Marketers failing on social media as customers want offers not conversation claims study
Marketers are failing to give consumers what they want on social media after mistakenly believing the public are keen to have a two-way conversation with their brand.
A study from marketing services specialists, Sensis, found consumers are more interested in receiving offers, incentives and give-aways than merely talking to companies.
The results of the Sensis Social Media Report, which spoke to 1,100 businesses and 800 consumers, is likely to surprise many marketers who have been taught not to overtly sell on social platforms but to “engage” on a more conversational level.
The study found that while 84 per cent of marketers are looking to open a conversation, most punters want discounts (45 per cent), give-aways (35 per cent) and coupons (30 per cent). But less than a third of companies are currently offering such promotions.
However, more worrying for marketers is the increase in people wanting nothing from brands – a statistic which has risen sharply from 26 per cent to 34 per cent.
Sensis digital general manager Evan Ravensdale said the overall findings illustrate a host of missed opportunities for brands.
“Social media is now an important part of people’s everyday lives. Businesses need to focus on using it in the way consumers want and at the moment, it seems there are a lot of missed opportunities,” he said.
Ravensdale admitted the top-line result is at odds with common thinking which suggests marketers should steer away from a hard sell policy on social platforms.
But he made the distinction that it remained important for brands to take a softly softly approach when first building an audience base before moving to a more sales-driven message.
“People are engaging with businesses and once they have established a relationship they are absolutely open to being sold to,” he said. Offers and incentives should also be “weaved in around other great content”, he said, and should not be the sole communication.
Ravensdale put down the rise in the number of people rejecting brands altogether to a general trend for consumers to reduce their number of friends on Facebook or people they follow on Twitter.
“It may also be that some brands have been a bit too aggressive in selling to begin with,” he suggested.
Generally, Ravensdale said brands are still lagging behind the wider public in terms of a social strategy, with the number of firms adopting social strategies showing a decline from last year.
While half the population is active on social platforms every day – rising to 79 per cent in the 18 to 29 age bracket – less than a third of small and medium enterprises have a social strategy, and 56 per cent of large companies. In last year’s study those figures stood at 37 per cent for SMEs and 77 per cent for larger organisations.
“We were surprised, particularly with the fall in large companies on social,” Ravensdale said. “With the number of channels available, social media marketing has become very complex and confusing and that may have caused some companies to step back.”
Nevertheless, it remained important for brands to stick with it and understand where their consumers are and focus on those platforms.
“It is important for businesses not to spread themselves too thinly,” he said.
But even those who do have a social networking presence are failing to monitor its success, with barely a quarter measuring their return on investment while according to the study almost half (46 per cent) have “no idea” how much money they have invested in social.
“There are huge opportunities for business growth if you have a sound, consistent social media strategy. The key is to treat it like any other business investment by planning, executing and then measuring the results,” Ravensdale said.
The report also studied consumer reaction to advertising on social media, with an even split (38 per cent to 39 per cent) of those happy or unhappy about brands advertising their wares on social platforms.
A further 55 per cent said they take no notice of adverts and 31 per cent claimed they are turned off by brands who advertise on social platforms.
The report also identified where and what time of day people are using social media. First thing in the morning was the most common time to use social platforms (45 per cent), followed by after work and last thing at night with 40 per cent and 41 per cent respectively.
The lounge was the most common room of the house to monitor social activity – 72 per cent – followed by the bedroom with 43 per cent while 14 per cent of consumers take their mobiles to the toilet to check social media.
Steve Jones
Does this mean that the Yellow Pages will be turning into a book full of discount vouchers? The printed edition of Groupon?
(Oh, lord, I hope I haven’t given them any idea’s…)
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This study is too small to draw any major conclusions from. Only 800 consumers were surveyed – that’s not a substantial number compared to the amount of consumers on social media.
Also, when asking consumers a question about sponsored posts – it’s a given that no one likes sponsored posts – however the trick of social is to make them think it isn’t sponsored, so much so, that they don’t realise and engage with the post.
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Dare I say… those with the time to partake in the survey are likely to be those willing to spend hours each day entering competitions and redeeming incentives.
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Agree with Jessica, we’re talking about a sample that represents roughly 0.005% of Australian’s using social. Tough to call it a solid sample.
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@jessica, therein lies the problem. consumers don’t want to engage with brands and so your solution is deceiving consumers into engaging with brands? something tells me this won’t make consumers more likely to buy from said brands.
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“However, more worrying for marketers is the increase in people wanting nothing from brands – a statistic which has risen sharply from 26 per cent to 34 per cent.”
The horror.
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@1285, it’s not about deceiving consumers. It’s about providing valuable content that isn’t perceived as sponsored. If something is heavy in promotional language – it will more likely be perceived as a sponsored post therefore it will lose value. It is about creating a relationship with consumers so they want to engage.
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Finally the penny is beginning to drop.
Customers are too busy and have got a lot better things to do than engage with brands, with the exception of the usual suspects of halo brands that account for less than 0.1% of all brands. For all the rest of brands, engagement is a waste of time, effort and money.
Havas Media reported that in US and Europe people wouldn’t care if 92% of brands disappeared, they would merely switch to another brand in the category
As for ‘It is about creating a relationship with consumers so they want to engage’- good luck with that, get back to us with how much revenue/business growth it drives..
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Seriously, how many brands actually make social media work for selling their products and services? If we are totally honest, it is a very small percentage.
it ads to the brand for sure but don’t expect to use it as the ‘pointy end/sales end’ of marketing.
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lemme guess…Jessica and Ben work as Social Strategists/Evangelists/Gurus and are worried that as each day passes, more and more companies see that the Emperor has no clothes?
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Wow. Do any of your readers consider this as link bait for the socially aware? That sample size is laughable.
A great spin piece to keep brands and companies off social. Let’s hope they all keep doing only promo offers. That’s why you have 0 organic reach 🙂
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“Also, when asking consumers a question about sponsored posts – it’s a given that no one likes sponsored posts – however the trick of social is to make them think it isn’t sponsored, so much so, that they don’t realise and engage with the post.”
I’ve rewritten that for you Jessica:
It’s a fact that people are less likely to engage with sponsored posts – however the job of social should be to create an active online community that are more likely to interact with these when they’re relevant. Respecting your community means a brand is happy to build it over a long term with a clear and consistent voice, rather than trying to fool people for the sake of short term gains.
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For gods sake don’t believe anything Sensis says.
Go buy a trading post, Sensis.
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My first reaction to the article was: all this time every “influencer” said that Facebook and social media is the place to start and moderate a conversation with your customers. This study shines an interesting light on what others recommended and what people actually think about brands on SM sites.
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To those of you putting no faith in the results because 800 people isn’t a big enough sample, I suggest you learn a little more about statistics and sampling.
In response to the article – this isn’t new news. Every piece of research into social media motivations conducted in the past 10 years will show discounts & promotions come out on top. But you don’t build a brand by being permanently on discount. And you don’t build a social community by repeating the same message day in and day out.
LW nailed it above. If you’re going to run social promotions you need a social following to take up the offer when it’s available. And if you’re going to build a community this will be via a range of content of interest to the target audience. Are people really still struggling with this idea in 2015?
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Totally agree with LW and Nate
LW: Brands are built on trust; pretending to be otherwise is a recipe for potential disaster
Nate: A sample size of n=1,000 gives a 95% Confidence Interval around a proportion of 35% response is +/-2.96%
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Well put LW. Social media is about building a long term community.
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People criticising the sample size need to seriously learn about statistics.
We aren’t all a sea of unique butterflies, we predominately think and act alike, and depending on how they were chosen to participate in the survey 800 respondents is an exceptionally well sized sample of the Australian population.
If you chose people completely at random you could represent the entire country with just a couple of hundred.
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Surely we can look at the data that is automated and ‘actual’ to formulate an accurate assessment of how efficient social media is?
This ‘research’ is like TV viewing figures, it is assumptive.
Who could be a45sed to answer the research questionnaire?
Small sample size survey aside: Thomas Cook took a real hiding on Facebook this week didn’t they!
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and yet another ’emperors new clothes’ moment for social media marketing
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I am unsurprised by this, even as a “digital strategist” — nobody wants to talk to a logo without some form of payoff. There are a handful of brands who can provide entertainment (Skittles come to mind), but most are shifting into an Offers/Customer Support approach over content.
I think most of us with our heads on straight, who actually understand the space, would understand that a blended approach is the best one, and wholly dependent on who your target market is.
In other words, water is wet…
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Afterthought (sorry)…
The main concern with this is the lack of measurement & strategy. It is amazing how much money is going to Agencies who are doing this so poorly, and are unaccountable for it… well it doesn’t shock me, but it does annoy me (as someone who DOES provide these things).
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Jessica and Ben (et. al.) you raise a good point regarding the sample size
Which, as you collectively comprise 0.0000084% of Australia’s population defeats your entire argument.
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