Archive for the 'social media' Category

Published by Ian Lundahl on 19 Mar 2010

Several Reasons Why We Like Prudential’s New Red Zone Video

Firms that are looking for the blueprint on how to create an informative and focused product video should look no further than Prudential’s new HD Lifetime 6 Plus video. Available on the firm’s publicly accessible Retirement Red Zone page, the HD Lifetime 6 Plus video explains the inner-workings of the HD benefit rider that targets investors in the “Red Zone”, or critical years immediately before and following retirement. Firms have long been utilizing web demos to highlight new product releases; however, Prudential’s new video offers a wealth of basic product information on a visually enticing platform, without getting too complicated. The result is a video that is useful to both advisors and clients alike.

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Published by Ian Lundahl on 04 Mar 2010

Decreased Commissions and CARD Regulations - February Trends and Highlights

Following several months of new product releases, tools, and web promotions, the pace slowed across the industry this February. A few firms revamped their sites this month, and as the athletes took to the slopes in Vancouver, one firm promoted its 2010 Winter Olympics sponsorship online.

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Published by Michael Ellison on 28 Jan 2010

FINRA Clarifies Stance on Social Media

FINRA this week published guidelines around social media in Regulatory Notice 10-06. While I’m no lawyer, there appears to be a few things that were clarified with this notice:

  • Records of social media communications will need to be retained as required by Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4 under the 34 Act. This alone might scare firms away from using social media tools – especially smaller firms. But, rest assured technology providers will find a solution that will make it easy for firms to do this. Continue Reading »

Published by Ian Lundahl on 03 Dec 2009

November Trends and Highlights: Chase’s Charitable Initiative & FNBO New Security Tool

With 2010 almost upon us, firms rushed to make their end-of-year changes and introduce new programs.

Chase Introduces New Charitable Initiative through Facebook

Chase’s new Community Giving Program allows customers to vote, through Facebook, for their favorite charities, with top vote-getters receiving donations from Chase. In some ways, Chase’s Community Giving Program is a hybrid of two innovative programs previously introduced by other credit card issuers: Citibank’s Make a Difference program, introduced earlier this year, also utilizes Facebook as a platform through which users can help solicit donations to their favorite charities, while American Express’s Members Project, which ran in 2007 and 2008, allowed card holders to vote for new projects that would be funded by AmEx. Continue Reading »

Published by Michael Ellison on 25 Nov 2009

5 Reasons we Like Lord Abbett’s New Advisor Website

In this week’s Advisor Monitor Update (Corporate Insight subscription required), we reviewed Lord Abbett’s new advisor website. As we mentioned, the site revamp upgrades the site’s overall appearance, offers far more content and increases its usability with more clearly labeled tabs.  It’s a good overall change, and the advisor homepage provides some good examples of best practices. In fact, there are five things we like about the new homepage:

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Published by Ian Lundahl on 23 Nov 2009

AXA Equitable’s App-etite for Planning on the Go

Considering the popular Apple iPhone application commercials, one might wonder if there is an app for absolutely everything. Dog whistle? Check. Subway maps? Check. Is there an app for forecasting a child’s college education expenses? Check; thanks to AXA Equitable, there is.

The firm recently added an image to the public homepage that promotes their free College Savings iPhone application. In fact, the firm currently offers multiple financially-based applications, such as the Life Expectancy and Retirement Shortfall calculators. Continue Reading »

Published by Ian Lundahl on 11 Nov 2009

October Trends and Highlights: Retirement Online Community and Planning

Like a trick-or-treater’s bag, heavy with an assortment of candy at the end of Halloween, this October offered a bit of everything…

Retirement gets social

After first launching a beta version in February 2008, TIAA-CREF made its retirement-focused online community, MyRetirement.org, publically available this month. MyRetirement is one of the broader online communities we have seen to date. Instead of focusing entirely on products, or featuring commentary exclusively from firm employees, TIAA-CREF provides customers with an open platform on which they can discuss retirement, as well as other topics of interest. TIAA-CREF’s decision to launch a beta version of the community was also significant; doing so allowed the firm to seed its discussion boards with user-generated content, meaning that when MyRetirement was officially opened, new users were able to join active conversations. Continue Reading »

Published by Michael Ellison on 10 Nov 2009

Welcome to the Blogosphere, Mr. Mobius

As we mentioned in this week’s Mutual Fund Monitor – Advisor update, Franklin Templeton’s Mark Mobius has entered the social media waters by launching a blog and Twitter profile. Over the past several months, I have had many conversations with mutual fund executives about how best to tackle social media. Indeed, at the recent MFEA Star Awards conference, social media was one of the most-discussed topics. In light of this, it is refreshing to see Franklin Templeton launch this blog and there are some useful takeaways for fund executives to learn from:

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Published by Michael Ellison on 22 Oct 2009

Insights from MFEA Panel on Social Media in the Fund Industry

On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel discussion at the annual MFEA STAR awards in Chicago focusing on social media within the asset management industry. It was a lively discussion and a topic that is clearly on the minds of fund executives. Over the course of the day, there were a few recurring themes and issues, which I thought I’d highlight here as they are relevant to any financial firm exploring the social media waters: Continue Reading »

Published by Ian Lundahl on 14 Oct 2009

TIAA-CREF Invites Clients to Experience MyRetirement.org

In February of 2007, TIAA-CREF introduced a beta version of their retirement-focused online community, MyRetirement.org, to a select group of clients. Recently the firm rolled the site out to its broader client base through an email invitation.

MyRetirement.org provides a unique outlet for the firm’s clients to discuss a number of topics, including investment and saving strategies, travel and leisure plans, even health and fitness tips. This broad range of financial- and lifestyle-focused content should appeal to the interests of the firm’s unique customer base, i.e., those with backgrounds in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields. Continue Reading »

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