We have been writing a lot lately about the financial services industry’s use of social media. Our focus has largely been on the firms’ use of these tools as resources for their clients (retail investors or the advisor force - but again as end-users). It’s an important issue and will be an ongoing challenge over the next year or two.

But, there’s another area that asset managers may want to consider when it comes to social media: getting RIAs and other advisors up to speed on how to use social media resources in their own marketing/servicing efforts. A recent article in Destination CRM says that use of social media by small businesses will double over the next 12 months:

In fact, research shows that 600,000 small businesses, (companies up to 99 employees) plan to deeply integrate social networking services in the next 12 months. That number is up from 300,000, which is approximately five percent of the total number of small businesses (SBs) in the United States.

Why is this significant? Well, aren’t RIAs essentially small business owners? Even advisors within larger broker dealers often operate as entrepreneurs or small businesses. Fund companies may want to add social media education resources to their practice management sections of their advisor sites. Another option might be for fund companies to add Facebook pages or applications that advisors can friend - after all, Facebook might be a good resource for advisors to use in their own marketing efforts.