The American Customer Satisfaction Index in conjunction with ForeSee Results recently conducted a survey of social media users and came up with the conclusion that the majority of those surveyed view popular social media sites, such as Facebook and YouTube, as “annoying.”
For any of Facebook’s many members (and there are a lot, since FB is one of the most visited sites on the Internet) or for anyone who enjoys watching YouTube videos, this may come as a surprise. ForSee Results Chief Executive Larry Freed explained to TechCrunch that this level of annoyance is not necessarily directed at the sites themselves, but rather at other site users.
Offensive or irrelevant YouTube video comments, unreliable Wikipedia articles, and excessive FB friend updates informing other friends of high scores and accomplishments achieved on Farkle, Mafia, Farm, Aquarium, Zoo, and Sorority Life are the reason, says Freed, that Internet users rated these sites as annoying.
“Customer satisfaction is a combination of what you get and what you expect.” Freed told Tech Crunch earlier this month. “The business model of starting out cost-free and ad-free, then turning your site into something else over time works somewhere in tech, but from the average consumer standpoint, it doesn’t work.
In other words, ads, user-generated comments, and application updates are what help to keep these sites free for public use, and they are very likely here to stay, regardless of how “annoying” they are to site users.
Freed also notes that despite low customer satisfaction, people are still flocking to social media networks. It seems that the dissatisfaction with these sites means that some users are visiting less frequently, but no one is jumping ship altogether.
Twitter wasn’t covered as one of the social sites on the survey because it is accessed by a large variety of third-party sites and plug-ins which creates varied user experiences.
It will be interesting to see if any of these social media sites take note, or if they simply carry on “business as usual” while still enjoying their king of the hill position.
What do you think? Would you agree that social media sites are annoying enough to quit, or do you feel that the inconveniences of ads, inaccurate info, irrelevant comments, etc., is just the price of enjoying these kinds of websites?
About the author: Jeune Ortiz is VP of Marketing and Creative Director at future-ink. With more than 20 years of experience in graphic design and marketing, Jeune brings extensive knowledge and creativity to each website and internet marketing solution to grow your business.
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