For years, marketers have considered the Facebook “like” to be a powerful connector between their brands and consumers. Who can blame them? Once a consumer “likes” a brand, company, even film or TV show, updates are published on their personal news feeds, which can help increase awareness and overall engagement.
But are consumers truly engaged with the brands like “like” on Facebook? New research from Kentico concludes: Apparently not.
In the latest installment of its Digital Experience research series, Kentico indicated that 68% of consumers don’t pay attention to brands they “like” on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. How’s that for a social media reality check?
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“A lot of customers are focused on ‘likes’ and quick hits,” said Thom Robbins, Chief Evangelist at Kentico. “Part of that comes from the maturity of the market itself because it becomes very difficult to quantify beyond the ‘like’ unless you start looking at more complex campaign strategies.”
When asked how many brands they like, 39% of consumers said up to 10, 7% said 11 to 20 and 6% said 21 to 30.
Yet in an interesting turn of events, 39% of consumers said they initially “liked” or followed a specific brand because they were already interested and wanted to stay in the loop. Other reasons for following a company included receiving a special offer (39%) and because a friend recommended it (12%).
Rather than simply thinking about “likes,” brands and retailers should focus on keeping followers informed through fun and compelling posts. After all, 32% of consumers said they unliked or unfollowed a brand because they had uninteresting posts, while 28% said they unfollowed a brand because they posted too frequently.
Retailers also should try to identify and build relationships with their advocates, who are more prone to praise them and share positive feedback with friends and family.
“Companies will see it is much easier to have people talk about their products positively than to have people from the company talk about them,” Robbins said. “This includes brand advocates at the top and then social advocates.”
To put advocates to action, though, retailers must provide a platform for them to share their insights, and recognize them for their efforts.
What are your thoughts on this research? How is your retail organization embracing its advocates to drive sales success?
