing. In terms of message placement and distribution, this growth of social media represents the most radical shift in how a firm needs to allocate attention and resources. It is no longer just a curiosity. The leading social media platforms, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have become core messaging and advertising options. However, unlike the more traditional analog platforms that they are replacing, social media has a more organic quality where reputations need to be grown, and permission to solicit must be sought. All of this is moot of course if the demographics aren’t right so in this posting, we will update you specifically on the usage statistics relevant to financial services marketing. In terms of the social platforms in general, the usage by those under 50 is close to 85% and among the boomers, it is now 65%, and for those over 65 it is nearly half at 49%. In terms of income, there is a 78% usage rate by those with an income of $75,000 a year and higher. [1] Clearly, these figures show that those with whom you want to do business are now using these platforms. In Your Face One of the primary reasons cited by firms in our industry for being slow to adopt Facebook use has been the perception that teens and younger adults dominate it. Since these groups do not have enough assets to reasonably qualify as prospective clients, the thought is to disregard Facebook. While those were the kind of users around when the platform first started out, the growth of business use has been changing at a very rapid pace. According to Facebook’s most recent user stats, there were over 30 million active business pages on the platform.[2] These listings are not just for the restaurants, gadgets and hipster clothing interests of younger users; these listings cover a range of financial services too. There are business listings for wealth managers, investment advisors, hedge funds and investment bankers. It was started for the kids, mom and grandparents followed, now all of main-street has shown up. Tweeting for the Discreet
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