The Problems of Sponsored Social Media Content

You might follow some of your favorite brands on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. It has become quite common to follow companies’ social media presence and to connect with your favorite retailers virtually. However, companies often have trouble responding to customer complaints on social media in a timely way — or at all. Here, we’ll talk about the phenomenon of branded social media.

Sponsored Social Media Content
Big companies are connecting to users virtually in growing numbers. Most big brands have their own apps. For example, 89 of the BrandZ 100 Most Valuable Global Brands had created their own apps by 2013. By 2018, 50% of brands say they will have their own apps.

Read More: 5 Social Media Apps We Can’t Live Without

However, big brands engagement on social media is actually decreasing. Users interacting with brands on Instagram fell from 4.2% in 2014 to 2.2% in 2015. The only social media channel that is increasing in engagement, in fact, is Facebook. Fans interacted with branded channels at a rate of 0.07% in 2014 and 0.2% in 2015.

Complaints Aren’t Addressed in a Timely Way
Many brands use social media to address customer issues, but they certainly aren’t using social media reliably. For example, while 90% of retailers use social media to address customer concerns, 58% of users who used Twitter to discuss a bad experience with a retailer never received a response. If users do receive a response, too, it isn’t very timely. It takes nine hours for the average user to receive a response to a social media query.

Still, Sponsored Social Media Does Work
If companies invest in social media marketing, their businesses can be rewarded ten-fold. If customers or potential customers follow a company on Twitter, for example, they’re 72% more likely to buy a product from that company in the future. For online companies, customers who followed them on a social media channel were likely to make a purchase that averaged $143.46 in 2014.

That said, retailers that don’t respond to user complaints lose credibility in the consumer’s eyes. So, with all of the money spent to create attractive social media content, brands also need to make sure they are responding to customer issues, as well.