A few interesting developments recently made me think a little about social media and engagement. I’m wondering if in some ways we are in the the final inning, 2 outs and up to bat with 2 strikes and waiting for the next pitch.
First up is the news that People Trust Social Media Less Than Any Other Form of Communication:
No matter how much Facebook messes with our emotions and pressures us to give up our data to their advertisers, they’ve hardly done anything serious enough to drive us away. Most people trump it up to apathy — we don’t care how much we’re violated if we get to use the service for free. But a new study poses another possible answer. Last week, Pew Research Center released a report on privacy in the “post-Snowden era” and how Americans see government surveillance, social media sites and advertisers. Unsurprisingly, 91 percent of everyone surveyed believe “consumers have lost control over how personal information is collected and used by companies.”
It’s important to note that this study didn’t ask the perception people have about the messages they receive in social media just if they trusted the platform with security and private info. Is it really fair to compare social media to a land line?
That’s the first pitch I’ll throw your way but the next one I’m sure you’ve already seen, Facebook changes News Feed to show fewer promotional page posts:
The latest change made to Facebook’s News Feed comes not off the back of complaints about paid advertising, but off page posts that “feel too promotional,” according to an update on the Facebook blog. The change, which was made in response to survey data, aims to reduce the number of unpaid promotional posts users see in their feed. Facebook said this will not increase the number of paid ads users see when they log into Facebook; it will just show fewer promotional posts. Facebook identified three traits that make what it calls “organic posts” — posts that individuals and companies write on their wall for their fans to see — feel too promotional. These traits include posts that solely push people to buy a product or install an app, posts that push people to enter sweepstakes with no real context, and posts that reuse the exact same content from ads.
Now this one is a strike. For the last few years organic reach has been dwindling on Facebook and because of it’s growth, audience, and targeting advertisers and marketers have played along. But I sense things are starting to buckle a bit especially when you see stories like this- Brands Are Wasting Money on Facebook and Twitter, Forrester Says:
Marketers are increasingly turning to social networks Facebook and Twitter in an attempt to start “conversations” and “relationships” with consumers. According to research firm Forrester, they might be wasting their time and money doing so. “You don’t really have a social relationship with your customers,” analyst Nate Elliott wrote in a new report titled “Social relationship Strategies That Work.” According to Mr. Elliott, top brands’ Facebook and Twitter posts only reach around 2% of their fans and followers, and less than 0.1% of fans and followers actually interact with each post on average. What’s more, Facebook announced last week that another tweak to its news feed algorithm will soon make it even less likely brands’ unpaid posts will actually be seen by users.
Let that 2% number sink in a for a moment. That means all the cost and effort someone or a brand has spent to grow these social networks misses 98% of their audience. All the attention and news that social media garners could just outweigh it’s potential.
I’m not saying social isn’t a game changer and we should go back to running Yellow Pages ads but if any other form of marketing was promoted and proselytized in the same way it would have been questioned long ago.
So What’s the Answer?
Here’s a story that has part of the answer… Facebook Has Finally Killed Organic Reach. What Should Marketers Do Next?:
Add social relationship tools to your own site. A recent Forrester survey shows that US online adults who want to stay in touch with your brand are almost three times as likely to visit your site as to engage you on Facebook. (See the figure below.) Most companies still don’t offer branded communities — but smart marketers are already finding success building social relationship tools into their own sites.
For a major brand that’s possible but for most companies or solo-entrepreneurs this isn’t going to be the easiest path to success. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make your platform (your site or blog) the cornerstone of your marketing efforts. You should, this is the place where you control the engagement and you have the greatest opportunity for conversion.
The best advice comes from the above piece as well:
Stop making Facebook the center of your relationship marketing efforts. That same survey shows that US online adults who want to stay in touch with your brand are almost twice as likely to sign up for your emails as to interact with you on Facebook. (Again, see the figure below.) Plus your emails get delivered more than 90% of the time, while your Facebook posts get delivered 2% of the time — and no one’s looking over your should telling you what you can and can’t say in your emails. If you have to choose between adding a subscriber to you email list or gaining a new Facebook fan, go for email every time.
Simple equation here. Let’s say you wake up tomorrow and you have to decide between engaging in social media (where you have a 98% delivery rate) or spending time creating an engaging email strategy (where you have a deliverable rate of 90%). Which one do you choose?
The answer is clear. Now that’s not to say that you shouldn’t be engaging in social media and it doesn’t have a place but it also means that if you’re putting too much attention or effort in the social channels maybe you should look elsewhere for better results.
Images from betabeat.com, forrester.com
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