LPL Financial becomes the latest independent broker-dealer to allow its advisors to use social media, signing a multiyear deal with Erado Message Control Solutions that will provide monitoring that meets Financial Industry Regulatory Authority requirements for review of online marketing, officials said Wednesday.
LPL, the largest independent broker-dealer in the U.S., will now use social networks LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to engage with customers. Advisors will now be able to engage in conversations with others, including clients, and post tweets, updates and comments.
"Our partnership with Erado is an effective way of meeting rising demand from advisors for social media compliance services,'' said LPL spokesman Joseph Kuo. "At the same time, this fits within our broader strategy of seamlessly bringing together leading solutions that are reliable, simple to operate and fully integrated on our proprietary technology platform."
Renton, Wash.-based Erado specializes in social media archiving, and is providing LPL hosted solutions for capture, review and archiving of electronic communications, including e-mail, instant messaging, and Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Erado's technology captures and retains data and then delivers it back to a broker-dealer's existing compliance and archiving platform.
In early 2010 Finra, which oversees U.S. securities firms, released its regulatory notice 10-06 that provides guidance on how Finra's rules governing public communications apply to financial firms' use of social media for business purposes. The notice was intended to protect investors from false or misleading information as use of social media sites increases, while allowing financial firms to take advantage of such technology.
LPL Financial is the latest in a growing line of financial advisory firms to sign on with Erado in the last three months.
Waltham, Mass.-based Commonwealth Financial on April 20 announced that its advisors would start to use social media, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and company blogs in early June.
Ellensburg, Wash.-based KMS Financial Services on May 5 signed a multiyear extension of its existing e-mail archiving deal with Erado and added social media capturing and compliance services.
Commonwealth Financial executives said the company partnered with Erado to comply with Finra requirements for review and retention of online marketing. The company is covering all fees for advisors to use the service.
Commonwealth Financial advisors will be able to comment, post, respond, "like" and retweet on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and company blogs. Interactivity will be captured automatically and sent to Commonwealth's compliance team for post-review and retention.
Commonwealth Advisors will offer a weekly selection of preapproved Facebook status updates, tweets, and blog posts to complement advisors' social media efforts.
"Interactivity is the key to a successful social media campaign, and we're eager to fully support our advisors who wish to utilize a complete online marketing strategy," said Commonwealth Financial chief marketing officer Todd Estabrook in a prepared statement.
—Jim McConville
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