Brands Lag in Social Response

We now live in a post-Oreo-tweet world. Acting fast is now an expectation. But surprisingly, brands are dropping the ball on basic social media interactions with consumers.

Socialbakers recently released its quarterly report on “socially devoted” brands, which is its measurement of how responsive brands are to consumers on social media. You’d think that with most brands these days, which boast social media teams that pull off real-time marketing stunts, regularly responding to consumers’ questions and comments on Facebook and Twitter would be standard procedure. But according to Socialbakers, 70 percent of people’s questions for brands go unanswered on Facebook and Twitter.

By industry, on Facebook, telecom companies were the most responsive to fans with a response rate of 60 percent, followed by airlines (55 percent), finance (46 percent) and retailers (44 percent). At the bottom, somewhat surprisingly, were media companies with a mere 5 percent response rate to fans on Facebook.

On Twitter, telecom brands also had the best performance. Vodafone UK came out on top as the most responsive to fans, earning a 78 percent response rate and answering 5,462 fan questions. Kenyan brand Safaricom Limited came in a close second with a 75 percent response rate and 4,050 questions answered, followed by Nike Support, which had a 80 percent response rate and 3,373 questions answered.

Some notable brands came in at the bottom as the least socially devoted, like Starbucks, McDonald’s and Victoria’s Secret. Starbucks was the worst of the worst with a .35 percent response rate and a greater number of questions unanswered than answered, leaving it with a negative questions-answered score of -5,915. McDonald’s had a zero percent response rate and -5,437 questions answered. Victoria’s Secret came in at sixth worst with a response rate of .88 percent and -4,900 questions answered.

Clearly, brands can do better on both Facebook and Twitter when it comes to simply answering their followers and fans. If they can’t do that, they can forget about bigger real-time marketing efforts.