Face it: Consumers are not interested in engaging with brands on social media
Like so many other industry fantasies, the idea that social media chatter is the 'tip of the iceberg' of consumer interest in brands is turning out to be another marketing delusion – argues Bob Hoffman
One of the primary justifications for marketers’ continued obsession with social media is the belief that online “conversations” about a brand are an indication of real-world consumer interest in the brand.
“Extensive new research” from a firm called EngagementLabs throws about an ocean of cold water on this belief.
Here’s what they did. Over the course of a year, they did a week-by-week study comparing online chatter with real talk – “the conversations people have in person with family, friends, colleagues at work” – for 500 brands.
They measured four parameters: volume (the amount of talk); net sentiment (positive talk minus negative talk; sharing of content and influence (do the people who chatter matter?)
Here’s what they found.
For volume “the findings were mixed… But for all practical purposes, the association was not sufficient that a brand marketer could reasonably assume that one is a mirror to the other”.
For sentiment, “no meaningful correlation at all.”
For sharing “…the correlation for brand sharing was essentially zero…it is fair to conclude that consumer engagement with brands’ marketing content works entirely independently offline and online”.
And finally, the effect on more influential consumers? “On this metric there is a slightly negative correlation.” In other words, the more online, the less real-world.
While positive word-of-mouth is a valuable asset to marketers, this study is pretty damaging to the theory that social media is related to real-world word-of-mouth.
Like so many other social media fantasies, the idea that social media chatter is the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of consumer interest is turning out to be another marketing delusion.
Bob Hoffman has been the CEO of two independent agencies and is the author of the Ad Contrarian blog
If I’m having a “conversation” with a brand, it’s because something has gone wrong with their product/service. Otherwise, all I want to see from a brand is what’s new and their sales pitch.
ReplyBob and his mates (I call them The Contrarian Crew), say the same thing again and again, over and over. There’s nobody I know I’ve respected over the past few years who has believed anything to the contrary to what the Contrarian Crew are saying. We all love a bit of confirmation bias to get us going in the morning. But the Contrarian Crew’s questioning of how we do things is repetitive. Yes. We’re all questioning how we communicate/our channel mixes. So are our clients. But for one or two of them, it’s ALL they tweet or share on Linkedin about. Where’s the solutions? What do we do next? What advertising out there do you love? Give us something interesting to bring back to our workplaces. Tell us something interesting. Man, tell me what you had for breakfast even. Because there is more to life and working in advertising than this, yes relevant and correct, argument.
ReplyI believe him completely but I am now getting bored of hearing it.
ReplyBob, given your eagerness to be seen and heard and I also expect you will eagerly read feedback….I usually read your writings including this one – but I tend to agree this time with the general feedback that you are now saying things that we all already know. It’s an uneasy feeling when the pic of you accompanying your article starts to look like someone who thinks they have superior knowledge and foresight but is blind to the fact that most of the audience is yawning.
ReplySeriously can he shut up about it already?
Replylol…i doubt bob gives a fuck about mumbrella readers or what they think..they’re mostly new age millennials whose pay checks rely on the whole digital scam going on undisturbed. I doubt he reads the comments here too….same with dave trott….they are probably paid a small fee to reproduce their articles here…or maybe they agree to do it pro bono for the exposure….who knows.
But until some digital toolbox starts writing a regular column citing the amazing benefits of digital with facts that go beyond bullshit like “120 million people in azerbaijan liked it”…..Im happy to hear bob and dave repeat the same thing. Maybe then 5% of what they’re saying might sink in…and thats a start.
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