My presentation on the future of social media in 2011 at the BDI Financial Services Social Communications Leadership Forum

1. Social Media: Where Are we Headed in 2011?Ben CathersLightspeed Financial

3. Founded in 2006 when Lightspeed’s management team acquired E*Trade Professional Trading LLC.

4. Headquartered in New York City with offices in Houston, TX and Sacramento, CA.

5. Lightspeed maintains an active presence on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter and also manages its own online community, Lightspeed Spotlight, which provides exclusive trading webinars and educational events for customers.CONFIDENTIAL 2

6. Prediction: 2011 Will Be to Social Media What 1998 Was to Websites Not being engaged on social media will set a company back Customers will seek out companies that engage in social media The people who “didn’t get” the web back in the 90’s are the ones who do not “get” the social web in 2011 Why? The web has become the social web The social web is an evolution that resulted from the original success of the web 3

7. But First, Let’s Go Back to 1996 Bill Clinton is in office The FBI arrests the Unabomber The Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan won the NBA championship 4

8. 1996 In 1996, if you didn’t have a website or email, you were “behind the curve” Customers still wanted to interact with the business but lamented times when a sales question or customer service issue couldn’t be answered via the web or email Americans spent 30 minutes a month surfing the web Twenty million adults had access to the internet in North America In 2010: If you didn’t have a social media presence, you were “behind the curve” Customers interacted with your business via the web, email or phone, but they wanted to interact with your business on the social web. The average social media user in April 2010 spent 6 hours online a month on social networking sites. (Nielsen) Facebook eclipsed the 500 million member mark Twitter surpassed 100 million registered users 5

10. Final Seinfeld episode

11. Frank Sinatra died6

12. Now, Let’s Go Back to 1998 In 1998, if you didn’t have a website or email, you were a dinosaur There were 164 million internet users in the United States. The average user spent 6.5 hours online Google and Paypal are founded. AOL buys Netscape for $4.2 billion In 2011: If you don’t have a social media presence, you are “behind the curve” Facebook is now 10% of all time spent online Facebook is expected to surpass 600 million registered users in early 2011. 30 billion pieces of content are shared every month on Facebook. 7

13. Let's Re-Read That Again More than 500 million registered Facebook users, of which 250 million of them use Facebook daily, share more than 30 billion pieces of content a month. These are your customers, leads and competitor’s customers sharing content about your brand, your competitor’s brand and about your industry. And the entire social web / social inbox isn’t exclusive to Facebook, either. 8

14. Shift in Behavior Your customers want to have the option to contact customer service on the web The value of the social inbox is increasing Consumer research is shifting to the social web The value of an email inbox is smaller than the value of the social inbox Customers use social tools to seek friends’/trusted advisors’ opinions on companies Posing a question via social media is how customers now do research Social media is now used to “investigate” a company and influence a buying decision Customers go to YouTube for product support Social influencers become more important in a marketing strategy 9

15. In Finance, Customers Use the Social Web to do Research Since its launch 12 months ago, the site has had more than 10,000 user-driven reviews of every type of financial product available. In fact, 75 new reviews are being posted every day. 10

17. Comparebroker.com and Investimonials are top ten referrers of site traffic for Lightspeed.com.

18. Most search results for broker name + review do not feature the online broker’s website in the first ten results.

19. “Online broker review” and “Online bank review” are trending keywords on Google Insights.

21. What the Experts Are Saying Group Buying continues it growth Mobile platforms drive social networking’s growth Facebook will surpass 600 million users Spam filters will become a thorn in the marketer’s side CONFIDENTIAL 13

22. Let’s Look at the Social Network Numbers One More Time CONFIDENTIAL 14

24. That’s 250 million people on Facebook EVERY DAY.

25. And more than 200 million people use Facebook mobile.

26. Average user creates 90 pieces of content a month and is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events

27. 70% of Facebook’s users are outside the US

28. 700 billion minutes a month are spent on Facebook

29. 10,000 websites every day integrate with Facebook (more than 2.5 million integrated already)

30. 20 million application installs a day

31. 250 million external Facebook engagements a month15

32. As are Twitter and YouTube's Numbers Twitter 175 million users as of October 2010 370,000 new registrations per day 300,000 registered twitter apps YouTube 2nd most popular search engine on the web 24 hours of video uploaded every minute Average person spends 15 minutes a day on YouTube 16

33. How Does This Affect Social Strategies in Finance? Facebook and Twitter become essential for communication Blogs become crucial for companies’ transparency and an important tool to establish credibility and accessibility to top leadership Video strategy is necessary Social Media Policy is now required Integration with compliance is required Social media becomes a more defined role within an organization Reddit needs to be understood 17

34. Facebook and Twitter Become Critical for Communication When there arenews/rumors about your business, customers are now trained to go to your social media channels to seek out an official response Customers want to go through the sales process on social platforms – let them Customers want answers to simple questions on social platforms – answer them Identify social influencers – interact with them Customers want to give you feedback – embrace it 18

35. Blogs Become Crucial for Transparency Blogs become talking tools They allow an instant reaction to news in the industry Builds a firm’s brand and credibility Connects with the users Syndication and valuable link backs. Assists with overall SEO strategy Lightspeed blog strategy Create interesting content that is relevant to our users and industry Take the viewpoint/perspective that is most likely to benefit our customers (and show it) Lightspeed Blog Topics Lightspeed blog topics include: High Frequency Trading: What’s the real story? An answer to 60 minutes. Mid-term elections and the stock market. Steinbrenner, Long-term investments and follow your dream, Regulatory Abuse: Managing Microburst 19

36. Blogs Become Crucial for Content Sharing Give ideas for the type of message to spread Syndication and back links become even more crucial What other content on your own corporate website would customers want to share? 20

38. Are you putting the same amount of effort into optimizing video

39. Best practices: targeted keywords in title and tags. Make sure description mentions keywords

40. Create video content that is both informative and interesting to users. Use “interesting” videos to lead to “informative” videos on product

41. Promote videos on YouTube first, other social platforms secondCONFIDENTIAL 21

42. Social Media Policy is Essential Needs to clearly spell out rules and policies for Social Media Sites that are banned/allowed How employees can interact on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and so forth When to determine if someone is acting on behalf of the company or themselves on social media Social Media Branding Describes content guidelines and how the brand should interact on the social web Works closely with marketing and PR teams Plans for the future Defines what a future social networking platform is “Blanket” policy covers all future social media policies on new platforms Regularly updated 22

44. Only the Social Media Manager can post content on Lightspeed’s social media products. Only the Social Media Manager can update blogs on the Lightspeed.com site.

45. Every piece of content posted on Lightspeed’s social media products must be approved by the compliance department prior to posting.23

47. FINRA issued regulatory notice 10-06. Key facts include:

48. Every firm that allows associated persons to communicate through social media sites must ensure it can retain records of those communications.

49. When a firm recommends a security on a social media site, NASD Rule 2310 is triggered.

50. Static company blogs constitute “advertisements” under Rule 2210.“Firms must adopt policies and procedures reasonably designed to ensure that their associated persons who participate in social media sites for business purposes are appropriately supervised, have the necessary training and background to engage in such activities, and do not present undue risks to investors. Firms must have a general policy prohibiting any associated person from engaging in business communications in a social media site that is not subject to the firm’s supervision. Firms also must require that only those associated persons who have received appropriate training on the firm’s policies and procedures regarding interactive electronic communications may engage in such communications.” Source: http://www.finra.org/web/groups/industry/@ip/@reg/@notice/documents/notices/p120779.pdf

52. Brainstorm ideas to streamline compliance process

53. Develop a database of pre-approved social media comments

54. Marketing related tweets, sales related tweets, customer service related tweets, etc., etc.

55. Policy for instant comments/feedback

56. All content needs to be approved, but exceptions can be made for content that isn’t specific about a certain security

57. Social media playbook/guide

58. Designed to guide junior social media employees

59. Appoint a general email box or compliance employees for “social media duties”

60. Ensures communication is relevant and interestingCONFIDENTIAL 25

61. Social Media Becomes More Integrated The rise of the Social Media Manager Just as a “webmaster” or “website manager” is now as common of a position as an accountant, the role of the “social media manager” will become as ubiquitous Social media internal teams with junior and senior employees Ever changing and evolving roles and responsibilities. “No day is ever the same.” Social media isn’t the afterthought in the marketing process Social planning/representation from social teams crucial in all PR/marketing campaigns and strategy meetings. There is no “social media voice” and “corporate voice” Everything is one voice. One style of communication. Social media is seamless with the website Ability to log in via Facebook/Twitter Sharing all content on a corporate website site via social media platforms 26

63. Mobile social networking

64. Facebook credits/gamesCONFIDENTIAL 27

65. Conclusions Working with compliance is essential for success in social and finance. Blogging is no longer a once in a while activity SEO/Blogging/PR/Marketing all become integrated Social is here to stay “Adapt or Die!” 28

66. References and Sources http://www.rayfowler.org/2009/03/25/5-fun-facts-about-the-internet-in-1996/ http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/social-media-accounts-for-22-percent-of-time-online/ http://www.computerhope.com/history/19902000.htm http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/02/twitter-stats/ 29