5 of the most irritating behaviours on social media. Consumers are quick to shun brands who don’t get it right on social media, so make sure your business doesn’t fall into the following traps.
Consumers have never had so much control over how they interact with brands.
Be it fast-forwarding through TV ads, unfollowing social media accounts that annoy them or installing an online ad blocker, consumers hold all the power and brands are walking a tightrope to remain in their affections.
The stakes are high. A recent survey carried out asked social media users what action they usually take when confronted by ‘irritating’ brand behaviours. More than half would unfollow, while almost a quarter said they would boycott the brand altogether.
Here are our top five irritating brand behaviours on social media. so, how many are your brand guilty of?
1. It’s all me, me, me
Too much one-way communication with no engagement is a big no-no. It makes you seem like a robot and people become disengaged and uninterested really quickly.
Hootsuite’s feed is literally just filled with their own content. As important as this is, there is no proof of community engagement at all. And that’s what social media is all about after all. Sharing is caring!
2. Don’t go off piste
Sharing unrelated content isn’t wise, especially if you have a niche audience. There’s no point sharing fashion memes if you run a farming account, for example. People will get confused and eventually decide that you’re wasting their time.
That said, I think if you establish yourself as a bit of an all-rounder then you can get around this. LADbible is a good example of a brand that strikes a good balance between knowing their prime audience (lads who like football and beer) and meshing it really well with general lifestyle stuff or even further niche audiences.
3. Hashtag mania
This is our personal favourite – or should we say bone of contention. There is no need at all to have more than two hashtags in a tweet. We personally hate anyone who hashtags all of the words in a sentence. It’s a) annoying to read and b) confusing to understand the message of the tweet. Instagram is a different story – being a visual medium you should feel free to hashtag to your heart’s content!
4. It’s all about service
Customer support. Those two words are so important and only brands who nail it will thrive on social media.
We’ve all seen the good and the bad of customer service on social. When you get it right, it’s really right – but when it’s wrong you get torn apart.
Always engage with your customers on social, and if they start being unreasonable then invite them to contact you privately in order to avoid a flamewar that will forever be visible online.
5. Is there anybody there?
Finally, don’t allow your channels to go quiet, there’s nothing worse than silence on social.
It’s important for any brand to understand that the key to community growth and engagement is consistency, with your brand engaging with other people on a frequent basis.
If you’re a smaller brand then you might sometimes struggle to fill gaps when staff members are away, but there are so many social media scheduling tools around nowadays that there’s no excuse not to continue your output even if there’s no-one around to do the posting.
If you want a marketing partner that is passionate about helping you grow your business then get in touch. It’s what we’re best at.
