Are UK Financial Services cracking Social Media?

To a large extent the Financial Services market in the UK is still finding its feet with Social Media. This is strange, considering they have typically been at the cutting edge of digital adoption. Sure, most companies in this sector have raced to use Twitter and Facebook, but in my opinion a lot (and especially the bigger players) are still at the early stages of the Social Media Maturity Matrix.


However the  comparison sites are proving to be better at engaging customers with this channel than high street banks. Compare The Market’s position at the top of Stickyeye's recent Online Consumer Finance
Intelligence Report for social media reflects the online and offline branded campaign to “Compare the Meerkat”. The report gives the aggregator one of the highest engagement scores, despite claiming:

"Among the retail banks, social media remains a relatively under developed channel, with many operators not integrating their main site with key social media assets such as Facebook and Twitter.."

The UK however should look to the USA, where some FS companies have really found their way in this space:. For example American Express has been at the forefront of Social Media since launching its first online community in 2006 and then launching OPEN Forum a year later (a community project which focuses on small business owners).