A recent study by ExactTarget and CoTweet reveals why Facebook and Twitter users “unlike” or “unfollow” brands, and how the expectations around brand communications differ between the two social media platforms. Marketing Profs reported the results, and below we’ve laid out a comparison of how Facebook and Twitter users engage with brands.
55% of Facebook users say they have “liked” and later “unliked” a brand on Facebook, while only 41% of Twitter users have “followed” and later “unfollowed” a brand.
While Twitter users are less likely to ‘dump’ a brand, they do expect brands to keep it interesting – 52% “unfollow” brands due to boring content. Only 38% of Facebook fans “unliked” a brand because content became boring or repetitive, but a significant majority (63%) “unliked” a brand due to excessive postings – Facebook users don’t want to hear too much from a brand (44%), and want to keep their wall fairly uncluttered (43%).
Additional highlights from the comparison:
- A significant amount – 26% of Facebook users, and 27% of Twitter users – only “liked” a company to take advantage of a one-time offer
- 24% of Facebook users and 27% of Twitter users said the company didn’t offer enough deals
- 24% of Facebook users and 21% of Twitter users said posts/tweets were too promotional
- only 51% of Facebook users expect a “like” will result in marketing communications from brands, vs. a whopping 71% of Twitter users
Twitter users clearly show a significantly higher expectation (and slightly higher tolerance) for promotional brand communications. However, marketers should keep their tweets focused on delivering value; 20% of Twitter users have stopped following a company because their tweets were “too chit-chatty”.
In addition, Facebook fans are now thinking more about their “likes” – 71% of Facebook fans say they’ve become more selective over the past year about which brands they “like” on Facebook. And even after users have “liked” a brand, 51% of Facebook users claim they rarely (or never) visit the brand’s page again.
The most surprising data was how the decision to ‘unlike’ a brand had relatively little effect on future buying: 63% of Facebook fans say they are as likely or more likely to purchase something from a company after ending their Facebook relationship.
Click here to see the full report.
