Where's The Fun In The Investment Business?

In real-life some of us can be quite the cut-up. Do investment marketers, and other communicators at investment firms, really have to check their humor at the door?

Before digital, before social, the answer was uh-huh, yes. On a rare telephone conversation a few weeks ago (who needs to talk when you can tweet?), InvestmentWriting’s Susan Weiner and I laughed about the days when something as informal as contractions were frowned upon in investment commentary.

Money management is serious business. Tomfoolery isn’t something that endears a brand to financial advisors or investors. But here and there it is possible to spot some signs of lightening up. Over the last few years (!), I’ve been bookmarking some noteworthy examples. Finally, a few items surfaced this week, bringing my collection to enough of a critical mass to share.

Enjoy these now and I will continue my life's work of funspotting in the investment business.

ETF Tickers That Tickle

Not taking oneself too seriously is a sign of a contemporary communicator. As exchange-traded funds (ETFs) positioned themselves as mutual fund challengers/disruptors early on, it was natural to show a little sass in the selection of their ticker symbols.

MOO (Van Eck Global Market Vectors Agribusiness), DUST (Direxion Daily Gold Miners Bear 3X) and TAN (Guggenheim Solar ETF) are just three ETF tickers representative of the naming creativity among issuers. 

One of my all-time favorite product names was from the now-defunct Claymore Securities (a former employer but this naming predated my stint): the Claymore/Zacks Yield Hog ETF, which perfectly communicated the fund’s objective to traders. Sadly, it was later renamed to Guggenheim Multi-Asset income ETF, defaulting to words believed to appeal to a broader audience.

When A Cartoon Can Capture The Culture

We're all familiar with the difficulties of finding imagery to communicate the features and benefits of the non-tangible investment business. This can be a significant obstacle when faced with the need to provide some visual relief on a Website.

Branding that relies on illustration is rare on the Web. Even rarer is the investment firm that turns to humorous cartoons. The cartoon below is from Ajo Partners’ Philosophy page. I also like the cartoon on the Contact Us page, too. It's a bit edgy for this space.

The Fun In Being Interactive

For some, fun comes wrapped in a quiz. Quizzes have been the rage online for a while now (of all the content published by The New York Times in 2013, a quiz ranked as the most popular).

In this category, there’s no more prolific fund company than U.S. Global Investors. This commodity producer quiz suggests the fun and educational experience provided.

In its award-winning FutureMoves iPhone app released in 2011 (followed with a Website), MassMutual stepped out a little with irreverent messaging intended to focus Gen X and Gen Y on possible retirement scenarios. As shown in the video below, the app involves the addition of a photo of someone and then ages the image, making some predictions—see the first at 0:52.

It’s funny (“hilarious,” according to one iTunes reviewer) and makes the point.

#TBT

As you can tell by now, a fun communication doesn’t require belly laughs. People who consume investment content all day every day appreciate any effort. An unexpected reason to chuckle, smile, even snicker is all we’re looking for to mix things up. It will be remembered, if not always shared.

Let’s start with a fairly new, social-initiated holiday—#ThrowbackThursday or #TBT—and work our way to the high holy day last celebrated Tuesday.

There’s nothing to bring a community together like taking part in a hashtag. #TBT involves the very specific task of sharing an old image (read more about the meme here), and every Thursday brings a new set of updates from brands and individuals, all clustered together by the use of the hashtag.

A handful of investment firms can be counted on to post #TBT updates on Twitter, Facebook or both some Thursdays.

Here are a few recent #TBT posts from Northwestern Mutual, Fidelity and Scottrade.

It was 1988, George Harrison was topping the charts & we were piloting our 1st voice messaging system #TimeFlys #TBT pic.twitter.com/hnL2N1a8DC

— Northwestern Mutual (@NM_News) February 20, 2014

Our newspaper ad from 1975, when we first started offering IRAs! #TBT pic.twitter.com/cNmmTPONH9

— Fidelity Investments (@Fidelity) February 27, 2014

Today, the Internet turns 25! Here's a glimpse of what we looked like when we first went online in 1996. #web25 pic.twitter.com/jGQRfZscZZ

— Scottrade (@scottrade) March 12, 2014

Obviously, there's room for more firms to take part in Throwback Thursday and with even more imagination. If your firm has any story to tell whatsoever, you can come up with some image-based reminiscences that will both entertain and give your followers a glimpse of your firm's roots.

Not Just For Lovers

Valentine’s Day-related social updates from firms are quite common. But I still LOL when I look back at some 2012 tweets that resulted from a #FedValentines groundswell. They were loosely related to the U.S. economy and Fed policy. (It was what Business Insider called one of the Internet’s nerdiest memes yet.)

The iShares #FedValentines tweets (two examples are shown below) were mostly self-serving, didn’t drive a lick of Website traffic but c’mon, don't you like iShares just a little more because of them?

I’ll $STIP the world and melt with you #FedValentine http://t.co/sE31DWR3

— iShares (@iShares) February 10, 2012

Good one! RT @isharesetfs: If you liked it, then you shoulda put a $RING on it #FedValentine http://t.co/S2DcEaHj

— TheStreet (@TheStreet) February 10, 2012

3 Takes On April Fools'

The April Fools’ celebrations this year started slow.

Fidelity offered a Popsicle-stick quality joke on Twitter and Facebook.

A publication has more latitude than an investment firm. Still, there was extra effort shown when The Economist devoted its daily chart to the comparison that all others know to avoid: Apples to oranges. I loved this, actually. The screenshot below is just a slice—be sure to check out the whole piece.

Finally, the imaginary prize in the investment space for celebrating April Fools' 2014 had to go to FMG Suite. The firm, a marketing solution for financial advisors, created a genuine spoof video for a "world where people still have fax machines."

You have to click on the image above to go watch the 1:30 video on the FMG site, which will take you away from this site. That's OK, don't worry about me. Go. Enjoy yourselves. I want you to have fun!

Fun With Mutual Fund, ETF Website Traffic Data

The next time you have an hour or two—sooner if you just can’t resist—check out the mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) sites in the investing and financial management categories of SimilarWeb.com, which reports on Website traffic. There’s a free version, which will keep you more than occupied, and a few paid subscription levels.

The individual profiles help with competitive intel about traffic levels and traffic sources, including search and social (organic and paid). Taken in aggregate, they provide a fascinating perspective on how sites are networked on the Web. Also, it’s motivating, isn’t it, to think of all of these investors in search of information?

About The Data

Like Comscore and Nielsen, among others, the data that SimilarWeb reports is based on panels of participants. SimilarWeb claims to be “several times bigger than traditional panels. This allows us to learn about every Website, big and small, and overcome the statistical errors that are typical of smaller panels.”

However, SimilarWeb’s data is of desktop traffic exclusively, and therefore not comprehensive. Mobile visits are an increasingly significant chunk of asset manager site traffic.

If you use just the free access of SimilarWeb, take note that sub-domains of Websites are reported individually. Because many asset managers rely on multiple sub-domains or maintain separate domains, the rankings will under-report the effectiveness of a competitor online. And, it can be tricky to assess traffic out of context.

For example, BlackRock.com looks to have doubled its traffic in 2013. Is that the result of a very good year or is there another explanation—e.g., a consolidation of domains, for example?

The paid version of SimilarWeb allows for the selection of either All domains and Main domain. In the comparisons I cite below, I looked at All domains.

There seems to be a lot of movement in the top 100 rankings. I reviewed the data as of November 30 and as of December 31, and the composition of the list changed more than just a few positions.

Here’s a random list of what I found interesting about traffic to investing sites in general and to the industry’s most-trafficked sites. I’ve restricted myself to quoting only data that can be viewed for free on the site.

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

First, how about some respect for the granddaddy and still number 1 among investing Websites: YahooFinance.com?

SimilarWeb says the site attracted almost 2 billion visits in 2013, 150 million in December alone. Yahoo Finance stays on top the old-school way—63% of its traffic comes from links from other sites, towering over search, social or even direct as a traffic source.

No asset management site whose data I reviewed comes anywhere close to that, and yet referrals can be an enduring source of traffic.

The New And The Odd

Quite a few new and new business-model sites have broken into SimilarWeb’s top 100 in the U.S. investing category. For example, Twitter skeptics, note that StockTwits ranked #15 in December. Two-year-old Wealthfront, “the largest and fastest-growing SEC-registered, software-based financial advisor,” breaks in at #94 on the list.

Does anyone else find it odd that of all the possible investing sites out there (including yours) FINRA.org comes in at #42? CFAs make CFAInstitute.org crazy popular (#63).

2013 Traffic Stable Or Climbing

The syndication of content and the popularity of social platforms together call the question: What's the future of corporate domains? When I last wrote about this topic in 2009, I cited asset management Website data that pointed to declining usage and traffic.

But the 2013 12-month view of traffic—visits and not visitors—available from SimilarWeb suggests that traffic to most sites has been stable, if not climbing.

Fidelity And Vanguard

Traffic to Vanguard.com ranks it as the first mutual fund/ETF site in the U.S. investing category—separated by about 2 million visits from TRowePrice.com, the next highest mutual fund/ETF site on the list.

Fidelity’s nearly 16 million visits trump all, but is categorized in SimilarWeb’s “financial management” category.

Winning Search Traffic

It appears that even the best trafficked sites could do much better at winning search traffic. This is lamentable given all the content available on asset management sites (and tons in the making). Most sites fail to significantly benefit from search results for search terms other than derivatives of their brand names.

Here’s an exception worth noting: In 2013 about 4% of Fidelity’s enormous traffic came from the search term: 401k. Impressive—and, of course, it helps that 401k.com redirects to a Fidelity domain.

Also, a few ETF providers are gaining hearty traffic from searches of their ticker symbols, albeit another form of branded search. Promoting their longer ticker symbols is something mutual funds have not tended to do.

A Few Social Surprises

Speaking from experience, one could lose oneself in the detail that SimilarWeb provides about social traffic.

The paid version reports the total number of socially sourced visits for the year and by that measure, Vanguard was the most effective social asset manager in 2013. But BlackRock came on strong in the fourth quarter. As can be seen reported on the free SimilarWeb, 12% of BlackRock’s estimated 400,000 monthly visits is 50,000 visits. From Social alone.

There are a few surprises in the composition of the social traffic. For BlackRock, YouTube was the major contributor. For Fidelity, it was Facebook.

But Vanguard’s top social driver was Reddit aka "the front page of the Internet." Reddit has been a strong source of traffic to more consumer-type sites (although reportedly less so in 2013 than in 2012). Vanguard, and Fidelity to a lesser extent, got a sizable amount of referrals from the platform in 2013. Reddit traffic drove visits to PIMCO, iShares, even American Funds last year.

What SimilarWeb can't tell us is the quality of the traffic or how successful the firms were in converting it.  

What about Twitter and LinkedIn? According to the SimilarWeb data, Twitter is driving more traffic than LinkedIn but both are just runner-ups.

Here’s a kick: Yahoo Bookmarks drove more traffic to the asset managers in the top 100 list than LinkedIn. It's a good reminder that investors and others are using all manner of new and old tools to keep track of what's happening on your site.

Have fun checking all this out.

Note: Yesterday RIABiz named this blog one of the top 10 blogs (#9) in the advisory community. It’s a thrill to be included in such a prominent set of commentators, and it makes me want to try harder to deserve the honor. I recommend the full list of blogs—which also includes the 10 bloggers’ recommended blogs—to you.   

A Glimpse At What Goes On Behind Closed Doors

Today online, there’s no telling who’s going to share what about a business, taking advantage of low-barrier publishing capabilities and distribution via social networks.

The investment industry is taking part in this trend toward full disclosure (if you will), and that's quite a departure. When investment communications were bound by the physical distribution of printed materials, investors were provided with the bare minimum that was required and maybe a shareholder newsletter printed on tissue paper. The economics prohibited fund companies from going much further.

Now that peeks at the culture, capabilities and processes are being posted by investment firms, advisors, investors and others, the rest of us are gaining a better—albeit random—idea of what's going on behind your closed doors. 

Inside SEI

I actually laughed out loud when I saw this tweet from SEI yesterday. Desks on wheels as a brand proof point! 

SEI's desks are on wheels to allow for easy collaborating. Check out @SEIRaefL on the move! pic.twitter.com/U5Ufj4fE3m

— SEI Advisor Network (@SEIAdvisors) November 12, 2013

This Meeting Is By Invitation Only But...

The notion of a closed meeting or conference call is falling by the wayside. Organizations including "the elite gathering of the nation's pre-eminent independent advisors" (#BarronsTopAdvisors) are announcing hashtags. And, even when tweeting from an event isn't fully sanctioned by the sponsor, at least one or two attendees more often than not will.

Today we’re welcoming 130 advisors to our Ascent 2013 conference. If attendees are tweeting, use #RussellAscent to share your thoughts!

— Russell Investments (@Russell_News) October 8, 2013

I am tweeting live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Thank you to @OppFunds for making this happen.

— Steinberg Financial (@steinbergfinadv) September 13, 2012

Thrilled to be here @jpmorganfunds in NYC hearing about investment opps from 5 star mgr Clare Hart pic.twitter.com/j1zD5HMFOL

— Taylor Financial Grp (@TaylorFin_Group) September 18, 2013

Mike Malinsky with @JanusCapital teaching our advisors about the "Art of Wow". Janus Labs is good stuff! pic.twitter.com/IQwOI44Yxz

— Robert Johnson (@_RLJ) October 16, 2013

The Camera Doesn't Always Lie

The next example is not from the wild, the photo appeared with others in an ad campaign/microsite. What I love about it is its realism, even if it was directed realism.

This looks pretty faithful to how work gets done at MFS, across three screens in probably three locales. Nobody spruced up, nobody’s smiling, there’s no glamorizing the job whatsoever. 

What Would You Watch?

Fidelity wrote a smart hashtag to accompany this photo of "the largest plasma screen in the world." Note the 19 retweets and 12 favorites. 

David Keller says the largest plasma screen in the world is located in our chart room! #whatwouldyouwatch pic.twitter.com/beCR2ffuAO

— Fidelity Investments (@Fidelity) August 27, 2013

Can I Get A Witness?

Let’s wrap up this skip through the Rock The Boat Marketing scrapbook by looking at a few tweets sent by investors sharing details of their investment firm experience. The images they upload are designed to both elicit a response and appeal to the court of public opinion. Not shown in the embeds are the firms' responses.

Seeing this screen more than half the time when I access my accounts is not confidence @TRowePrice pic.twitter.com/GY7Rkguw1w

— Davy Stevenson (@davystevenson) May 11, 2013

You have to agree @TC_Talks that this is a RIDICULOUS amount of mail to get in a month. pic.twitter.com/yjMUlDzPTA

— Nicole Jobst Smith (@njobst) October 14, 2013

I get the feeling @fidelity really wants me to accept electronic statements. #doesNotFeelLikeAChoice pic.twitter.com/tPfewNo21t

— Doug Selph (@dougselph) May 3, 2013

No iOS 7-Updated Mutual Fund, ETF Apps Yet

With all of the attention being paid to the mid-September release of Apple’s iOS 7, I’ve wondered how asset manager iPad (mostly) and iPhone apps weathered the updating process. Are any apps taking advantage of the drastic operating system redesign? Were any apps redesigned to reflect the more flattened look?

For answers to those and other questions, the App Details area of App Annie is a useful resource. (See a related April 11, 2013, post What Are The Most Downloaded Asset Manager iPad, Android Apps?)

After a review of the asset manager apps, it looks as if the short answer is No. While a few of the App Details for mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) firm apps include updates for iOS 7 compatibility and bug-fixing, none is flagged as having been “Redesigned for iOS 7.”

This doesn’t mean that they won’t be. The redesign was unveiled only in June and not all have the capabilities to work around the clock, as other app developers have, to deliver a refresh. My guess is that most of the leaders in the Finance category are preparing redesigns in the expectation that pre-iO7 apps will begin to look, and be, dated. (If you need background on iOS 7, by the way, the iTunes Store includes a Designed for iOS 7 section.)

A handful of asset managers, including a few surprising names, haven’t updated their apps since 2012. Let's not hold our breath looking for iOS 7 updates from them, unless... The optimist in me wonders if something big is in the works, the realist makes me wonder if they're rethinking iPad development as a worthwhile activity.

The absence of iOS 7 updates notwithstanding, App Annie's App Details provide updates on the evolving state of the art of asset manager app capabilities, a few of which are highlighted below.

J.P. Morgan Insights App Climbs The Finance Chart

First, how about some respect for J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s iPad app? If your job includes mobile app development for another investment firm, you’ve probably heard all you care to hear about this app, thank you very much.

But, for the rest of us, check out how this late-starter has made up for lost time. Version 1 of Insights by J.P. Morgan Asset Management was released in May of this year and it now ranks #50 on the iPad Top Charts-United States Finance category apps.

Judging from the description of the capabilities—most of the magic happens behind an Advisor/Advisory Firm or Institution/Consultant registration requirement—this app provides an experience that’s unique to the tablet form factor.

J.P. Morgan is building on its leadership of having provided useful charts and graphs for years offline via its Guide to the Markets. It now enables registered users to create custom versions of the Guide by selecting individual slides for presentation and/or packaging them up as PDFs for clients. Awesome.

The app’s overall popularity speaks to the treasure trove of content and its usefulness for non-registered users. The downloads have to be coming from than investment professionals alone.

The image above is just a screenshot of an (un-embeddable) video of how to use the app. Click on it to go there. 

Other App Enhancements

The following are selected highlights from other reported app enhancements:

Vanguard iPad app (current release: 3.2, September 30, 2013)

• Open an account from the app
• Stay logged on for up to 15 minutes when multitasking or navigating outside the app

Vanguard for Financial Advisors iPhone and iPad apps (current release: 5.3, September 20, 2013) 

• A Briefcase feature for content storage and retrieval  
• Briefcase content is now automatically synched to Apple devices using iCloud 

USAA (current release: 5.8, October 1, 2013) 

• USAA MemberShop, enabling users to take advantage of USAA exclusive savings from merchants 

Fidelity (current release of the iPhone app: 2.2.3, October 1, 2013)

• Instantly connect to customer support by tapping “Call a Rep” 
• Home screen updates, including a U.S. Markets day trend visual 
• Real-time, streaming quote details available to customers who are Active Traders

Schwab (current release of the iPhone app: 3.2.0.298, October 3, 2013)

• Listen to the Schwab Market Update through the new Media Center button on the main panel. It’s updated throughout the day with the latest news, including a performance summary and key market mover statistics.

The Challenge Of Making Remarkable Content

Five, maybe six, years ago, many asset management marketing communications teams were fairly satisfied with their approach to their work.

Mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) firms had corralled the words and numbers that populated their run-rate communications, mapped the review and approval processes, and implemented systems designed to assure consistency, timely automated output and even cost-efficiencies. Comparisons to donut-making were not far off.

All of the hard work invested to get to that place was by no means wasted, and enables a significant communication effort today. In the years between 2008-ish and now, a content factory-like approach has also been put in place to support the heightened demand for firms' thought leadership content pieces.  

But, our work is never done. In 2013, the marketplace’s expectations of content have advanced. Increasingly, the requirement is to create content that’s “remarkable.”

What’s required to create remarkable content is too new to be scripted, let alone engineered. Unlike the routine production of largely text-heavy communications for physical and virtual literature shelves, it's exception-based. The pursuit of remarkable content typically extends time to market (except when market conditions require accelerating it!), taps random groups and individuals not typically part of the communications creation chain, invariably increases costs and yields inconsistent results. 

If most other communications are donuts, think of remarkable content as souffles. But oh, the rush (and rewards) when a piece of content satisfies!

The Formula

There is no prescribing a formula for what makes content remarkable today. It’s likely to be visual, more likely to be non-text than text, may tell a story and may strive to move the content consumer, whether in laughter, empathy or sympathy. It’s often ambitious and in that ambition runs a very real risk of falling flat.

Sorry, this doesn’t help much, does it? If you’re like most people, you know remarkable content when you see it—whether you find it yourself or receive an endorsement of it from someone you know. In that spirit, here are three examples of non-industry content that I (along with many, many others) have LOVED or otherwise found remarkable lately, along with some comments for you. 

Help Us Experience Something

Horse races can be thrilling, but watching them on television or even in person is not a wholly satisfying experience.

Two days after this year’s Kentucky Derby, the digital sports information company Trackus published this video of the winning horse’s path from an over-the-shoulder perspective behind the jockey. It’s exhilarating to view, especially for those who watched the race and saw the jockey making his move right around the 1:17 mark. More important, it adds to the spectator's understanding of how thoroughbred races are run.

Simulating the experience of an investor is tough stuff, which is partly why this industry for so long defaulted to photos of silver-haired seniors on sailboats. In form and substance they're anachronisms and fall short of the kinds of communicating that's called for today.

Starting with Web-based portfolio tools and calculators, the industry has been trying to help investors visualize. Last year Merrill Lynch produced its Face Retirement Tool, which enables people to age a photo of themselves. And, Vanguard’s My Life Ticker campaign, released this March, aims to help investors focus on why they invest and the key factors in their investment success.

There is still lots of room for your firm to offer its own take.

Share Data That Only You Have

I challenge you to bounce off the YouTube Trends Map—you can’t, you won’t! Google’s sharing of the most popular YouTube videos right now, as filtered by location, gender, age group will keep you riveted well longer than five seconds. And then you might bookmark the URL or email/social share to others. It is remark-able.

We see limited data sharing in this space. Every quarter Fidelity produces an analysis of its 401(k) accounts as sort of a time and temperature report on workers’ readiness for retirement. PowerShares shares its ETF inflow data as well as its most viewed Website pages for the week.

$SPLV was the PowerShares #ETF with highest net inflows in April.View more in the Connection: pwr.sh/con

— PowerShares (@PowerShares) May 22, 2013

Most viewed funds on powershares.com this week: $QQQ $PKW $BKLN $SPLV $DBC

— PowerShares (@PowerShares) May 24, 2013

Data can tell a lot of stories in this business. There’s much more firms can do to creatively present the data they can share.  

It Wouldn’t Kill Us All To Enjoy A Good Laugh

Stipulated: Asset management marketing, financial communications in general, is serious business. But surely there are moments for levity.

Check out the yuks on this unsigned Tumblr blog of animated gifs, “Thoughts Of An IRO: If investor relations professionals could act freely.” (Below is just a screenshot, click on it for the full effect.) There would have been no better format to capture the spirit of this. 

I’d be surprised if there’s much LOLing at the asset management content being published today, but smiles and chuckles? It's still slim pickings when trying to find content that’s created to amuse. A few examples include the efforts made in Wells Fargo Advantage Funds' Daily Advantage e-newsletter, SEI’s sharing of photos in its annual ugly sweater contest or the occasional asset manager (namely, @AdvisorShares and First Trust’s @Wesbury) tweets. 

Humor is essential to relationship-building. It’s not just other industries that are incorporating humor into their online communications, it’s financial advisors and firms that serve financial advisors, too. Check out this video from Bob Veres, editor/publisher of Inside Information.

For how much longer can we avoid humor, even while striving to produce more natural investment communications? The introduction of levity is a next frontier for asset managers seeking to optimize and humanize the reach of what they have to say. 

As a matter of fact, just in case this post didn't evoke any emotion on your part, I will close now with an amateur video that I am certain will endear itself to you as something remarkable. In your content planning, don't be too quick to rule out turning to animal videos. Just don't dwell on the words in this one.

Bonus update: Compelling content was the focus of a May 30 Webinar I participated in, along with Morningstar’s Leslie Marshall and financial advisor marketing consultant Kristen Luke. The discussion “Social Media Content Beyond 140 Characters,” as moderated by Blane Warrene of RegEd, covered a lot of ground, as you'll hear in the replay embedded below.