By Chris Lee

Just a fifth of consumers follow a brand on social media channels, according to a study carried out by research company Opinion Matters and social media agency RMM. The study found that 12.7 per cent of consumers had provided feedback to a brand over social media channels while just 7.7 per cent had used social platforms to complain.

Consumers are less likely to follow celebrities on social channels, according to the study, with just 13.4 per cent of consumers saying they follow celebs.

Missing a trick?

So why are so many brands still failing to inspire consumers to connect with them over social media? According to online PR specialist Adam Vincenzini of Paratus Communications, the sector in which brands operate in also has a great deal to do with feedback and interaction via social media.

“Based on our experience, brands in the technology and communications sectors are far more likely to receive feedback on products and services than more static sectors,” he told NMK. “It also depends on how brands use their social media channels. For example, a number of brands have made the conscious decision to make Twitter very customer service orientated, which increases the likelihood of that type of interaction.”

Social media website Mashable recently published its blog on the five most engaged social brands. “Engaging in social media is about being extremely open, creative and flexible. To stay competitive online, brands need to be investing in social media as a way to extend themselves to their customers,” author Stephanie Marcus writes.

Josh Feldberg, digital consultant for online marketing agency ideas.org, said that consumers might be deterred from complaining to a brand online and that companies need to improve their customer service in the social media era.

"At best [brands] just seem to give you a link to their website and rarely a deep link to their complaints page,” Feldberg said. “Some brands are OK however. In my personal experience some brands have been helpful while one particular mobile firm were useless, they took almost a day to respond to my complaint and then just tweeted me a link to their homepage - unfortunately this is pretty common, from what I've experienced personally."

Getting engaged

For Roger Warner, managing director of online PR consultancy Content and Motion, the study suggests that brands are better at “content marketing” than celebrities, or indeed individuals.

“I’d rather follow Hackett [a client] than Kanye West on social media because the former is interesting. The latter just tends to spout nonsense, 200 tweets at a time,” Warner told NMK. “That said, there are plenty of brands who just punt promo after promo onto Facebook and Twitter – and this is also an (equivalent) game of diminishing returns...”

Warner believes that the answer is for brands and celebs alike to provide something of value other than personal rants, sales messages and press releases.

“Think about your content as an engagement strategy and you’ll get far more out of social [media],” he concluded.