Want to “socialize” with other financial advisors? Discuss how to sell your book? Have a question about marketing yourself to high-net-worth investors? These and many more topics are being discussed right now on RegisteredRep.com's Advisor Forums. We think our advisor forum, which was redesigned and relaunched on March 1, is prettier and easier to read than our old forum. Yes, we know some of you long-time users are annoyed by the new look; after about 10 years or so, you had grown used to the layout of the old forums.
There are a couple of reasons why we needed to revamp our advisor forums. One is, the forums were hosted on an old software that, while serviceable enough and still in use by other websites, didn't give us the ability to count traffic accurately. The other big reason is so that we can better integrate content — articles from the magazine and website — into the forums. The idea is to match a discussion thread with related articles. This will make the forums more useful to users.
Some facts about the forum: There are 10,375 topics, 173,352 posts, and 7,257 users. With eight days left in March, the advisor forums have generated about 228,000 page views. Not bad. And we expect it to grow. Indeed, we are in the process of redesigning RegisteredRep.com and will be rolling out a new look in 2010. I'd appreciate any feedback you may have.
Most of the threads are informative; the forums are a good clearing house of ideas, a place advisors can go to exchange information, gossip about their firms and even price out their books of business if they are interested in selling. Advisors often discuss the pros and cons of individual financial products (such as annuities) and dispense advice to each other on a myriad of issues, from marketing to legal matters. But, alas, like many sites out there in cyberspace, there are a few bad eggs who troll around the boards, trying to insult other users. We have had to excommunicate a few users over the years. I am offering a gentle plea: Please do keep it clean.
We thank you for your support. Drop us a line with your comments: 249 W. 17th St., New York, N.Y. 10011-5300. Or email us: [email protected]. Publisher Rich Santos can be reached at [email protected].