Metro Bank hit by comic's Twitter tirade

Metro Bank's social media policy has been put severely to the test in recent days.

Comedian Al Murray took to Twitter to blast the bank over the opening of its 12th branch in Chiswick.

Murray tweeted on Friday: 'I have actually crossed the road to avoid the toe curling god awful pisspoor balloon waving music blaring launch of my local Metro bank.' Posting a pic of the opening celebrations, he added: 'I love it when cretins treat the rest of us like morons.'

He then invited his followers to use a rather unflattering hashtag, which I won't repeat lest any children are reading (unlikely I know but hey ho). Metro Bank initially stayed out of the debate, but decided to respond when a few days later Murray was at it again. On Tuesday, he tweeted. 'Metro Bank: Another "reason for joining - no stupid bank rules". Um isn't that what landed us all in it?'

The bank shot back with 'Hi Al. We'd love to welcome you into our Chiswick store and explain what we're all about. When are you free?' 'That's very kind but very busy at the moment,' came the comic's reply.

Should they have responded earlier? Possibly. But Metro Bank are one of the better banks when it comes to social media and they did at least get there in the end. It's good to see a bank showing a proactive approach to monitoring and interacting with the public on sites such as Twitter. Rather than burying your head in the sand and hoping for the best, as continues to be the case with many financial institutions.

Twitter steals march on Facebook in FS sector

Has Facebook had its day? That was the question I put to my many (ahem) Twitter followers recently. "Timeline looks clunky and there are only so many pics you wanna see of friends pulling amusing faces in the pub," I tweeted.

It certainly seems to be on the slide in the financial services sector. According to analysis from Corporate Insight, Twitter has overtaken Facebook to be become the top social network for FS firms. It covered 90 companies in its report, 57 per cent of which used Facebook in 2010 and 51 per cent Twitter. But by the end of 2011, 88 per cent were on the former and 92 per cent on the latter.

At one point, Facebook could do no wrong, but it's no longer a media darling. Take, for example, the bemused response to the $1 billion purchase of Instagram, perhaps best summed up by a spoof news piece in the latest Private Eye. Sample quotes: "Instascam's business model was founded on the belief that if we had a trendy name and could show that we had no way of generating profit, Facebook would eventually buy us for some ridiculous price." And: "Mark Zuckerberg denied he'd overpaid for Instascam saying he'd been impressed by the way the company had generated huge amounts of hype in the past two years."

For more info on the Corporate Insight research, click here.

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