Alan Charlesworth
Senior Lecturer, University of Sunderland, UK.Is Social Breaking-Up Hard to Do?
The rise of Facebook from student-communicator to world-wide
phenomenon is well chronicled – there is even an Oscar-winning movie
on the social media website’s origins. However, the site’s application as
an effective element of an organization’s strategic marketing is still
open to some debate, with that subject being the focus of much research
and practice. Indeed, whilst some would have us believe that creating
some kind of interactive engagement through social media has become
a nirvana for digital marketers others advocate caution, citing the perils
of getting it wrong and the need for distinct objectives needing to be
defined before any organization launches itself into the world of
‘friends’, ‘fans’ and ‘likes’.
This research takes the scenario a stage further, however – to the
end of the ‘Facebook life cycle’ – and considers the break-up of social
media relationships. Specifically, the research concentrates on when a
consumer decides to end their Facebook association with a brand,
organization or product and investigates:
Their reason for doing so, and
The impact on their future relationship with that brand,
organization or product?
By examining the causes of disengagement, the online marketer
will be able to better understand the reasons for the initial attraction
and the potential impact of disengagement may help with the
marketer's decision to initiate that relationship in the first place.
Preliminary findings suggest that Facebook-based relationships
between consumers and brands mirror interpersonal relationships, with
the initial attraction often waning after a ‘honeymoon’ period and this
being the most common time for the break-up to occur. Those
relationships which survive this stage tend to go on to be rewarding for
both partners, but those that don’t last through this period can lead to a
more permanent off- and online ‘divorce’.