More than half of the financial services companies in the United States have established programs to help their advisors navigate social media.

A study conducted by industry research group LIMRA reveals that six out of ten companies in the US are supporting their advisors with social media, providing them with examples, guidelines, content, and training. The report shows that the level of support varies from company to company, depending largely on how comfortable their employees are with the subject. LIMRA says that, besides training and content, there are three other factors that are critical to success with social media, namely executive buy-in, internal training, and awareness.

“First, executives need to support the financial and staffing resources needed to be effective,” comments the author of the report Norah Denley, senior research analyst of distribution and technology research at LIMRA. “Compliance and sales teams should be users of social media in addition to knowing how it works. Finally, home office staff must be made aware of their company’s social media programs to better understand their potential.”

Denley notes that, besides a lack of knowledge, social media initiatives can also be held up by a shortage of content and slow review processes. “In some cases, the content that is created can pass through a lot of hands, meaning the process is resource intensive and the content, less timely,” she says. “Unfortunately, that’s the current reality of communicating via a lightning-fast medium in a highly-regulated industry."