Monday, November 16, 2015

Technology Features That Promote Hedge Fund Compliance Management

Across the globe, more and more hedge fund companies are investing in technologies to promote compliance management in their operations. This trend towards promoting hedge fund compliance through technology has been observed across small, mid-size, and large fund administrators: many are indeed willing to allocate the budget needed to enable their firms to comply with new regulations.

Triggering this development would be the increased reporting requirements set by SEC and CFTC, as well as the growing demands of investors who seek to know more about the performance of their funds. And these requirements are addressed by the following features of today’s set of compliance management platforms:

Portfolio management. Hedge fund managers benefit from advanced tools that allow for the monitoring limits, blocking trades that are prohibited by law, and recording of trade allocations. These allow for efficient management of trade portfolio and prompt and accurate reporting of positions in securities.

Reporting. The reporting requirements of authorities demand that hedge fund companies maintain infrastructure for the processing and storing large data, which can be a costly endeavor for smaller and mid-size businesses. This has encouraged many of them to purchase commercial hedge fund software, develop technology solutions in-house, or outsource to asset servicing firms.

Client relations management. Hedge funds management entails keeping track of a huge body of communications between investors and managers. Monitoring and storing this communication is not only important for compliance to regulatory demands; they are also necessary for the review of transaction histories and the conduct of post-mortem that clients may wish to embark in.

Recording of employee accounts. Recording, reviewing, and assessing personal account brokerage statements of employees is a tedious process that should nevertheless be encouraged to counter-check for suspicious or irresponsible trading practices. Through features that allow for surveillance and recording of individual accounts, hedge fund companies can ensure that they are after only the best execution of trade transactions.

Compliance management. Finally, new technologies have allowed hedge fund managers to more easily and conveniently adjust to the increased complexity of hedge fund compliance. These tools include compliance calendars with reminders for submission deadlines and registrations, automated recording, among other features.

With authorities in the securities sector here and abroad becoming stricter when it comes to the implementation of compliance regulations, hedge fund managers can truly benefit from forging relationships with asset servicing firms that can provide advanced hedge fund compliance management technology solutions.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Social Media Marketing: Tenets of Online Community Management

Most businesses today understand the importance of building and maintaining online communities on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, among other social media marketing platforms. However, not many understand what it truly takes to keep these communities alive.

Here are important principles of online community management:

Post regularly. A good social media manager is able to find good materials to share on a regular basis, so that page followers always have something to look forward to. This can be accomplished by setting aside at least 30 minutes a day to scour news websites, one’s Twitter feed, and the blogs of industry influencers to bookmark the promising articles or multimedia. Invest in the production of a varied set of content – text, photos, videos, infographic, etc. so that you have something for different kinds of people. And whatever you find or create, make it your own by integrating elements of your corporate identity, be it through the color palette, the captions, or the keywords you’ll use.

Keep the page clean. Monitor the page regularly to ensure that the page offers a pleasant experience for everyone. Promptly delete comments that are irrelevant and spammy. Ban users who have been reported to post messages of hate, discrimination, misogyny, or prejudice. If there are people expressing opposing thoughts about the topic, make sure the exchange is healthy, and that no one is using abusive language. In short, moderate your community well.

Maintain a consistent identity. Good social media management entails finding your voice as a brand and as an organization. This consistent voice will allow your followers to understand what you are about, and relate with your well-defined persona. Use language and other materials (logo, taglines, and introductory videos) that will reflect this identity. Stick to the same description of your company across all your social media communities. Partner with like-minded names in the industry.

Repurpose your content. Consider your social media content as legit assets. This mindset will encourage you to find ways to make the most of each material. Post it in all the platforms, but with some tweaking here and there to suit the particular platform: Shorten it for Twitter, find a good meme version for Instagram, or find a related link for Facebook. On each of these posts, place a link that directs them to your other social media pages. Be a good “recycler!”

Read up on social media marketing trends, or partner with experts in digital marketing, to learn more about navigating this emerging platform.