It seems that some marketers are treating conversations with consumers via social media like the stereotyped tourists in a foreign country. If the locals don't understand the tourists' language, the tourists amp up the volume, as if repeating "I don't understand why you don't understand me!" with additional decibels! will simplify the translation. These marketers who aren't fully understanding the new language of social media can tend to get overly loud - or overly chummy.
That's the finding of a recent study by Relevation Research, which surveyed 1,500 U.S. online consumers age 16 and older. The results show that 52% of respondents have Facebook-liked, Twitter-followed or otherwise "subscribed to" a company or brand. But of the group that expressed their "devotion," 32% had subsequently spurned the relationship. "After distancing themselves from the brand on social media, many report they then view the brand more negatively, shop/visit it less often and wind up...



