Brands getting cold shoulder on social networks

The report, ‘Branded Social Networking Pages: Best Practices for Successfully Engaging Users’, finds that half of advertiser-branded social networking pages in Europe have fewer than 1,000 friends. 

Even as some marketers spend hundreds of thousands of Euros for pages on MySpace and other social networks, the average branded social networking page has only 6,494 friends.

Despite social marketing's potential to engage users, many advertisers build branded social networking pages that broadcast content rather than inviting users to interact. 

Most advertisers use their social networking pages as they would typical online marketing microsites rather than harnessing the benefits and capabilities of the platform to foster consumer engagement.

JupiterResearch has suggested a number of tactics brands can use to make their social marketing more effective:

Marketers should promote their pages with paid adverts rather than relying on viral marketing to get the message out. The vast majority of marketers attempting to generate viral buzz don't succeed in getting users to pass along their messages.

Advertisers need to engage users on the page. Even simple forms of engagement, such as contests, on average doubled the number of friends acquired by each branded page.

Marketers must appeal to social networkers' love of multimedia to get noticed. Social Networkers are twice as likely to visit a branded page focused on media content than a branded page focused on products.

"Most advertisers simply don't know how to market properly within social networks," said Nate Elliott, Research Director at JupiterResearch and lead author of the report.  "Too many marketers create dull, non-interactive pages inside social networks and wait for a viral marketing effect to bring users to their door. But our research clearly shows that ongoing promotion and advertising, as well as the use of even relatively simple forms of engagement, are vital to the success of branded social networking pages."

"As online advertisers make increasingly large investments in social marketing and Web 2.0, it's vital that they get the most for their money," said David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch. "By following the examples of what's worked for other marketers and listening to what consumers want-such as original and entertaining multimedia content-advertisers can greatly improve the effectiveness of their social marketing efforts."

The complete findings of the report are immediately available to JupiterResearch clients online at www.jupiterresearch.com