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.
Actiance Socialite Engage for Financial Social Media 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
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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