Advisers risk falling foul of FCA's social media rules

The survey found that the number of advisers getting involved with social media increased to 61% from 58% in 2014. However, the majority (52%) said their firm does not have a formal policy for employees to use, something that potentially increases their risk of doing something that falls foul of the regulator, says Intelliflo.

LinkedIn remains the most popular social media platform, with 53% of those surveyed using it (up by 5% on 2014), while Facebook is less popular than last year (25% using compared to 32% in 2014).

Twitter is also less popular (35% using compared to 41% in 2014), and other social media platforms, such as Google+ have failed to gain users (down to 4% in 2015 from 6% in 2014).

Asked why their company gets involved in social media, the survey found that being seen to be keeping up with modern communications systems remained top at 69% (up 16% on 2014), followed by attracting new clients (59%, up 4% on 2014).

Other reasons included:

- To help with search engine optimisation (41%, up 2% on 2014)
- To keep up to date with financial news and events (39%, same as in 2014)
- To communicate with existing clients (37%, down 1% on 2014)
- To see what competitors are doing (20%, up 16% on 2014)

Since the first survey was carried out in June 2014, the FCA has published Social Media and Customer Communications, its final guidance following a consultation period with the industry.

Publicity for the FCA’s guidance document does seem to have made an impact, with more awareness among advisers as to whether or not their firm has a formal social media policy. In 2014 more than half (52%) said they didn’t know if there was a policy in place, dropping to just 6% in 2015.

However fear about how engaging with social media could negatively affect business is something that concerns almost of quarter (23%) of firms who choose not to get involved, a rise of 9% compared to 2014.

Nick Eatock, Intelliflo’s Executive Chairman, said:

“It is interesting to see that more than half of those surveyed said there was no social media policy in place for their firm. Although having a policy doesn’t guarantee that things will go smoothly when engaging with social media, defining what is and what is not acceptable for all employees can certainly help to mitigate situations that might attract negative feedback from the FCA.”