By Blake Cronyn | October 18th, 2017
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In Mark Ritson’s impressive presentation, “Why Social Media Is Mostly A Waste of Time for Marketers”, he touts that social media as a communication tool between people “is an astonishing revolution.” But he follows this statement with an interesting thesis: “brands are ‘the third wheel’ in social media” and “Social media is for people. It’s not for brands.”
Ritson’s interesting insight is supported by numbers showing that Woolworths, Australia’s most “valuable brand,” has 21,000,000 customers, however, it only has 721,000 likes on Facebook. At first glance, 721,000 may seem like an impressive amount of engagement by customers, but it only equates to roughly 3% of Woolworths’ entire customer base. Furthermore, when we look at customers who have actively engaged with Woolworths on Facebook in the last seven days, the engagement number drops to only 8,500 people. Or 0.02% of Woolworths customer base. “Virtually no one,” Ritson declares.
Ritson reiterates what a variety of marketers, retail experts and futurists have declared: social media is a great communication tool between people – not brands. Doug Stephens declares in his book, Reengineering Retail, “If you look at the top hundred user accounts on Twitter, there’s not a single retailer or consumer brand to be found. Zero.” and this same sentiment is echoed by Sucharita Mulpuru of Forrester Research who states, “Brands’ efforts on social media are like trying to sell stuff to people while they’re hanging out with their friends at the bar.”
From these insights, we see the value of rBux as the gateway to building “community” between brands and customers, as we allow the voice of brands to be passed genuinely through social audiences by loyal customers and advocates. As Doug Stephens so eloquently puts it, “the true power of social media doesn’t lie in a brand’s ability to speak to consumers; it lies in consumers’ ability to speak to one another and learn what others think of a product or service.”
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Sources
“Why Social Media Is Mostly A Waste of Time for Marketers” by Mark Ritson
Reengineering Retail by Doug Stephens
