Fintech

The pluses and minuses of Google+

To plus or not to plus?

That is the question among financial advisers who have been exploring Google+, the latest entrant in the continuing social-media craze. But Google being Google, this is one to watch: The service is only a month old and already boasts 25 million users.

Early-adopter advisers are busy kicking the tires on Google+, which is powered partially by Google’s Gmail e-mail system and allows for the same sort of posting and re-posting of information available from the “Big Three” of social media: Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Google jump-started its new service by selecting trend-setters among its Gmail users and making Google+ accessible by invitation only. But lots of invitations are assured, thanks to the hundreds of millions of Gmail users around the world (an estimated 200 million to 300 million, since Google doesn’t share the exact number), who in turn can send a handful of G+ invitations to their own Gmail contacts.

Although the initial sign-on madness has died down a bit — about 1 million users were joining daily in mid-July, compared with about 700,000 a day now — Google still is counting on friends’ curiosity to spread the word, instead of a huge marketing campaign. Nevertheless, G+ continues to expand much more rapidly than any of its predecessors.

In addition to its Gmail tie-in, Google+ offers several intriguing capabilities for advisers, especially the feature known as “Circles,” which allows users to create their own groupings of people easily.

If you search and find someone you want to connect with, or someone pops up who has “added you on Google+” (as the e-mail will say), you simply can drag their icon within the Google+ interface to a circle you have already created — or to a new one.

For example, I set up an “Adviser Work Circle” consisting of 40 advisers, experts and other industry folks. I even published a quick post to my “Stream” (a single user’s collective postings), seeking their input for this column.

The first to respond was long-time source Russ Thornton, vice president of Wealthcare Capital Management.

“I’m not ready to pull the plug on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, but I can see G+ easily replacing the functionality of each of these properties while adding more capabilities along the way,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Although integration with products such as Google Voice and Google Docs is almost certain, being able to apply core features such as creating a “Hangout” are more exciting.

Simply put, a “Hangout” is an instant videoconference among up to 10 of your G+ connections.

“Imagine doing impromptu educational broadcasts or discussions,” Sunit Bhalla, principal of OakTree Financial Planning LLC, wrote in a response to my post.

Can a registered representative use these services? Don’t expect a simple “yes” or “no” from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc., either about using G+ specifically or any other social network.

FINRA PROMISES GUIDANCE

Finra recommends that advisers continue to look to Regulatory Notice 10-06, issued in January 2010, for guidance on the subject, according to George Smaragdis, director of media relations.

“Finra is planning on issuing additional guidance in the near future,” he wrote in an e-mail, noting, however, that G+ wouldn’t change the basic approach outlined in 10-06, which applies to any and all social-media sites.

For more guidance, I turned to outside compliance experts.

Among them was Daniel Bernstein, director of professional services at MarketCounsel LLC.

“Advisers should remain flexible and think about compliance in broad terms,” he said.

“The differences between Facebook status updates, Google+ streams, tweets, YouTube videos, or LinkedIn updates are negligible. The key is identifying how the communication would be characterized,” Mr. Bernstein said.

That means deciding whether a compliance officer or regulator would deem a communication an advertisement, and whether it should be retained, an issue that has led some advisers to steer clear of social media, for now.

I am aware of just one provider that has worked out a method for archiving Google+ communications, Arkovi from BMRW & Associates Inc. In simplest terms, the method requires advisers to convert their Google+ streams to RSS feeds that can in turn be archived by Arkovi.

Craig Brauff, chief executive of Erado, an e-mail, messaging and social-media archiving vendor, made another great point in a recent conversation.

“Google+ is quickly evolving, and we feel that the product’s privacy settings and feature sets we see today will be significantly different tomorrow,” he said.

Erado counts the National Planning Holdings Inc. network of broker-dealers, Commonwealth Financial Network and LPL Financial LLC among clients for which it archives social-media traffic.

For now, the new social network represents too much of a moving target, Mr. Brauff said.

“It is in beta, after all,” he said.

Email Davis Janowski at [email protected]

Social Media & Networking (control, compliance, archiving vendors for advisory firms/broker-dealers):
Arkovi
Actiance
Erado
Protegent Social Media Surveillance, from SunGard
Socialware

E-mail & messaging archiving & compliance:
Live Office
MailBanc
Smarsh