Though compliance and technical concerns slowed their adoption of social media, advisors are remaking their industry as they embrace tools like LinkedIn and Facebook.
Social media platforms continue to saturate the advice industry, according to the fifth annual Putnam Investments Social Advisor Study released on Tuesday.
The 2017 online survey of 1,014 U.S. advisors found that fewer than 3 percent reported no professional or personal use of social media.
“On average, advisors are using between three and four different channels of communication within social media,” said Mark McKenna, head of global marketing at Putnam Investments. “We’re seeing continued growth in adoption across mediums.”
Eighty-six percent of respondents claimed that social media was helping them gain clients, up from 80 percent in 2016 and 49 percent in the 2013 study.
Eighty-three percent said social media use has helped them shorten the time it takes to convert a prospect to a client.
Putnam found that advisors with more than $100 million in assets under management were more likely to have gained clients from social media than advisors with smaller books of business.
Advisors are becoming more confident in their social media skills as well. Nearly half of the respondents, 46 percent, claimed to be social media experts, while 41 percent said they knew enough to get by using social media platforms.
As in previous surveys, LinkedIn remains the social network of choice fror advisors, used by 73 percent of the respondents, compared with 56 percent who use Facebook and 46 percent who use Twitter for business.
Other platforms adopted by advisors include Yelp, used by 42 percent of respondents; YouTube, used by 39 percent of respondents; and Instagram, used by 34 percent of respondents.