Some compliance experts doubt that Twitter will ever evolve in a way that makes sense for advisers.

“It is almost impossible to come up with a way to supervise a technology like Twitter; the way it's built, a pre-review of each tweet is impractical,” said Harry Chaffee, director of financial reporting and compliance support services at Renaissance Regulatory Services Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla.

“Adding a supervisory element almost defeats the purpose [of the technology] anyway,” he added, referring to Twitter's fast pace.

When thinking of precedents when it comes to regulating Twitter, about the closest things technologically are blogs, bulletin boards and chat rooms, according to attorney Paul A. Lieberman, managing counsel at Hamburger Law Firm LLC in Englewood, N.J.

Compliance officers view blogs and bulletin boards as advertising, he said, noting that back-and-forth tweets could be interpreted as a chat-room conversation, and those are considered public appearances requiring pre-approval.

“At the very least, with all of these social networking technologies, it is better to read your firm's compliance and procedure manuals before you hit send,” said Mr. Lieberman, who also serves as associate director of litigation at MarketCounsel LLC, an affiliated compliance consultancy, where he counsels financial advisers on regulatory and business issues.

This article is available online at Investment News.