2023 survey of advisors' use of social media


The latest release of Putnam's Social Advisor Survey is out. Get the full findings here.

The survey polled over 1,000 financial advisors who have been advising clients for two years or longer. Key findings include:

  • 94% of advisors are using social media for business. This is a gain of 18 points since the survey began in 2013.
  • Advisors' use of networks other than LinkedIn has steeply declined since the beginning of the global pandemic in 2020.
  • Advisors told us that compliance is driving this shift to LinkedIn. Follow-up questionnaires point to fallout from the SEC's Marketing rule as a key driver of this change.
  • Only 51% of advisors told us they gained new business from their social media activity. This is down from 89% reporting success in 2020.
  • Advisors who spend about an hour a week actively using LinkedIn are more likely to attribute success to social media.

Many advisors have stopped using Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks for business chart

The 2023 Putnam Investments Survey of Financial Advisors' Use of Social Media, conducted online in conjunction with NMG Consulting, included 1,043 financial advisors across the United States who have advised retail clients for at least two years or more. Respondents included proportional representation of the U.S. financial advisor population reflecting gender, age, tenure, and channel from independent and regional broker-dealers to nationwide planning firms, wirehouses, insurance firms, and RIAs. Advisors were queried about AUM and assets gained via social marketing in ranges; median and average samples are based on range midpoints.

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