Tony Mariani tipped me off with a tweet:
The Pitfalls Of Social Media Advertising (and LISTEN to it – it’s only 3 minutes long)
Many companies are investing money in social media to advertise new products. But they could be paying a hidden price for those ads.Wang, Shuting and Greenwood, Brad N. and Pavlou, Paul A., Tempting Fate: Social Media Posts by Firms, Customer Purchases, and the Loss of Followers (July 10, 2017). Fox School of Business Research Paper No. 17-022.
… We find that while social media posts do increase the retailer’s sales by 5% in the short-term, they also increase the followers’ propensity to unfollow the firm by 300%. Strikingly, results also indicate that social media posts cannibalize long-term cumulative sales…
Nothing surprising to me. I’ve been bellowing about this for over a decade. Stop bugging people when they don’t to be bugged. Only bug them when they want to be bugged. Simple common sense:
Digital Distractions
Advertisers are getting wise to the drawbacks of marketing in the digital nest. From 2007: Positioning Magazines for Baby Boomers
And now that I’ve totally trashed online marketing, here’s a good e-book about how to do it correctly:
Social, Silver Surfers: Where to find (and how to win) mature consumers online
By Erin Read and Kimberly Hulett
… The only longitudinal study of the online behaviors, marketing preferences and attitudes specifically held by older (40+) adults…