• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, November 18, 2011

Social media has clear potential as a marketing and customer service tool for just about any industry you care to name, but some of the more “serious” professions -- e.g. medicine, law, and financial services -- face additional hurdles in the form of cumbersome legal regulations dictating how professionals may interact with their clients. These hurdles can be surmounted, however, with the help of dedicated social media products specially designed to comply with the existing regulatory framework.

In a recent example, a new social media toolkit has been created for the financial services industry by Faulkner Media Group, whose FMG Social product is designed to help financial professionals boost retention rates and accelerate prospecting efforts, all in compliance with the guidelines and statutes enforced by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

As part of the FINRA-compliant service, FMG Social automatically sends an ongoing series of FINRA-reviewed social posts to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter on behalf of financial professionals. Each of the posts links visitors to a video, article, or calculator that appears on the financial professional’s website or an FMG-provided web landing page.

FMG founder Craig Faulkner explains: “The three keys to successful social marketing are content, compliance, and consistency. There needs to be compelling, motivating information linked to posts and tweets -- and this information needs to be going out on a consistent basis in order to keep prospects and clients actively involved… Referrals will be generated as videos and articles are shared online.”

There is certainly demand for tools to help financial advisors connect with clients and prospects through social media. Earlier this year I wrote about a survey by Fidelity Investments, which found that two-thirds of millionaires said they would like to be able to use social media, email, or texts to communicate with their financial advisors -- compared to just 43% of brokers and consultants who say they currently use these professionally. Scott Dell'Orfano, executive vice president of sales and relationship management at Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services, stated: “The results of this survey should serve as a wakeup call to advisers."

Last year I wrote about a survey from SEI Networks which found that 70% of people with net worth of $5 million or more are on Facebook or a similar social media site. Among the 70% who used social networks, 50% (35% of the total) said they use Facebook, 37% (26% of the total) said they visit YouTube, and 35% (24.5% of the total) use LinkedIn.