To understand why companies do things on social media that annoy us, we first have to understand how and why they use them.
My feeling is that it doesn't matter which channel it is. Companies are going to use it for the same thing: to seek the final conversion in the shortest time and at the lowest cost .
In principle, it would make perfect sense. But the truth is that this is a utopia . Not all of our audience is thinking about buying from us (or the final conversion we have as our objective), nor are social media the best tool for selling .
Companies use Facebook as if it were Google Adwords, but in reality its role is the equivalent of a banner campaign
Over time, the increased use of social ads has turned Facebook into just another advertising medium, where content is also published.
The problem is that companies think that by running social ad campaigns they are using something similar to Google Adwords, when in reality the role of these is more similar to indonesia number that of a banner campaign (although very segmented, of course).
This error in the approach, added to the use that users make of Facebook, causes the results to not be as expected .
At least for the moment, users are not on Facebook thinking about buying anything. The vast majority are in “leisure mode”, not in “purchase mode” as they can be on Google.
It is possible that we generate a visit that later ends in a sale. But we will get few direct sales (click + credit card).
Facebook has gone from being a social network where content is published and audience interaction is sought, to a platform where companies run campaigns for that content and engagement is paid, not natural.
That is to say, companies use it as an advertising medium and their audience as a pastime. This makes it very difficult for supply (promotions) to coincide with demand (content that provides value).
Once we have explained the use of social networks by companies, we can move on to analyse those things that bother us so much about their activity.
Why do we follow brands on social media?
I recently read an article by Ayaz Nanji where he discusses the results of a survey conducted by Sprout Social in which they asked American users about the things that annoyed them the most about brands on social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram).
The results are quite clear.
According to the survey data, 86% want to follow and do follow brands on social media. This figure seems too high to me, but whatever the real figure is, it is clear that we are increasingly showing more interest in interacting with brands.
There are many reasons for following companies on social media, but the main one is that they want to know more about their products/services ( 73.4% ). This confirms my theory that social media is a recommendation channel, not a direct conversion channel. It “pushes” conversion and this happens on another channel .