My normal morning ritual may sound familiar to some people: I pour myself a cup of coffee, look at my email and check out my social feeds to see what is trending. Every so often I find myself unfollowing companies and individuals due to a variety of factors, and I always wondered if people felt the same way I do when someone direct messages me with a “CAN’T MISS OPPORTUNITY!”
In a recent study from Sprout Social, over 1,000 social media users shared their thoughts on what makes them follow — and unfollow — brands on sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Here are my five takeaways that can help get the discussion going about how social media is leveraged in your business.
1) Find a Balance Of Education & Promotion
Forty-six percent of respondents noted that the biggest reason why they unfollowed a brand was because they were receiving “too many promotional messages.” Since social media channels were intentionally designed for communications, it’s important for brands to reassess the role it plays in their marketing initiatives as more of a channel for sharing industry trends, research and how-to’s, instead of the latest discount.
2) Stay Relevant To Your Audience
Relevancy, in general, was another topic important to social followers. Roughly 41% of survey respondents said that they would unfollow a brand on social media if the “information was not relevant.” This is where an extensive content strategy can be a big help in keeping social conversations with prospects on topics that they care the most about. Check out your offerings and make sure they are relevant to your buyers’ needs.
3) Don’t Tweet Too Much!
Just because there are social media management tools available that make it easy to post on social media whenever you like, it doesn’t mean you should. Roughly 35% of respondents said that they will unfollow a brand if they “tweet too much.” One thing that I’ve noticed here at Demand Gen Report is that our social media team is very observant of how often they share on social media and when it is the right time to do so. Our readers — and most likely your prospective buyers — are already inundated with messages from a plethora of channels. Test where and when social media works best, and refine your messaging so that the messages you do send are relevant to your audience and provide value.
4) Educate Your Audience About Jargon Before Using It
One thing that surprised me from the study was the respondents’ thoughts on corporate slang and jargon, which 30% stated was a valid reason for unfollowing a brand. Jargon, especially in B2B marketing, is abundant. I believe that it’s a necessary evil, and it’s important to educate your audience about this jargon if you use it extensively in your content messaging.
5) Be Responsive
Social media was intended to be a “social” channel for people to converse with one another, and lacking that can lead to your audience unfollowing. Roughly one-third (32%) said that they will unfollow a brand if they are either “too quiet” or “don’t reply” to their questions or comments. Social media is the next best thing to a phone call and/or face-to-face conversation with a prospective buyer. You must be responsive if they have specific questions for you. This is also a great opportunity to gain deeper insight into what is important to your audience, so be sure to reply and have those desired conversations.
