Today’s guest post is written by Yvette Pistorio.
I grew up in the ’80s and early ’90s and honestly, it was pretty awesome.
Pluto was a planet and I wore about three pairs of socks scrunched over my tightly rolled, acid-washed Jordache jeans.
Technology was a novelty – remember Oregon Trail? I just downloaded an app on my iPhone for that.
Now we don’t have to wait 10 minutes to sign on with our dial-up and listen to that annoying dial up sound. We just turn on our computer and voila! We’re online.
With mobile phones, tablets, 3G, 4G, and whatever else is right around the corner, we’re always online.
Looking back, it amazes me how social media has changed the way we communicate. And it keeps changing every day! Do you remember what life was like before Twitter and Facebook?
I miss the in real life interaction I used to have with my friends and family. Instead of calling me to catch up, they just check my Facebook page to see what’s going on in my life. I’ll be the first to admit that I hate talking on the phone, however, it is nice to hear my mom’s voice every once in a while.
Performics recently released the results of the Life on Demand Study.
Take a look at some of the results on the “new social norms” of those who were surveyed:
- Fifty percent spend less time emailing because of social networks.
- Forty-nine percent would rather text than call.
- Forty percent are more comfortable engaging with people online than in person.
- Thirty percent would rather talk to close friends via social networking than traditional modes.
- Twenty-nine percent spend more time proofing social posts than e-mails.
Do any of these statistics surprise you?
For more than half of the respondents, social networks are the preferred means of communication with distant friends, and one in three respondents prefer social networks for communicating with close friends. Social networking is dramatically affecting how people communicate with each other and with brands.
As marketers, we have to understand what motivates people and what techniques we can use to inspire our customers’ participation. People like and follow brands for different reasons, and the mix of content you post should reflect that.
Marketers take note: Per The Life on Demand Study, people are most likely to engage with branded content containing pictures (44 percent), status updates (40 percent), and videos (37 percent).
What de-motivates customers to engage with us?
- Over-communicating: The more posts per day, the less engagement – when a brand posts twice a day, those posts only receive 57 percent of the likes and 78 percent of the comments per post.
- Irrelevant content: 13 percent of consumers follow a brand on social channels because of their content.
- Not communicating enough: On average, companies respond to only 30 percent of social media fans’ feedback.
We have a great opportunity to interact with customers in our own space if we understand what they want and don’t want, and play by their rules. How awesome is that?