A minority of UK financial planners are on board with the social media revolution sweeping the globe.

In typical early adopter proportions reflective of other markets, close to one in 10 British advisers believe very strongly in the merits of embracing a social media strategy in their businesses.

In fact, while almost half of UK financial advisers believe that having a social media presence is somewhat important in this day and age, only close to one in 10 deem a presence very important.

Initial analysis of the CoreData Research UK Financial Advice New Media Study reveals overall, 48.5% of advisers consider a social media presence to have some semblance of importance to their business.

This is heartening, but it does not necessarily herald an age of widespread social media usage as 43.3% of advisers still think that having a social media presence is not important. Of these, one in five believes having a social media presence is irrelevant to their business.

A similar proportion of the early adopter group has no opinion on the importance of social media, either good or bad.

The world may be becoming a smaller place thanks to the Internet, yet social media is providing those advisers who use it with alternative modes through which to make contact – be it with other advisers or existing or potential clients.

Networking and making new contacts is the main motivator for financial advisers making use of social media. Websites like LinkedIn facilitate access to previously unapproachable industry professionals. In fact, 48.1% of advisers say this is the reason they use social media.

Although building business relationships is also classed as an important driver, it is interesting to note that the pressure to keep up with the times and with technological developments is also a reason why advisers have resorted to making use of this method of communication.

A significant number (37.6%) of advisers say they don’t want to get left behind while 36.2% say they use social media because it’s popular. This suggests that peer pressure lies behind a measure of social media’s rise in popularity among financial advice professionals.

Use of social media does throw up a number of compliance issues and the complexity of these concerns is a major deterrent for financial advisers to use these sites. This is revealed as the main reason why people don’t have a social media presence, with 35.1% citing this as their motivation.

For example, one respondent said they worry that a social media presence will undo all the firm’s compliance efforts. This apprehension is understandable considering the amount of work that goes into making sure a firm’s communications comply with the appropriate regulations.

A very large number of advisers think setting up a social media presence is risky. Almost three-quarters of the respondents (72%) believe there is a measure of risk in having a social media presence. The most prevalent concerns are being hacked, having people making negative comments and being more vulnerable to viruses and malware.