As the managing director of trading for TD Ameritrade, part of Nicole Sherrod’s job is to send tweets from her @TDANSherrod handle to interact with clients. While the company runs its official account from the @TDAmeritrade handle, Sherrod says the marketing department also wanted someone to “humanize our brand more and give people a face to interact with.”
As a result, she spends time tweeting and posting almost every day, including on weekends. “Twitter is such a tremendous community within our space. It’s allowed me to have an even closer relationship with my clients and to know them better,” she says. “They continue to post content all weekend, so you can see them with their kids and what they’re doing, and the same for me — they see what I’m doing after hours, and it allows you to build that relationship.”
Many other financial institutions are jumping on the social media bandwagon with the goal of attracting and engaging customers. They navigate company guidance and industry regulations to share industry news, respond to client questions and even address problems or concerns. Clients are responding with plenty of tweets of their own and taking advantage of the opportunity to get inside information from their financial institutions.
An April report by the research firm Aite Group found that a growing number of institutional asset managers are using social media. “They’ll make announcements and distribute infographics to stay in front of topics,” says Denise Valentine, author of the report and senior analyst at Aite. “It puts your company name into the marketplace as a thought leader.”
A survey of 500 financial advisors by Corporate Insight released earlier this year found that two out of three advisors use social media for business reasons. The most popular choice is LinkedIn (52 percent), followed by Facebook (24 percent) and Twitter (13 percent). Silviya Simeonova, a senior analyst at Corporate Insight, says that investors, particularly younger ones, often say they feel closer to financial advisors when they can keep in touch over social media. “It’s a good way for financial advisors to distinguish themselves,” she says.
Banks also increasingly interact directly with their customers through social media. Engagement Labs, a company that created the eValue, which measures social media rankings, found that banks are making major strides to engage customers through social media. TD Bank, for example, uses the hashtag #FinancialEducation to interact with clients on Twitter, and SunTrust Banks asks customers to share what they’re saving for with the hashtag #MySunnyDay.
“When you think of a bank, you think suits. What social media does is allow for these banks to build a persona. A brick-and-mortar bank becomes a person — someone who responds to you, interacts with you like you’re a human being — and it drives affiliation with the brand,” says Bryan Segal, CEO of Engagement Labs.
Consumers, Segal says, stand to benefit, too. “The more that we can interact and socialize with them, the more we’ll get from them, whether it’s rebates, first knowledge of what’s coming to market or saving money,” he says.
Regulation of social media communication is relatively strict for those in the financial services industry, which is why so many companies were slow to join the digital conversation, but it is not insurmountable. Valentine points out that firms are required by regulators to archive their digital communications, including those on social media. They also must train their employees on the proper uses of social media. “You can’t make recommendations over the Internet and social media or post anything that sounds like you’re advocating something,” Valentine says. Even “liking” a Facebook post that says a certain stock is great can be considered a recommendation, she says.
Despite those limits, Valentine found that many financial services employees find interaction on social media to be an enjoyable part of their day. “I found a fun factor — there is enthusiasm from organizations, and they get competitive about who has the most tweets,” she says.
Sherrod says she gets the greatest response from people when she is as “human and authentic as possible.” Some of her most popular recent tweets include noting that no one at the steak house where she was dining was wearing an Apple Watch, and another joking about expensing a dinner as long as she was tweeting during it. Her Twitter feed is also peppered with more serious tweets about stock performance and references to thinkorswim, TD Ameritrade’s trader’s platform.
Sherrod is careful to avoid sharing the type of moves she is making in the market. “I make sure that all the stuff I’m putting out there is well within the boundaries of what I should be talking about,” she says.
Her advice for others looking to get more active on social media includes developing a thick skin. “With almost every post you make, you’ll find some dissension,” she says. She tries to ignore any negativity and focus on the positive interactions.
But the benefits, Sherrod adds, far outweigh any downsides. “For many years, Wall Street has had a bit of an image problem. By getting out there and letting them see the people behind the brand, you’re working to grow business,” she says. She notes that there is an active dialogue about the markets every day on Twitter, and she wants to be part of that discussion. On Twitter, she follows hashtags of the ticket symbols for stocks she’s interested in, and she also publishes longer-form thoughts on her Tumblr account, nicolesherrod.tumblr.com.
“It’s a great way to build a name for yourself,” she says.
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Why the Financial Services Industry Started Tweeting originally appeared on usnews.com
