Morgan Stanley Brokers Will Use Twitter & LinkedIn To Market Themselves

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney’s financial advisers have gotten the go ahead to market themselves on Twitter and LinkedIn, marking the first time a major wealth manager was able to employ social media for that use.

Sometime before late June, 600 advisers from the firm will start using the social media channels. And within six months, the rest of Morgan Stanley’s 17,800 brokers will join them. The advisers will use the social channels to communicate with existing clients and look for sales leads.

Until now, such professionals hadn’t used either platform because of stringent SEC and FINRA regulations. Among those rules: Such advisers have to archive all their electronic interactions and they can’t use LinkedIn’s “recommend” feature because of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.

To make sure it complies with these rules, the firm is using software provided by Socialware. Chad Bockius, CEO of Socialware, says he has more than 100 financial services clients who are looking to market themselves via Twitter and LinkedIn as well.

Up until now such marketing had been done via email, but Bockius says the firms are meeting their clients’ changing needs: “As consumers evolve, there are multiple ways that people want to communicate.”