Social Media Users Not Fans Of Direct Messaging From Brands

When you ask Internet users in the UK what their opinion of brands’ advertising push on social media channels is, most of them will say that they don’t like the idea of having them as conduits for commercial messages. Users’ behaviour in the social space, however, suggests just the opposite, as most of them prove quite willing to interact with brands, a survey from database marketing specialists GI Insight implies.

We came across the findings of the poll on the Fresh Business Thinking website, which revealed that out of the 1,000 UK consumers surveyed, 82% of those who have signed up to at least one social platform disapprove of such advertising tactics. What’s interesting here is that 64% of consumers have ‘liked’ or put on their friends’ list a page maintained by a brand or a company, with 68% of them saying that they don’t mind receiving adverts or personalised commercial messages from them.

It’s all too easy to ‘unlike’ or ‘unfriend’ a page when a user starts to feel weary with the endless number of messages a brand keeps sending, with 49% of consumers admitting to such actions. These results suggest that brands should take extra care when interacting with consumers in the social space and try to be less aggressive and as cautious as possible. About 81% of the respondents said that they would be put off a brand if they received uninvited commercial messages, instead of seeing updates on brands’ walls.

The survey proves that Internet users prefer to stay in control of social media space and to choose, on their own, the commercial content they want to receive, GI Insight’s managing partner Andy Wood said.