Financial advisors continue to ramp up their social media use, and a fund firm's top marketer sees both wholesaling and marketing changing as a result.

"We're in a rapidly evolving, changing environment as it relates to this industry and our positioning as an active manager of assets," Mark McKenna, head of global marketing at Putnam, tells MFWire. "Wholesaling has become a different, more consultative relationship."

"Marketing has become about technology and data," McKenna adds. "We're talking about tech companies and we're talking the use of data. Those two pillars are central to brand building today."

On Monday the Putnam team released the sixth edition of the Putnam Social Advisor Survey, built on responses (gathered in late 2018 with help from NMG Consulting) from 1,021 FAs. Now more than ever, those advisors see social media helping them gain new clients.

"We're spending a lot of time educating them," McKenna says. "We're out to help advisors build their brand and build engagement with their content."

61 percent of FAs now describe themselves as expert users of social media, up from 46 percent a year ago. And among those FAs who aren't using social media for business yet, 28 percent say they're "absolutely certain" they'll start using social media for business within the next three years.  

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