Social Media Usage Amongst AdvisorsSocial Media Usage Amongst Advisors

Social media sites continue to proliferate and nobody has a crystal ball that tells us which sites will be dominant in the future.  For the purposes of our latest research project we went beyond the Big Three (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) and have included eight social media sites that are currently growing in popularity. We wanted to know which sites advisors use, how they used these sites, and the frequency of their usage.

Our findings have enabled us to segment our respondents into Early Adopters and Casual Users.  Early Adopters are advisors who have learned how to get business using social media while staying within compliance guidelines. More details on this in later blogs.

The following is an overview of advisors and their accounts.

Early Adopters have a broader usage of social media sites than Casual Users. This is not a surprise.  They are curious about new technology and are more likely to experiment. You will also notice that all of our Early Adopters have LinkedIn accounts as LinkedIn has turned into the social network of choice for financial professionals. It could also be inferred that most financial advisors start with a LinkedIn or Facebook account and then move to fringe social networks. Pinterest, one of the fastest growing social networks to date but still relatively small, would be a perfect example of this.  It is more embraced by our Early Adopters as they are much more likely to experiment with this newest craze in social media.

In my upcoming blogs, I will share with you some of the specific “how-to’s” of these Early Adopters.