Social media and investment banking

Can you have a public social media account such as Instagram if you have a career in banking, or any other finance field, and post pictures of your lifestyle, yourself, etc.
Will people in the industry see this as something bad or will it not even matter?
What are your thoughts on how a top finance professional should manage his social media account(s)?

 

Banking professionals are held to the highest standards on social media. No pics with your shirt off, no pics of you with alcohol in your hand, no pics with cigarettes or even JUULS in your hand, no pics with people who might seem trashy or unsuccesful. If your gf is ugly, that’s fine, just don’t make it obvious that she’s your gf in your captions.

Fuckin my way thru nyc one chick at a time
 

I'm probably at least 5 years older than you so Facebook was blowing up about halfway through undergrad. I've avoided Twitter and try not to actively post on Facebook as I think both are just platforms for self important assholes and people who need validation from others. The whole edited lifestyle social media craze is stupid. I think there will be a huge privacy backlash at some point in the future when people realize the risks and stupidity of oversharing in a public forum where people will hold you to comments made years prior. Very risky from a professional standpoint.

 

Gotta have a Facebook to have a Tinder.

And have to have a Snapchat to flaunt your life to Tinder babes.

So gonna have to go with social media is probably good to have.

"It is better to have a friendship based on business, than a business based on friendship." - Rockefeller. "Live fast, die hard. Leave a good looking body." - Navy SEAL
 
Best Response

My sister is going through a painful divorce settlement with my former brother-in-law. The guy is a salesman entrepreneur type who set up an unnecessarily large amount of companies, took out loans in my sister's name forging her signature etc. In short, a narcissistic sellside arsehole.

I'm helping my sister out on the forensic accounting as she approaches a divorce settlement. I'm an ex-lawyer and can make some sense of what they guy has done. Also, he is badly advised and not good at covering his tracks.

So, on social media. What really helps is the clue trail that people leave all over social media. Particularly when it comes to tracking down who knows who in cases of suspected fraud.

While some people may be just smart enough to keep their accounts private, often their friends aren't.

So I've been able to connect the relationships between key people through social media. It has made my job a lot easier.

For example, the car lease manager who witnessed the fake signature of my sister on a car lease? She keeps her instagram friends private, but her friends don't. One of those friends is my ex-brother-in-law's sister, who is deeply involved in his shenanigans. Ding ding ding!

Also, the car lease manager's name pops up as donating cash on the fun run sponsorship page for the same ex-BIL's sister. Ding ding ding! Connection made, screen captures put into the dossier, ready for the fraud investigators.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, post threads about how to do it on WSO.
 

I have Facebook, it's useful for staying in touch / up to speed on long distance family and friends.

I have Twitter, I like it to follow news and sports and to discuss sports with like-minded fans. I would not necessarily recommend this, or would HIGHLY recommend that at the very least you make your account private. My company is pretty chill about this stuff so I don't follow my own advice, but it's not worth getting into hot water over something outrageously stupid like a dumb / drunk tweet

 

Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Periscope, Christian Mingle, Farmers Only, etc. are all a waste of time.

Definitely have a LinkedIn.

Use Facebook if you care to stay connected with friends/family/coworkers.

Use Tinder to get laid.

 

LinkedIn only ... rest are for dilettantes

"I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. " -GG
 

Don't use your real last name.

That said if you know what you're doing, and are active in the right groups, it can pay dividends. I got an offer to do client relations for a VC firm from a guy I used to talk to all the time on Facebook, who turned out to run a startup firm.

 

Kinda depends how seriously you take it. Instagram is extremely interesting/ entertaining when following simple accounts like natgeo, humansofny, amazingcars, VictoriaSecret...and using its search function for pictures gives you a completely different perspective than google images.

 

I used to care about this stuff, but now it doesn't even matter anymore. I just group text the people who I want to talk to and keep in touch with (Google Hangouts is good for this). My FB profile is pretty empty and all I really do with it now is follow stupid pages that post dank memes all the time. Also, I recommend everyone check out Millennials of New York.

 

Social media's fine. As others have said FB's not bad to keep in touch or get back in touch with people and as you get older you'll drift apart. It's a good way to know your fraternity brother Fitz (because who doesn't have a bro named Fitz?) just had his seventh kid because now that he graduated and found the Catholic faith again he doesn't believe in prophylactics. It's also a good way to let your Aunt Mary know that you got married/had kids/died without having to call her (which will scare the fuck out of her if you can accomplish the last and you'll probably end up meeting her at the pearly gates). LinkedIn is kind of a necessity.

Don't post stupid shit online just like you shouldn't send stupid emails. My grandfather used to say "never write anything down that you don't want the world to see." And he was born over 110 years ago so he knew nothing about social media or even computers and was talking about writing or typing something on paper. Not even close to something that a prospective employer can google or that can be sent forwarded to millions of people within an hour.

 

Facebook in 2015 is simply terrible. The news feed is literally nothing but corporate spam, image memes, people with hypocritical political beliefs, and over-sharing of mundane shit nobody cares about. Notifications are event invitation spam and birthday reminders. If it weren't for the fact that all of my social circles communicate over Messenger, I'd delete my Facebook. Fortunately, I can use the Messenger app on my phone, and I can chat from messenger.com in my browser, so I don't need to open the main site these days. Good riddance.

Instagram is where girls can pretend to be fitness models because they use a Stairmaster five times a week.

I actually like Twitter and Reddit because, even though entire swaths of their populations are miserable, they are great services with which you can curate your own news. Twitter is nice because there isn't a social obligation to follow everyone you know in real life. While sixteen-year-olds might use Twitter as a stream-of-consciousness tool, you can and should use it to tune into very specific news sources, such as particular journalists and authors who you appreciate. Reddit is also good for this, assuming you immediately unsubscribe from the default popular subreddits where the default reply to every comment is to make an awful pun, purposefully misinterpret a grammatical ambiguity, or generally be immature.

tl;dr I don't have a very high view of social media anymore.

 

Once, not too long ago, when I was a little less long in the tooth. I was an avid user of Twitter. Obviously, I used it to slag off my senior colleagues until one day, an MD, passing behind my workspace, loudly asks "who is this guy on Twitter"?...Needless to say, my blood ran cold and the account was quietly deleted. I left a few weeks after to greener pastures but the lesson stays vivid in my mind's eye.

 

I am on some social networking sites (basically the popular ones) mainly because I want to connect with my friends/families.

Registering for an account(s) doesn't hurt at all unless you're posting stupid posts or being too invested in them, so I guess why not. The antithesis to that would be, "If you're not really using it why register at first place?" but mostly I started using one because I'm curious. The fun ones I keep, the not-so ones I delete.

Fortes fortuna adiuvat.
 

This might be cynical, but I've always viewed standard social media platforms as a way for normal people to get attention and validation that they wouldn't be able to receive otherwise. People mostly sign up due to peer pressure, social influence, and the herd mentality that it's simply what you're supposed to do.

If you're well known, having social media can be a real pain in the ass. Can you imagine if somebody like Obama had a personal FB account? It would be overwhelming.

However, social media can be great if you have a business and is highly recommended in that respect. LinkedIn is helpful as well. But outside of LinkedIn and business accounts, I don't use it at all for personal use.

 

Well, it's really beneficial for any professional or business owner to have all social media channels. Social media marketing is the best way to get more clients for betterment. With social media marketing, we can easily promote our business services and products.

 

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