Released Tuesday, "The Social Break-Up" is a study that surveyed more than 1,500 consumers, exploring changing online behaviors and top motivations for "unliking," unfollowing and unsubscribing from brand communications via Facebook, Twitter and e-mail.
Here are a few key findings from the study:
91% of consumers have unsubscribed from opt-in marketing e-mails.
77% of consumers report being more cautious about providing their e-mail address to companies versus last year.
81% of consumers have either "unliked" or removed a company’s posts from their Facebook News Feed.
71% of consumers report being more selective about "liking" a company on Facebook than they were last year.
51% of consumers expect that a "like" will result in marketing communications from brands, while 40% do not believe it should result in marketing communications.
41% of consumers have "unfollowed" a company on Twitter.
With 95% of U.S. online consumers using e-mail (and 93% of U.S. online consumers being subscribers to at least one opt-in e-mail per day), the e-mail findings are particularly important for marketers hoping to remain in good standing with their audiences via e-mail. But Facebook and Twitter are relevant as well, as 65% of U.S. online consumers are currently active on the platform (to the point of obsession, sometimes), and 9% of U.S. online consumers are active tweeters.
Take a look at the images below for more detail about why consumers unsubscribe from brand messages via e-mail, Facebook and Twitter, and how they go about getting rid of brand updates when they're no longer interested.