Social media is now a quintessential part of any brand's consumer strategy; and now a new study has revealed exactly what consumers want to see from the brands they follow on social media, and what would be considered a faux pas.
UK Amazon alternative OnBuy surveyed consumers on the social media etiquette of brands to find out what would turn a potential customer away or pursuade them to buy. Read on for the resulting dos and don'ts.
Discussing politics
The general rule for polite dinner table conversation appears to also apply to social media, with 71 per cent of consumers "detesting brands talking politics on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat."
"Banter"
Don't make fun of your consumer, even if it's a clever jibe – 88 per cent of consumers become aggravated when brands mock their consumer fan base.
Similarly, 67 per cent believe that social media is not the place for a brand to make fun of its competitors.
Multimedia
Keep up videos and gifs – it's now proven that videos and GIFs are some of the most popular forms of message delivery wanted by consumers – 58 per cent of customers enjoyed the use of GIFs on their feeds and 83 per cent demanded video content.
Personality
While it's important for every brand to have its own voice and message, there were four key traits respondents desired from the brands they followed on social media:
- Honesty - 86 per cent
- Friendliness – 83 per cent
- Helpfulness – 78 per cent
- Humour – 72 per cent
Interestingly, there is less pressure for brands to follow trends as 57 per cent of social media users said that overly hype brands were "annoying".
