For more than five years, social media has been an integral part of the marketing mix in many industries that took the initiative of first movers, but financial services companies have been slow to adopt social media owing to regulatory concerns. However, financial services companies now stand to benefit from and improve upon the mistakes and successes of social media marketing pioneers. In this report, we examine the best practices that have evolved in social media operations so that senior leaders and managers can apply them within a financial services regulatory framework.