Social Media Archiving Best Practices

Not surprisingly, many compliance departments threw their hands up and asked for more clear-cut guidance on how to achieve compliance when using social networking sites, since so much of the social media content and communication channels are outside of their direct control.

The table below provides a high-level overview of social media best practices by type (website) and communication channel based on FINRA’s recent guidance. In some cases, the best practice may be to disable specific functionality (e.g., LinkedIn InMails) or have a policy banning its usage for business communications (i.e., if these communications cannot be readily archived and reviewed for compliance).

NOTE: We have included individual advisors’ websites to this mix, since content posted on public websites is considered “advertising” and is subject to FINRA compliance rules.

With Social Archive, your compliance departments can securely capture, retain and flag social media (based on lexicon searches or random sampling) for potential compliance violations across a broad spectrum of social media, including ANY public-facing web content.

Bottom Line:

A comprehensive social media strategy needs to strike the right balance between the needs of advisors wanting to leverage these powerful new communication channels with the needs of compliance departments that need a streamlined approach for capture and review in order to help protect their firm’s reputation and meet FINRA’s regulatory guidelines.

Social Archive achieves this difficult balance by delivering a simple, elegant and cost-effective solution.