Following brands on social media: why we haven’t read the script
2,500 people worldwide told us about how they follow brands online… debunking a few assumptions along the way
Social media has long evolved from a forum where users communicate with each other. Today it is also an important battleground for marketers — a place where brands can communicate directly with their consumers.
When we heard from over 2,500 of our bees worldwide on the topic, we found that 86% of them follow brands on social media and 73% agree that a social media presence is necessary for brands to be successful.
A closer look, though, reveals that while social media users aren’t as different as we might think, assumptions we have about certain groups — such as older users only using social media for customer service, and younger men just following sports — are way off the mark.
Gen Z still love Facebook and Instagram
Even for those 25 and under, social media behemoth Facebook is by far the most popular platform for following brands (86%), followed by sister company Instagram (65%).
The supposed Gen Z platform of choice, Snapchat, comes behind Twitter (43%) and even LinkedIn (19%) — just 18% of under-25s worldwide use Snapchat to follow companies.
Snapchat’s figures are much higher in the UK and US (41%) as Snapchat’s largest regional markets are North America and Europe — but even so, the platform still lies in fourth place behind Twitter (43%), Instagram (77%) and Facebook (78%) when it comes to following brands.
At heart, this is why a lot of brands are slow to take to Snapchat and why only 8% of them have used the platform in the first quarter of 2018.
Older users don’t just follow brands for customer service and feedback!
Older users are less likely to follow brands than their younger counterparts, but there is still a significant majority that does — of those aged 36 and over, 78% say they follow brands, compared to 89% of Gen Z and 87% of 26–35 year olds.
As for who they like to follow, again older users are not very different from the rest. For those over 36, the top three categories to follow on social media are Fashion/Clothing (60%), Food/Beverages (54%) and Beauty/Grooming (47%).
That means their top three categories are in line with the average across all age bands and nearly the same as Gen Z, whose top interests in order are Fashion/Clothing, Tech, Beauty/Grooming, and Food/Beverages.
Why older users follow the brands they do isn’t that different either. Unlike the stereotype of older keyboard warriors only using social media channels to request help and leave feedback, Customer Service (27%) and Feedback (24%) rank in the bottom three of their interests.
Instead, Exclusive Offers/Discounts (75%), Interesting Content (65%) and Seeing the Brand’s Values (38%) rank as the top three reasons to follow a brand for over-35s and for other age bands too.
The biggest difference between older users and their younger counterparts is loyalty — generally speaking the younger you are the more fickle you are. 42% of younger users say that they have stopped following at least one brand on social media, for those aged between 26 and 35 this number falls to 33% and further still to 26% for over-36s.
Women have wider interests while younger men are more fashion forward
But how do the sexes compare when it comes to the brands they follow?
Well, women have a broader interest when it comes to the categories they follow on social media. Fashion/Clothing (71%) and Beauty/Grooming (64%) are the top two categories, but there are seven categories which 40% or more say they follow — the other five are Food/Beverages, Health/Wellness, Lifestyle, Restaurants and Travel.
In contrast, for men there are just four in total — Tech, Fashion/Clothing, Sports and Education.
Tech is the most popular category for men across all age bands apart from men aged 46 and over, who follow Food/Beverages brands the most.
However, the big shock is amongst younger users, where Fashion/Clothing is more popular than Sports — both for 26–35 year-olds (51% vs 48%) and for Gen Z (55% vs 47%).
What this means for brands
First off, Generation Z doesn’t use Snapchat as much as the competition to follow brands. This is not to say they don’t love the platform, but it’s not how they follow companies.
Brands must also accept that younger users are fickle — they are likely to stop following something because their lifestyle is less established and their consumer habits are much more likely to be in flux. Indeed, for younger users “Change in Lifestyle” was one of the top three reasons to stop following a platform.
Brands should consider making more of an effort to cater to older consumers, who are more loyal and who have shown they too like to see interesting content.
Our data also smashes two gender stereotypes — women are interested in a whole lot more than Fashion and Beauty, and their interests are more varied than men. Meanwhile, today’s young man cares more about what he wears than his favourite sports team.
Hyperbole aside, younger men have shown they too have a real interest in fashion, and it’s time for brands on social media to sit up and listen.
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A quick word on our methodology: The figures in the article are taken from Streetbees global community of members, carried out in May 2018. All of the data was collected by mobile and web surveys, and is accurate to within 3 percentage points 19 times out of 20.
