by Hannah Esquenazi
Social Media has become an ingrained part of our society and in the way people communicate on an individual and on a professional level. It is a public way of showing the world who you or your company is and what you’re capable of. Unfortunately, people have a tendency to overshare and bombard the public and their clients with posts and images that they are either not interested in or are sick of seeing.
When a company underutilizes social media they hurt their brand because they are not taking advantage of a fairly simple idea: sharing news and ads with their consumer base. It can be that the company believes that they don’t need it or that they think they are using it more than enough. But there is a clear way of seeing that what they are doing is hindering and not helping their brand.
Brands need to see that when they post to their followers on social media that the post reaches them and interests them. You can see from the business end how involved people are in the post. The less they pay attention to it, the worse it is. Today’s consumers respond highly to pictures of product and to deals offered alongside it. But just a word post tends to go over their heads.
When brands overutilize social media and become too reliant on it, it can also take away from the brand’s content and their mission. Consumers can become too focused on the posts being made and not on what’s being sold or offered to them. People do not like being constantly bombarded with information that they find pointless because they already got what they wanted from the brand. It can also be that they don’t care for the content being shown and want to block the brand altogether. It is important to recognize where the company falls flat on social media and where they get the most hits, not misses. By doing so they help their brand and ensure that the public pays attention to their product, the deals offered and actively wants to take part in the brand.
Repeatedly posting the same content over and over again certainly does not help their brand awareness, either. Social media platforms now offer two different ways of posting content: posting to their newsfeed and sharing “stories” that can be viewed separately. If a brand posts the exact same thing to both platforms, then it becomes repeat information. People don’t want to see the same thing over and over again and will stop looking for it if they think that’s what they’re going to see. It would work better if the story or newsfeed is drastically different and offers something unique that the person cannot see anywhere else. People get bored very quickly and repeat content is one of the quickest ways to lose consumers.
Brands need to start recognizing where their content stops reaching the public and work to correct these mistakes, because if they choose to ignore them then that will ensure that instead of looking for their updates and products, people will actively start to avoid it.
I loved this post because it’s so true. When a feed becomes oversaturated, the consumers lose track of the actual content and the creativeness in that.
I’m not quite sure moving forward how to tackle this problem. It seems almost like a lose lose situation sometimes. It’s important to have a social media presence to interact with customers and fans, but it also has a huge number of downsides.
Fantastic post on oversaturation on social media. Something that businesses should definitely conisder moving forward.
Hi Hannah!
I agree with your post and that it’s a very careful balancing act of trying to utilize your platform and post stuff while not oversharing to the point of content exhaustion and are not able to take in the work put into the content. If brands choose to ignore the patterns that tire their consumers out, they could end up losing them altogether.
Hi Hannah!
I totally agree! My fyp page on Tik Tok for instance, is way oversaturated with certain topics. I was nice a first when I first got Tik Tok, but now I get tired of it. Instagram I think is one of the worst. I barely go on the app anymore because it always the same content. On the other hand, I think twitter is great because I can go to the trending and news page a see new things.
With the number of people utilizing social media today, it’s as if everything has been already done twice. Finding new ways in which to hitch an audience is only becoming harder and it requires new and innovative tactics in order to do those things effectively. In order to stay ahead, it is necessary to follow trends and become aware of the new ways in which you can communicate through the multiple platforms in which we are given.