Hearsay unveils service to boost advisers' online presence

Hearsay Social, a social-networking platform for financial advisers, has announced a new program intended to help advisers improve their websites and better connect with new and existing clients. As part of the company's Predictive Social Suite, they are offering a variety of services to boost an adviser's presence and interactions with prospects online. One of the services is Hearsay Sites, which allows advisers to publish social-media posts to their websites and find people around the Internet who may need financial advice. The platform's dashboard also allows users to see what other people post online about big life events that can spark conversations about financial planning, such as having a baby or buying a house. "Advisers are historically good at building relationships and having face-to-face interactions and more holistic planning that robo advice and automation can't do," Gary Liu, vice president of marketing for Hearsay Social, said. "Now they're able to connect all those dots and have that information before picking up the phone or reaching out to that person via email." At the same time, Mr. Liu said advisers won't have to worry about compliance issues, which is a major concern among advisers. The tool addresses compliance in their software with options for pre-approved comments and a content library, as well as the ability to flag posts that could potentially break compliance rules. The program will pick up on words that may not be appropriate for advisers to post, such as "guaranteed," for example. But the highlight of the new service is its ability to help advisers add more interactivity to their websites. "A lot of firms have antiquated tech sites that might have been built back in the 1990's when websites first came up," Mr. Liu said, adding that static pages with no interactive elements are not mobile-optimized. "It's not just to have a social presence but a web presence on other digital channels as well."