"We do have some companies that require personal profiles be archived," Warrene said, and there is always the risk of "a few bad apples" using an unmonitored channel to send inappropriate messages. For financial advisors, the way it works is that a LinkedIn profile that gives your company and title is clearly subject to monitoring, while a personal Facebook profile that omits those details may not be--as long as you never use it to talk business. Some of the more adventurous firms are allowing individual advisors to have a Facebook business page or professional Twitter page where they can talk business, but in a carefully controlled manner. That may include compliance department pre-approval for every post, or at least close monitoring.
This is where I come back to sincerity, spontaneity, and the general liveliness of the conversation. How spontaneous is the conversation that has to go through pre-approval, or the conversation conducted with the nosy boss looking over your shoulder.
When I spoke with the software company SAS Institute about social media strategy, I heard that employees are encouraged to be active social participants because the company believes it gets marketing and recruiting benefits that way. That's not to say SAS doesn't have rules about what is and isn't appropriate for employees to post, but it trusts them to a greater extent. Then again, SAS isn't covered by the same regulations as those advisory firms.
Hearsay Social has sort of a compromise, where the corporate organization can distribute pre-approved posts that financial advisors or other local agents can have the option to embellish or otherwise add a little personality to. Even that entails a degree of trust, training, and acceptance of risk.
Warrene said one of the goals of his firm's archiving system is to provide the safety net that will allow even the most conservative firms to be more adventurous and allow more natural conversations to occur. "We tell our clients not to just use surveillance for compliance. You should also use the surveillance to teach your people to be better social citizens," he said. That is, help coach them on building more effective relationships via social media.
Or let me rephrase that. Even if you have to fake it, at least sound spontaneous and sincere.
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