Is your business worthy? Loyalty is hard to find

Groucho Marx once said “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”

In the social media, most businesses typically want customers to “join membership” by taking a simple action.  While we invite customers to demonstrate their brand affinity by clicking “like” , “follow” or subscribe to an RSS feed, consumer’s are being a bit stingy with those clicks.

According to the 2010 Cone Consumer New Media Study,  ”users still choose to demonstrate affinity for an average of only 4.6 companies online, making this an exclusive club. Consumers are more open than ever to engaging with companies via new media (86% vs. 78% in 2009), but it still takes a big effort on the part of the company to reach the upper echelons of the consideration set. To stand out, companies need to incentivize new followers.”

Among other things, the  Cone Consumer Study addressed the reasons people decide to demonstrate affinity to a company through the “new media,” with consumer incentives being the key driver:

Possibly an even more interesting part of the study is the level of satisfaction consumers have with “following” or “liking” a brand online and the reason they “unlike” them.  The results suggest, “”It may be difficult for companies to get to the top, but it’s even harder to stay there, says the report. 59% of new media users say they are satisfied with their online experiences with companies, but that doesn’t mean they won’t hesitate to punish companies by disengaging. 58% of users will stop following a company if it acts irresponsibly toward its consumers:

• 58% will stop if the company over-communicates with them
• 53% if it provides irrelevant content
• 36% for under-communicating
• 28% for censoring user-generated content.”

How are you doing at getting consumers to “join your club?”

What can you do to incentivize them for their membership?

How do you resist beseiging those fans with too much communication?