eMarketer believes the conversation about social and TV will change. For buyers who want the best way to reach their audience, the growing video businesses of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat now present a viable alternative to TV. Really? Even as more and more data indicates consumers don’t want marketers in their social media?
Between dying reach, pervasive like fraud, rising ad prices, and bot-driven click fraud, it’s no wonder that are moving away from social media marketing. It doesn’t mean that brands don’t need social media, they do, what it means is that they shouldn’t rely on social media for marketing.
There are many myths when it comes to social media but perhaps the biggest is:
Myth: Most consumers want to have relationships with your brand.
Actually, they don’t. Only 23% of the consumers in a study said they have a relationship with a brand.[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””] In the typical consumer’s view of the world, relationships are reserved for friends, family and colleagues[/inlinetweet]. That’s why, when you ask the 77% of consumers who don’t have relationships with brands to explain why, you get comments like “It’s just a brand, not a member of my family.” (What consumers really want when they interact with brands online is to get discounts).
Now the idea that money will flow into social at the expense of TV? According to new research by the marketing analytics firm MarketShare, [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]TV remains the most efficient vehicle through which to drive consumer purchases, out-delivering digital media [/inlinetweet](display and social), print and radio. Automotive and telecom particularly favor TV; at similar spending levels, both categories enjoy a six-fold sales lift on TV versus online.
The study suggests that a radical reduction in TV spending can have a deleterious impact on ROI. Per MarketShare’s modeling, a telecom brand that moves 20% of its TV dollars into online display can expect to see its sales drop 7%, largely as a result of its diminished reach.
Next time you read a story talking about the shift in ad dollars ask “what is the background of the person who wrote the story?”. If it’s an analyst with no real experience working in marketing then the article is worthless.
Thank you. The article on AdAge clearly shows just how out of touch they are. As a very large Fortune 100 company we are not planning on shifting money from TV to social because it risks market share. This article is nothing more than a PR piece for eMarketer.