Brand vs. Individual

The need for a personal touch in social media marketing

Social media was created for people.

Then companies started making profiles for themselves, and social media became a marketing tactic.

I conducted a survey of 225 participants, gathered online, to see what their perceptions of brand social media accounts are.

I especially wanted to zero in on how well they responded to social media as an inbound marketing tactic, since many companies like to use social media to increase their visibility and reach new customers.

Gender

MaleFemaleOther

First, a little demographic information about the 225 survey participants:

Location

USACanadaOther

Age

<1818 to 2223 to 3536 to 5051<

Highest level of education completed

Advanced degreeBachelor's degreeCurrently enrolled in college/universityHigh schoolMiddle school

And here are the results to the questions I asked …

45%

13%

42%

When I'm interested in a brand, I look it up on social mediaI first hear about my favorite brands on social mediaI don't know/neither

In other words, is social media a useful inbound marketing tactic? Or do people look up their favorite brands on social media only after the relationship has been established?

Results indicated that the majority turn to social media after they’ve already established a relationship

with a brand:

What about the 42 percent of people who answered “I don’t know/

neither”? Here’s some of what they had to say:

• It happens both ways equally• They look up their favorite brands on

Google• Some don’t really have favorite

brands, so the question was not applicable

• They hear about brands from other sources, such as T.V. and word-of-mouth

• Some don’t use social media that often

Do you first hear about your favorite brands on social media?

34%

8%16%

42%

IndividualsBrandsNo preferenceDoesn't use Twitter

Do Twitter users prefer to follow brands or individuals?

Why did respondents say they prefer individual accounts?

• An individual is more relatable• Brand posts are “annoying”

and they “always try to sell you stuff”

• Individuals are “creative” while brands are “generic”

• Brands are boring• Only brand accounts of major

companies are worth following• Individuals’ tweets are more

personalized• Less ads, more opinion from

individuals’ accounts• Prefers “people, not

companies”• “I don’t want to read ads and

promotions” on brand accounts

• “I don’t care for brands telling me useless stuff”

Why did respondents say they prefer brand accounts?

• Brand accounts are “more official”

• Easier to remember what the brand is

• Likes to hear from the brand in addition to individuals associated with the brand

• Likes customer service and promos from brands

• Useful for customer service inquiries, updates, etc.

• Information is more credible when posted by a brand

43%

17%

25%

15%

Individuals Brands

No preference Doesn't have Facebook

Do Facebook users prefer following brands or individuals?

• Would rather be friends with people instead of brands

• Brand accounts are impersonal and they don’t share interesting content

• Better to hear directly from people

• People are better, but people whom I actually know

• Individual accounts are more personalized while brand accounts are geared more toward marketing

• Don’t want to be bombarded by ads from brands; Facebook is good for to keeping up with friends and family

• Brand posts are disingenuous• People are more relatable• The brands share dumb posts or

posts that they just want you to see for their own benefit

• Brands offer discount codes, coupons and promos

• Seems more official• “More legit” if the brand is

posting information• News about latest products• Helps enforce the brand’s

identity• Only good for customer

service related issues

Why did respondents prefer individual accounts?

Why did respondents prefer brand accounts?

So social media doesn't seem to be an effective way to introduce your brand to a target audience, nor do most people like interacting with brand accounts.

So how can you optimize your brand’s presence on social media?

If you’re a B2C business, you can make sure you’re using your brand accounts for the utilitarian purposes that people appreciate, such as:

• Fielding customer service inquiries• Offering coupons• Posting updates during emergencies (i.e.,

when airlines use Twitter to pass along the latest news in the aftermath of a crash)

1. Whether you’re B2B or B2C, you can incorporate the personal touch that people appreciate about individual accounts

For example, you can include in your brand Twitter bio the name of the individual(s) tweeting on behalf of your organization:

2. Have someone involved in the organization (ideally the founder) serve as ambassador for the brand using his/her

individual account While participants made it pretty clear that brand accounts don’t enhance your inbound marketing efforts, social media can serve as an effective inbound tactic when you take advantage of individual influencers within your organization.

For example, Virgin’s Richard Branson, VaynerMedia’s Gary Vaynerchuk and Elon Musk of Tesla Motors have much bigger followings on their individual Facebook and Twitter accounts than on their company ones:

And, without explicitly promoting their companies with each post, they expose their brands to wider audiences while posting the type of material that makes individual accounts better than typical brand accounts, according to my survey data.

8.71 million

223,000

2.8 million

301,000

46,900

1.34 million

27,900

1.25 million N/A

1.14 million

5.71 million

1.72 million

You can find plenty of examples of brand accounts that have more followers than the founder, but when the founder makes an effort to engage, his/her profile can gain traction in ways that a brand account cannot.

Also, companies that are primarily media companies (i.e. newspapers and news networks) tend to have more followers on their brands accounts than any of their employees have on their individual accounts

For example:• CNN has more social media followers than any of its anchors• The New York Times has more followers than any of its reporters

This trend is consistent with the comments participants made about what they like in a brand account. Media companies aren’t trying to make sales or use their social media channels for marketing necessarily, and what they post has a “legit” feel.

Or maybe its possible that social media is not an effective tactic for achieving your business objectives

Content marketing company Copyblogger shut down its Facebook page. Here are a couple quotes from a blog post in which the company explained its rationale:

“See, Copyblogger’s main focus is serving its audience. And if that audience wasn’t engaging on Facebook, then there was no real reason for us to pour energy into it. That’s energy we can put into other areas — ones you appreciate more.”

“First, the page had an overwhelming number of junk fans. These are accounts with little to no personal status update activity that just go around “Liking” Facebook pages. They’re essentially accounts tied to “click farms” — ones paid pennies for every Facebook page they Like.”

1. It’s useless to accumulate fans and followers

2. You have to carefully consider which forms of social media your audience uses

Bonus: Additional information about social media usage:

Which social media sites do you use most frequently?

27%

18%

14%

11%

8%

22%

Facebook Snapchat Instagram YouTube Twitter Reddit*

*Participants for this survey were gathered, in part, on Reddit, so the popularity of Reddit in this survey probably does not reflect the general population

Since Snapchat has become so popular, here’s more information about participants’ usage habits …

Do you have a Snapchat account?

How many minutes do you spend on Snapchat per day?

74%

26%

Yes No

34%

24%

19%

11%

12%

0 to 10 11 to 20 21 to 3030 to 59 60 or more

How many Snapchat posts do you create per week?

57%22%

11%

2% 5% 4%

5 or fewer 6 to 15

16 to 30 31 to 50

51 to 75 76 or more

What type of content do they like to view on Snapchat?

91%

9%

Stories posted by users whom they chose to followStories posted by brands

• 50.5 percent picked stories posted by brands as their second favorite type of Snapchat content

• Nobody picked live stories posted by brands as their favorite form of Snapchat content, but 43.7 percent listed them as their second favorite

Limitations• Participants were gathered online via convenience sampling methods• Most participants were 18 to 35 years old• This survey did not ask participants for any information about their

habits as a consumer; avid consumers might have answered differently than ones who tend to shun commercialism.

• A focus group setting might produce more in-depth information about participants’ perceptions about brand and individual social media accounts

• Future research and analysis could be conducted about the traits of the most effective individual social media accounts

solascribe.com/newsletter

For future updates

Cover Photo credit Visual Content

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/143601516@N03/27906087470)Social Media Icons Color Splash Montage - Banner

via photopin https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ (license)