Financial Times off-shoot FTAdviser is set to launch a professional community on its website to interact with its readers.
The forum, called Canary Towers, have been developed specifically for independent financial advisors (IFAs), by social media specialist Demand Media.
Canary Towers was developed after reseach from a series of reader focus groups conducted by FTAdviser.com showed that IFAs were looking for a way to access the wider community, openly discuss the issues affecting them and seek support and advice from their peers.
FTAdviser hope the site will strengthen relationships with its existing readership and attract new subscribers to both print and online.
IFAs will be able to create an online persona on the site and link with their peers to build out their own professional social network. Site users can also engage with online content by commenting on and recommending articles, take part in forum discussions and access and contribute to a number of blogs run by industry experts.
Charl Porter, lead product manager for FT.com and FTBusiness, said: âFTAdviser.com is no longer simply a broadcaster of news; we are now engaged in a direct two-way conversation with our readers.
âFour thousand people have already registered and weâve seen a healthy number of subscribers. We are encouraged by these results at this early stage of moving to a metered model and registrations give us greater insight into the quality of the audience available for advertisers. Prior to the launch of Canary Towers we only had a commenting functionality on the blogs.â
