Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
It’s not you; it’s me. Okay, no, I lied; it is you. I thought we agreed to take things slow, but you came on a little too strong. I’m just not prepared to deal with your neediness right now. I’d like for us to still be friends, but I’m afraid that won’t work either. I just don’t trust that you won’t leave me irritating messages day and night. We’re over. Too bad this letter will never find you.
No, I did not just break up with my boyfriend via blog post, what a twenty-first century cliché that would be! I did, however, draft my best “Dear John Letter” directed toward harassing social media brands, and I am getting dangerously close to ending our relationship.
Anyone with a Facebook, Twitter or e-mail account should know exactly what I’m going through. We friend, follow or subscribe to an organization we support, and before we know it, it’s filling up our newsfeeds, timelines and inboxes with excessive, irrelevant or boring information. And so comes the inevitable break-up. A new study released this week by ExactTarget and CoTweet found that more than 90 percent of consumers have “broken up” with at least one brand. Check out the findings, courtesy of the Daily Dog:
- 91 percent of consumers have unsubscribed from permission-based marketing e-mails.
- 77 percent of consumers report being more cautious about providing their e-mail address to companies.
- 81 percent of consumers have either “unliked” or removed a company’s posts from their Facebook news feed.
- 71 percent of consumers report being more selective about “liking” a company on Facebook versus last year.
- 51 percent of consumers expect that a “like” will result in marketing communications from brands while 40 percent do not believe it should result in marketing communications.
- 41 percent of consumers have “unfollowed” a company on Twitter.
Unlike most real-life break-ups, the organization has no idea why it lost another relationship. The end is quiet and painless, as if the relationship never existed. This lack of notification is ultimately problematic for an organization; it gets no insight to its misuses of communication and, therefore, has no incentive to change its behavior. Furthermore, social media relationships are generally not on-again, off-again; once consumers are gone, they’re probably gone for good. So how can organizations avoid a “block,” the dating equivalent of a restraining order?
- Update sparingly
- Establish newsworthiness
- Convey personality
Claire Tonneson 
Claire,
I know I’ve “broken up” with some brands myself. These brands would constantly dominate my new feeds, timelines and inboxes, and I’d get seriously annoyed and “unlike” or “unfollow” them.
Your post brings up a good point: these brands have no idea why people have chosen to “unlike” or “unfollow” them, because these “break ups” are quiet. I mean, once we’re done with a brand, we’re done; we have no desire to send an organization an e-mail that says, “Hi, I’m over you, but here’s what you can do better for your future fans or followers.” Once we’ve give up on them we don’t really ever look back. So I guess it’s really important for a brand to proceed with caution and follow your tips for avoiding a “block,” because once they’ve irritated a follower or a fan, the relationship is over for good.
I really like the Red Bull Facebook fan page (and so do 15,217,587 other people) because of its design. It’s pretty witty, too: http://www.facebook.com/redbull?ref=ts
You should also check out the Pringles fan page (which we talked about in class). The company updates sparingly, and each update is pretty funny or interesting: http://www.facebook.com/Pringles?ref=ts
Those are just some fan pages that are, in my opinion, very successful!
Great blog post.
Sarah