Today the market has changed, we have gone from cars, to pagers, to cell phones, to androids and now we are almost an online virtual society. Many of us interact with each other, visit our family members, gain our information, educate ourselves about important decisions and purchases and even gain our entertainment on-line via the social networking world.
Today’s financial consultant needs to become familiar and integrated with today’s society, in order to attract today’s business opportunities. For example, the average person is now gathering information and basing decisions on feedback from social networking sites. Other large corporations are already moving into this territory like Northwestern Mutual, who has established guidelines and provided standard, compliance approved language to their advisors for use on social networking sites such as Linkedin and Facebook. There are several new online communities that are transforming the way people think and act with regards to finances and investing. There are sites dedicated just to investing, such as www.covestor.com which enables members to follow trades of “living room” investors and this enables them to invest alongside of them. Another site www.stockpickr.com enables people to create virtual portfolios.
In summary, our message to you, the financial consultant of today, get in the game and embrace social networking, at least on a professional level. You are missing opportunities if you are not positioning yourself to be the trusted financial consultant of your online community.
