Lithium’s annual State of Social Engagement study Reveals 98 percent of brands failing their customers on social

majority of brands talking at their audience, missing the true value of social

2017 #StateofSocial report: 98% of brands still talking at, not with, customers on #social @LithiumTech

SAN FRANCISCO – May 11, 2017 – Lithium Technologies today released the State of Social Engagement 2017, its annual study that examines whether brands are using social to engage effectively with consumers. Among the key findings, 98 percent of brands are stuck in broadcast mode, relying largely on push tactics rather than proactively listening and responding to their customers across social channels. And a mere one percent of brands build relationships with advocates and influencers, shocking given that this is a resource brands can turn to in the event of a social media crisis.

Combining hard data with human analysis, the State of Social looks at eight industries and 70 of the world’s top brands to determine how strategic and effective brands are across their social channels and communities.

Since last year’s report, brands showed improvements including better storytelling, more cohesion across channels, and more engagement with follower content. But despite these specific tactical improvements, engagement overall is down year over year for most brands due to lack of strategic focus, increased noise from competitors, and the proliferation of new channels which can strain internal resources.

“In the event of a crisis consumers inevitably turn to social media to voice their opinion, which can cause bad situations to worsen for brands who aren’t prepared,” said Rob Tarkoff, Lithium president and CEO. “It’s no longer a question of whether social has real-world impact on businesses. It does, and getting the strategy right will have a direct impact on stock price, sales, and long-term success of the business.”

Top study findings are as follows:
Declining performance:

  • 98 percent of brands’ social strategies are stuck in antiquated “broadcast” mode (up from 95 percent last year).
  • 99 percent of brands are not tapping influencers across channels (up from 96 percent last year).

Areas of improvement:

  • 27 percent of brands leveraged storytelling this year (a significant jump from last year’s 6 percent), as more shifted away from relying on “random” one-off posts.
  • Brands leveraged Facebook (73 percent) and Twitter (63 percent) to engage with consumers, but largely ignored channels like Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube.
  • Last year, less than 40 percent of brands asked questions of their followers or engaged with follower content. This year, that number jumped to 56 percent.
  • Similarly, brands got the hint on leveraging follower content with 63 percent retweeting followers, compared to just 35 percent in 2016.

In addition to analyzing individual brands, the study also ranked the performance of the eight industries studied and a few brands rose above the fold. Overall, retail and consumer products scored the highest as a vertical with powerful community engagement via how-tos and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Full industry rankings are as follows:

  • Retail
  • Telecommunications
  • Consumer products
  • Sports
  • Automotive
  • Technology
  • Travel & hospitality
  • Financial services

The full report can be accessed here: https://www.lithium.com/state-of-social-2017

An infographic highlighting the study findings is here: https://www.lithium.com/pdfs/infographic/lithium-the-state-of-social-engagement-2017.pdf

Methodology
The report rated select Fortune 1000 brands across branded online communities as well as five of the most popular social channels used by consumer brands to engage with customers:  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest.

About Lithium:
Lithium delivers awesome digital customer experiences at scale for the world’s biggest brands including Airbnb, AT&T, Sephora and Spotify.

Comprising Social Media Management and Communities, the Lithium engagement platform enables brands to manage multiple digital touchpoints, facilitate millions of conversations, and drive smarter decisions through data – connecting customers, content and conversations at the right digital moment.

Lithium has a massive digital footprint with approximately 480 million new digital interactions analyzed daily, 100 million monthly visitors across its Online Communities, and 850 million online profiles scored through Klout.

Learn more at www.lithium.com, join our community at community.lithium.com, or follow us on Twitter @LithiumTech. Lithium is a privately held company based in San Francisco.

The Lithium® logo is a registered Service Mark of Lithium Technologies. All other trademarks and product names are the property of their respective owners.

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Media Contacts
Eddie McGraw
Lithium Technologies
+1 (415) 757-3158
[email protected]      

Katrina Estrella
Lithium Technologies
+1 (415) 635-3419
[email protected]

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