Friday, September 24, 2010 Twitter Claims Space Asset Managers Rely On For Disclosure
Well, there’s no easy way to put this. If you’re a marketer for one of the asset management firms with a Twitter account or one of the firms who’s very close to launching a Twitter account, you’ll need to pay attention to the changes that Twitter is making.
On the one hand, as suggested by the image above (and see these screenshots), Twitter is enriching what happens on a Twitter account page. Clicking on an arrow icon next to a tweet will expand the timeline to the right, providing detail about the tweet without sending the user off the page or causing him to lose his place on the timeline. That’s an improvement, especially for casual users of Twitter.
But, by widening the content area, these changes take over much of the background real estate that many have used to communicate. Specifically, disclosures that most asset manager Compliance officers have required will be obscured.
We haven't seen the effect of these changes yet because, while Twitter announced them last week, they’re being introduced over the next several weeks.
We’ve reached out to a few people this week asking what they’ve heard and whether there’s any possibility of requesting an exception. Sorry to say it, but most are stumped about what it could mean for tweeting asset managers. A quick check shows that nine Twitter accounts followed by our @RockTheBoatMKTG Twitter list of investment managers don't use their Twitter backgrounds for disclosure. But more than two-thirds of the accounts do.
We make a point of leaving Compliance guidance to the professionals. Still, it’s obvious that inability to disclose would trim the scope of what an asset manager could tweet about. This would be a backward step, especially for firms that had been considering broadening what they do on Twitter, including following others and tweeting about content on others' Web sites. Added disclosure would be required to enable these.
Blane Warrene of the social media archiving solution Arkovi suggested, “Perhaps firms will be able to link to a disclosure URL in the bio section, though that takes away from the elevator pitch everyone uses with that space. If the content on the right was expanded, that could resolve the issue by adding more characters for disclosure after the pitch.”
The "inherent conflicts of leveraging consumer tools"
“One thought that has come up in our discussions,” Warrene said, “is this one way Twitter can make money? Via selling the ability to customize the page for a business account? This is, of course, prognostication and assumption!”
If that speculation proves to be true, at least it would be a way of accommodating required disclosures. And yet such a scenario would seem unfair. Most Twitter accounts will continue to use Twitter, whether they exercise an option to pay for customization or not. In the case of asset managers and probably others, space for required disclosures could very well be a condition of using the site.
Is that snickering I hear? OK, granted, the customization fee would probably be affordable. We just hate to see asset managers subject to additional barriers that could keep them from taking part on Twitter. We love Twitter, as we've said before.
When we commented previously about the risks of relying on other domains, we didn't imagine that the Twitter background would be pulled out from under.
We agreed with Warrene this week when he said, “This certainly shows the intersection of consumer tools being leveraged for business purposes and the inherent conflicts."
What to do? We’ll let you know if we hear anything and would appreciate your doing the same, even if only via email.
Reader Comments (6)
What's interesting is that on a lot of the pages I've reviewed that have disclosure, the entire disclosure isn't even visible in new or old Twitter. (My own disclosure: obviously this is on my computer at my resolution, although we did check a couple of machines here with the same results.) So will it even be a priority for these firms to make changes? I'm guessing not.
I do think that the idea of profile customization (and an accompanying fee) is completely valid and would be smart move for Twitter. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next steps are for asset managers, other regulated industries, and Twitter.
Kathi, I would hope that firms do adjust to whatever Twitter does to their layout, if not forced by Compliance reasons then for branding alone.
I'm with you on looking forward to what's ahead for Twitter and how this and other regulated industries engage on it.
Thanks for the comment.
[...] Twitter Claims Space Asset Managers Rely On For Disclosure – a blog post by Pat Allen on Rock The Boat Marketing. Well, there’s no easy way to put this. If you’re a marketer for one of the asset management firms with a Twitter account or one of the firms who’s very close to launching a Twitter account, you’ll need to pay attention to the changes that Twitter is making… read more [...]
What if there was some ability to have a pop-up appear when someone lands on the page? I am seeing these more and more on blogs where bloggers are trying to grab subscribers. (they drive me crazy but apparently are quite effective).
As soon as I saw the new twitter, this was my first reaction... how are asset management firms going to respond?
Adam, http://everydaytenacity.com/asset-management-marketing/asset-managers-too-slow-twitter-layout" rel="nofollow">your follow-up post on your site analyzing changes to the Twitter account backgrounds of MFS, MainStay, Putnam and TIAA-CREF was interesting. I suspect all asset managers whose backgrounds were compromised by the new Twitter changes are working on revisions. The wheels move faster at some firms than others, as you and I well know. Thanks for stopping by.