Socialite Engage, a social media engagement platform designed specifically for those in the financial services industry. Given the strict rules and federal regulations that govern the financial services sector, Socialite Engage has been built to flexibly manage inbound and outbound content and conversations via popular social media channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter while providing message archiving controls to maintain compliance.

1. EVENT FLASH
Bringing Social Media Controls to Financial
Services: Actiance Announces the General
Availability of Socialite Engage
Erin Traudt Michael Fauscette
IN THIS EVENT FLASH
This IDC Flash highlights the January 31, 2012, announcement by Actiance Inc. about the general availability
of Socialite Engage, a social media engagement platform designed specifically for those in the financial
services industry. Given the strict rules and federal regulations that govern the financial services sector,
Socialite Engage has been built to flexibly manage inbound and outbound content and conversations via
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popular social media channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter while providing message archiving
controls to maintain compliance.
SITUATION OVERVIEW
Today, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have become household names, not only for communicating with
friends and relatives but also as viable channels for conducting business. In fact, findings from IDC's third
F.508.935.4015
annual Social Business Survey conducted in May 2011 revealed that companies were predominantly using
consumer social media tools to communicate with customers (51%), create awareness about a company
product or service (43%), and acquire knowledge/ask questions (42%). For those survey participants that
were using consumer social software for business-related initiatives, IDC found that the top 5 social Web sites
were Facebook (75%), LinkedIn (59%), Google (57%), YouTube (55%), and Twitter (49%).
These results support the growing number of use cases for engaging on the social Web for business — not
consumer — purposes. The value of social media has a rather broad impact on a range of departments and
P.508.872.8200
industries. From an organizational perspective, marketing and public relations professionals have been at the
forefront of using social networking and social media tools for external brand awareness activities. However,
not all industries have been ready to adopt social media practices because of the need to understand social
media's benefits and impact on organizational culture while abiding by heavy government regulation.
One company that is helping financial institutions overcome the hurdle of using social media compliantly for
customer awareness and engagement is Actiance. Actiance was founded in 1998 originally as FaceTime
Global Headquarters: 5 Speen Street Framingham, MA 01701 USA
Communications and provides security and compliance software for real-time, unified communications (UC),
collaboration, and Web 2.0 technologies including social networks. The company has expanded its product
suite with the addition of Socialite Engage — a Web-based application, available via the SaaS delivery model,
designed to help marketing professionals, compliance departments, and/or individual financial advisors along
with their marketing and compliance teams distribute approved content over LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter
to drive new business opportunities, customer loyalty, and brand awareness. Socialite Engage is integrated
with Socialite Enable, Actiance's social media compliance offering designed to help companies and users
manage access to social network features as well as moderate custom content and communications before
they are publicly released. Key features of Socialite Engage include, but are not limited to, the following:
 Content library. Socialite Engage users can select permitted content developed internally or by a third
party such as Dow Jones, Thomson Reuters, EarthIntegrate, or Equilar and post that information to
social networks via multiple channels (e.g., personal or corporate pages on Facebook, LinkedIn, and
Twitter).
 Newsfeed. Socialite Engage users can see an aggregated view of all the conversations happening
across their entire network.
 Key connections. Socialite Engage users can identify specific people within their network to follow
more closely in order to monitor their activity and changes in their status.
 Teaming. Central marketers manage and monitor the aggregated results of Socialite Engage users,
identifying success stories and aiding underperforming individuals.
 Analytics. Socialite Engage users can identify and measure the success of a particular piece of content
and determine who is the most active and influential member of a network as well as the best time
during the day to communicate with prospects and clients.
Please contact the IDC Hotline at 800.343.4952, ext. 7988 (or +1.508.988.7988) or sales@idc.com for information on applying
the price of this document toward the purchase of an IDC service or for information on additional copies or Web rights. Visit us
on the Web at www.idc.com. To view a list of IDC offices worldwide, visit www.idc.com/offices.
Copyright 2012 IDC. Reproduction is forbidden unless authorized. All rights reserved.
Filing Information: January 2012, IDC #232868, Volume: 1, Tab: Vendors
Enterprise Collaboration and Social Solutions: Event Flash

2. With the general availability release of Socialite Engage, Actiance has also established new professional
services offerings to help financial services clients better understand how to create meaningful interactions
with key prospects and customers effectively using social media. These services include:
 Stakeholder Social Engagement Workshop
 Social Media Enablement Training Session for Financial Services
 Best Practices for LinkedIn
 Best Practices for Twitter
 Best Practices for Facebook
 Socialite Technical Planning, Configuration and Implementation
FUTURE OUTLOOK
The future of business is social. This not only includes the use of social media for engaging externally with
customers but also is a way for internal employee social collaboration to occur. A new set of social tools have
emerged specifically for the enterprise that combine consumer social principles with business culture and
process to transform companies into social businesses. Social businesses are organizations that embrace
Web 2.0 technologies to implement cultural and process changes to improve business performance in an
increasingly connected global economic environment.
Important to this transformation process both inside and outside of an organization are education and
awareness about social media policies and best practices. According to IDC research, 57% of companies
have a social media policy in place. While this is encouraging, the focus should be on getting the remaining
43% of companies to implement guiding principles as well as offer training and certification to encourage
adoption, regardless of industry.
Heavily regulated industries such as energy and financial services have been under severe scrutiny in recent
years, which has created a highly competitive environment. The need to use social media for client
engagement, retention, and brand awareness is increasing as more businesses and consumers communicate,
share, and discover information online. As the wealth of the nation moves more toward a population that is
becoming increasingly social, financial services firms need to begin having conversations in the area in which
these investors wish to communicate. Socialite Engage is intended to make these activities not only easy for
users but also relevant and to ensure that companies remain in compliance with the rules and laws issued by
the government. With Socialite Engage, companies can maximize the business value of the use of social
channels while minimizing risk by offering another level of control on content communicated through the social
Web.
2 #232868 ©2012 IDC