Facebook and Twitter are for friends, not retail – YouGov survey finds public don’t ‘trust’ retailers on social
Over half of the public do not trust retailers who use social media, research from YouGov has found, with only a quarter saying that a social media presence makes them trust a retailer more.
Of the 1,096 UK adults surveyed by YouGov, it was discovered that 42 per cent stated that social media sites should be used to interact with friends, and not with retailers.
Surprisingly, it was found that more than half (57 per cent) of the 16-24 year olds surveyed don’t like sites such as Twitter and Facebook to be linked with their purchasing history, while almost two-thirds(61 per cent) like to keep their social networking and online shopping activity separate.
This compares to the overall figures, which saw 39 per cent say they like to keep their social networking separate from e-commerce habits.
As James McCoy, research director at YouGov, points out “This is something they [retailers] will need to address if they are to affectively deploy online marketing budgets.”
He added: “The rise of social networks over the past decade has coincided with the growth of online shopping and many retailers have tried to harness the power of sites such as Facebook to increase sales. However, it appears that consumers prefer to keep their shopping and social sites separate, with online consumers not trusting retailers that are on the likes of Twitter.”
This is despite retailers such as Burberry being praised for their use of social media.