Liker's Remorse

Bette Davis voices consumer opinion
of brands on Social Media 64 years ago

Research from the Australian branch of the Department of Blatantly Obvious, comes a white paper that should concern Social Media hucksters gurus:  It seems that consumers are dumping brands on Social Media.  I know, it's a shock but it seems that Australian consumers (and I expect them to be the same as consumers here —the one difference being they live in a freakishly hot country with surly poisonous spiders the size of small dogs) are suffering from the tried and true, "It's not you, it's me" excuse.

Now in fairness I haven't seen the study. I requested it but it has not arrived (as I assume it's still in the mail) but according to the Aussie version of Ad Age,B&T, starts off with a good news/bad news approach.  It says the white paper, titled Always On, shows that "82% of Australian Social Media users have connected with brands on Social Media and 29% of them are connected to more than 10 brands."  That sounds pretty good, but I'd like to know more about which brands they favoured.  Are they brands like Apple or Target or are they local ones like Jake's Plumbing Snake Service ("Have no doubt,  Jake can clean you out!")

Nonetheless, of those 82% of consumers who hooked up with a brand through Social Media, 44% of them soon found it was coyote ugly. The break-up excuses reasons cited were:  the content was boring (55%), they hated being spammed by the brand (36%), and they just didn't care anymore (31%)

In an effort to put lipstick on this pig of a study, the Social Media maven who works for the study's co-sponsor said, “It’s great to have strong evidence of Australian consumers’ willingness to connect with brands on Social Media but our report proved something that we’ve long suspected: brands need to offer more than just competitions, discounts and push communications to sustain their social media relationships with consumers."  She adds, “People are getting seriously annoyed with brands behaving badly on Social Media and they do not hesitate in dumping them if they are not meeting their communications needs.” 

I guess it's better to acknowledge this cold fact than ignore it, but, shows how hard it can be to come up with a constant stream of original things to say engaging content.  Then again, King Lear comes to mind: 

Have more than thou showest,

Speak less than thou knowest,

Lend less than thou owest,

Ride more than thou goest,

Learn more than thou trowest,

Set less than thou throwest,

Leave thy drink and thy whore

And keep in-a-door,

And thou shalt have more

Than two tens to a score.