What To Do When So Many People Feel Ucky After Using Social Media Networks?

According to a recent consumer survey conducted by HubSpot—a champion of inbound marketing, which has had a great impact on me—participation in digital communities is making many of us unhappy. The implications for consumers and marketers may not be what you think. I see a bright future ahead of us. And not because I anticipate massive communal bonfires are going to replace the Facebook page flickers we hold in our hands.

Compared to other social media platforms participants in the survey said they were most unhappy after using Facebook. Maybe this is part of why I never became much of a Facebook user. Throughout high school my About Me section read, "I do like you, even though I'm not good at Facebook. Please get in touch with me through..." and then old contact information containing the still persistent acronym AOL. 

I wasn't being snarky either. Facebook had just been made available to everyone and immediately my friends started using it. I felt I should be somewhat apologetic for not putting in the time to learn this new social skill. It seemed I was even being a bit selfish by doing other things I preferred while asking others to put in the extra work of getting in touch on my terms.

I've thought for a while now that I should find some fulfilling ways to use more social media. I'm impressed by people who use it well, whether they're fostering connections on Facebook, sharing artistry on Instagram or spreading augmented information on Twitter. For a while I did commit to Twitter: I researched how to get the most out of it, how to create value for others and got better and better at applying what I learned. At times it felt like quite a bit of work, and worth it. Overall, I found my use of Twitter really rewarding and invigorating. But then the time I could devote to Twitter slimmed and it didn't feel as good to participate. Cutting through the noise of unhelpful, irrelevant content no longer seemed worth it.

HubSpot suggests marketers should take away three things from their survey results to stand out from the noise: be helpful, be relevant and be familiar. So generally speaking marketers should base their efforts to remain authentic and encourage solidarity on consumer research. To stand out from the clutter it's important to listen and ask questions. What drew our audience together in the first place? How do people feel when they see our brand attached to content?

HubSpot doesn't mention the age-range of the people they surveyed. I wonder how the results would look among groups of the same age. Older people have had more time to refine their relationships with these platforms, but have they? Younger people might more effectively manage their emotional experiences with these digital communities because their greater intimacy with the technology allows them to better integrate it into their lives. This would be worth exploring. 

Ultimately what might seem like discouraging survey results is a call to action. Companies are relatively new to thinking of themselves as brands devoted to long-term value creation. And companies are even newer to leveraging social media. Even knowledgeable, well-meaning brands are still figuring things out. Consumers themselves are still figuring things out. I'm optimistic about what can be done. 

I don't think this is our future.

Our preferences as social media users will clarify over time through increased familiarity and experimentation, if not year to year, than certainly generation to generation. Correspondingly, marketers will get better at measuring and understanding the implications of those preferences. Increasingly, those companies where this approach isn't taken—where a marketing strategy doesn't permeate the organization—will be superseded by companies that do. It will be easier and easier to spot and avoid offerings born from approaches that smack of lazy, uncaring attitudes about how we feel. 

The smacking hurts. How mad will we have to get before the abuse of our attention is marginalized? Mad as hell? I don’t think so. Not that mad. As more marketers adopt principled methodologies like inbound and see how clearly collaboration with consumers leads to success we’re going to see unprecedented improvements at an unprecedented rate. Marketers today care more about authenticity and individuals than they ever have. Consumers can more readily reward that behavior than ever before. It’s in feedback loops like these that we can find our faith in the future.