It's Open - Social Media Strategy Consultancy

It’s really refreshing to see Charles Schwab, a leading financial organisation, getting involved with social media.

So much has been written about the burdens of regulatory issues and how this is hampering the ability of financial institutions to engage with social media.

Charles Schwab’s team are smart and have seen the future and they have launched a clever page.

What I particularly like is their upfront statement (reprinted below) explaining how it works and what people can expect. They have been clear about the restrictions they are facing. This is conversational, it is honest, it is direct. Hopefully this will inspire more financial institutions to become more social and I think that can only be a good thing. Financial institutions need to be more accountable and they need to be approachable and people need to be able to talk with them more freely and get a better understanding of the contribution they are making to society. What Charles Schwab is doing it not perfect but in the current context – it is a great step foward.

Here’s the Charles Schwab Facebook statement:

Welcome to our Facebook page. Got something on your mind? Feel free to comment or share an opinion. And hey, while we love to hear from you, keep in mind we’re part of a regulated industry with some pretty strict rules on replying to comments and having dialogues in these types of forums so if you don’t hear from us, or we remove posts because they’re inaccurate or don’t meet certain requirements – don’t take it personally, we’re just playing by the rules. We think that’s fair. Hopefully you agree.

Always remember:
We’ll be providing information, not advice
If you’re a Schwab client, we can’t accept or process instructions for any
account-related transactions
Play nice or your posts will be removed
Share, but nothing too personal
We hope you enjoy your time here. Remember, if you’re a Schwab client and
have specific questions about your account, we cannot answer them in this
forum but feel free to call us directly at

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 20th, 2010 at 9:56 am and is filed under Comment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.