New study says brands need to find the right balance of commercial and non-commercial messaging on social media sites, consumers are happy to receive advertising from brands they follow but too much can put the consumers off the brand.
The study of over 1,000 UK consumers comes from database marketing firm, GI Insight. Ironically the survey showed, whilst 82% of consumers reject the idea of social networks being commercialised, 64% have ‘liked’ or ‘followed’ a brand page and 64% of these are happy to receive advertising messages from those brands.
However brands need to make sure they don’t annoy consumers with too many commercial messages. Nearly half of consumers said they ‘un-friended’ a brand after receiving an annoying level of commercial messages.
And direct messages are just a no-go, 81% of consumers said they are seriously put off brands who direct message instead of posting updates on their newsfeed.
“Overall, the results show that the vast majority of British consumers are extremely wary of commercial messaging via social media and are keen to retain control over how and where they are exposed to it. This is an area in which companies and brands need to tread with a great deal of care. It is very easy to spook the consumer on social media by making uninvited overtures or getting heavy handed with too many sales pitches” notes Andy Wood, GI Insight’s managing director.
