Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

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One particularly large group of contributors to the mass of content uploaded to Facebook every day are brands looking to gain new customers and make a few sales. Unfortunately, it’s this group of contributors who are arguably contributing most to Facebook fatigue.

Brands are all over Facebook, even if you don’t actually like any brand pages. Advertising and suggested posts mean that you’re bound to come across a brand post at some point, while ‘like and share’ competitions mean that you’re even more likely to have your news feed polluted by branded content.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing; a lot of brands do have genuinely interesting things to say and provide some entertaining stuff that deserves to be shared. However, a lot of brands have fallen into Facebook auto-pilot, relying on a banal template of posts and images formulated by set ideas of what a brand should ‘do’ on Facebook and a desperation not to offend.

You’ve undoubtedly seen the type of content I’m talking about; ‘LIKE this post if you like dogs, SHARE it if you love dogs’ from a company selling washing machines; ‘It’s Monday, tell us who you’re favourite member of ABBA is’ from a gambling company. Its content designed to get likes and shares, regardless of relevancy to the brand posting it...