Once the domain of teenagers and the young adult crowd, social media has become a force du jour among us grey tops too and is now an essential marketing tool for any serious business.

At the turn of the year, there were almost 300 million Twitter users, 1.3 billion people were living vicariously through Facebook and 347 million were posting into the abyss on LinkedIn – all of which represent a large and potential pool of clients for businesses to access.

However, the financial advisory industry still lags behind with respect to embracing social media.

CoreData’s own research on the topic reveals more than one in two (55%) advisers do not use social media in any capacity within their business.

Wasted potential perhaps as growing a social media presence is arguably a much cheaper method of strengthening a brand than traditional marketing tools.

Reasons for this snail-like adoption are bountiful, but much of it is arguably driven by the fact financial advisors deal much more prominently with older clientele and possibly deem these folks as less tech savvy/active?

The reality is we’re all now tech savvy – it’s pretty hard to function in this day and age without some knowledge of the smart phones and the internet etc.

Another factor possibly limiting the uptake, is the FCA’s supervisory approach to financial promotions in social media only been published in March of this year, which spells out the proper bounds and limits for usage.

However the fact almost one in two advisors are not embracing social media could also be down to being busy or laziness… or perhaps one needs to read our research to find out why?

Meanwhile, we found when accounting for adviser success, those expecting high revenue growth for the upcoming year are more prone to using social media than advisers with low income growth rates. A similar picture arises when looking at hourly rates; with more expensive advisers engaging with their clients more frequently than lower end ones.

The use of social media can also yield other positives for an adviser. Although client interaction is an obvious gain, so is improved market knowledge, Business marketing and improving personal reputation within the industry.

With an estimated growth of an additional 650 million users across social networks over the next three years – 10 times the population of the UK – its importance and influence is only set to increase.

Social media no doubt provides a particularly useful vehicle for struggling or less expensive advisers to communicate with existing clients and drive further appeal among younger needed and prospect- clientele.