by John Darer CLU ChFC MSSC CeFT RSP CLTC
Observations about the Social Media potholes that structured settlement brokers and others seem to get caught in.
A. Friending Your Competitors
It's the settlement industry's version of the "air kiss". I chuckle when I see people in my industry want to friend each other on LinkedIn and Follow-on Twitter
Doing so simply gives your competitors access to your contacts. Why not just mail them your client list?
An interesting question for the legal minds out there, how strong is your case for theft of trade secrets such as client list if you friend a competitor and they enjoy access to your clients via LinkedIn's social networking tool. "People You may know" which seems to cull from " friends of friends".
B. Not Periodically Reviewing Your Followers
Some people follow you because they are sincerely interested in what you are tweeting about. Others, who have little to nothing to offer you, follow you because they want to follow your contacts and make them their own. Still others want to spam or sell schlock to your follower list. Don't make it easy for these folks. If you want to build a good quality Twitter following, periodically prune your follower list of people who are spammers. Twitter has tools which allow you to block people who attempt to follow you, who you don't want to follow you. You can report spammers too. Other tools are available which allow you to validate anyone who wishes to follow you and thereby screen robo-followers. Furthermore, if you wish you can elect to make your tweets private and protected.
I've observed that one of my industry colleagues, who advertises and places heavy emphasis that he or she is "Plaintiff only", permits Imperial Structured Settlements to follow them and then recently thanked them for retweeting a video. Why would any structured settlement broker, especially one Plaintiff Only, "reward" a company that has historically charged high teens discount rates for structured settlement factoring? Then there's the question of the Feds recent investigation of one of Imperial's other businesses, which also gives me pause. In my opinion Imperial Structured Settlements gets credit if and only if its discount rates to structured settlement annuitants get in line with the fairer end of the competition and stay there. Any competitor of this person, or a client of this person could conceivably construe the use the praise of Imperial against the broker.
C. Making Questionable Posts on Facebook Oblivious to Who's Watching
A few years ago, an employee of one of the insurance companies would regale "friends" on Facebook (many of whom were clients) during business hours about nights out partying, flat tires, parking tickets, and minute by minute status updates on mood swings occasionally seasoned with a plug for the employer life insurance company annuity product and use of foul language. Needless to say, that not long thereafter the individual's employment was terminated.
Comments