The study, by Vanson Bourne, compares social marketing trends with consumer attitudes and reveals that many marketers are losing potential customers from irritating online behaviour.
While only a quarter of consumers were found to actually use social media to interact with companies, brand recommendations and likes from friends were largely welcomed. 15% reported they had even made a purchase based off of a friend’s recommendation.
However, unsolicited social media marketing was said to be the worst experience for a consumer while online.
Consumers were found to be accepting of messages sent from brands they already followed online but 40% said they would be annoyed to be contacted by a brand they didn’t follow.
Social media is increasingly becoming a popular tool for marketing directors with nearly 70% claiming that 25% of their budgets will be dedicated to social media in 2013.
Vanson Bourne’s research, however, suggests a disconnect between UK marketers’ use of social media and what consumers actually want.
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One example is the use of discount or money saving vouchers. While customers were found to be most responsive to upcoming sales, new products and discounts; marketers viewed incentives as the least effective social media marketing method.
Marketing decision makers instead rated newsletters and customer satisfaction surveys (70%) as the most interesting to customers.
Yet, only 10% of customers showed any interest in participating in those type of communications.
"This research is fascinating because it reveals a clear disconnect between the effort marketers are putting into social media and the desire among consumers to engage," said Kieran Kilmartin, EMEA Marketing Director, Pitney Bowes Software. "Even well-intentioned marketers that persist with old-school ‘broadcast’ marketing models risk inadvertently turning potential brand ambassadors off, or at worst, triggering them to disengage completely and ultimately become a ‘brand blocker’."
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