Morgan Stanley's headquarters in New York (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)
For many financial advisers, social networks are still terra incognita. They won't go on Facebook or Twitter, and their companies don't have any clear cut policy.
But for one Morgan Stanley Smith Barney financial adviser, you can't maintain that attitude and expect to survive.
"It's not just your planning team that you bring to the client," Mark Scribner said. "It's your whole social network."
Late last year Jennifer Hoyt Cummings at the Wall Street Journal featured a post on Scribner and his use of Twitter and LinkedIn.
A few minutes a day on Twitter and LinkedIn, sites that Morgan Stanley Smith Barney has been increasingly opening up to its advisers, have helped the 44-year-old Portsmouth, N.H.-based adviser land new clients and keep in better touch with existing ones.
However, more than a third of advisers think social media isn’t worth their time, according to a recent survey of 437 advisers by research firm Aite Group. But advisers who don’t use social media risk being left behind, says Scribner.
Scribner joined MSSB in January of 2011 after being a financial consultant at LPL Financial. He was already using social networking for personal reasons. A few years before, he got interested in training for the Ironman racing events as a way to get back in shape and contribute to philanthropic causes. He started a blog for friends and followers to update them on his progress. He already had a substantial network of followers on both LinkedIn and Twitter by the time he joined MSSB.
Scribner uses Twitter to post links to useful articles and leads. Through Linked-In, he rediscovered people he'd not seen in years who now needed his advice. He cites one recent client who came to him in search of a new CFO for his company which was in trouble. Scribner found his candidate within just a few days.
"How? I asked myself who do you know in your network you can cross-connect with his?"
Scribner sees himself as a facilitator. "And if you're a facilitator, the network you bring to the table is what makes the difference. We work in an era of specialists. With my social network, I can think of myself as the specialist who handles the specialists."
"It's the virtual nature of the thing --and ultimate connectivity that matters. That's what people are buying from us today. It's what you're connected to, not just what's between your ears."
Which is not to say there are no pitfalls.
"In this business, people can get fired for not being careful about what they put out, if it's not thought about carefully," he said.
To this end, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney has been proactive about encouraging the use of social media and putting a good system in place to monitor how its advisers take advantage of it. And U.S. News listed the firm on its Most Connected Companies List
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