While Americans spend much of their time on social media, a new survey shows that they are less satisfied with the experience than in previous years. According to the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) released on Tuesday, social sites such as Twitter and Facebook saw a decrease in satisfaction year over year.
Facebook dropped 9 percent in customer satisfaction, while Twitter dropped 8 percent among those surveyed. Overall social media satisfaction, meanwhile, dropped 1.4 percent from 2015. While you can’t please everyone, the drop in satisfaction could be attributed to a number of factors related to user interface, changes in privacy agreements and social strife (cyber bullying, for instance).
The constant comparison between ourselves and others on social media can even lead to depression, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.
“People who use social media are particularly touchy about two elements of the experience that are never going to go away as issues,” ACSI’s managing director David VanAmburg told NBC News. “They’re concerned about privacy and about doing the very thing that social media is all about—putting personal information out there and then being concerned with what people are doing with that information.”
A drop in Facebook satisfaction hasn’t stopped users from flocking to the site, with 71 percent of American adults using it, according to Pew Research. Advertisers love it, too, naming Facebook the best platform for calculating return on investment (ROI). Facebook Messenger is now the top messaging platform of its kind, with a whopping one billion active users.
If you’re wondering which social media site ranked the highest in customer satisfaction, Wikipedia dominated with a 78 ranking. Top satisfaction rates were followed closely by YouTube (77) and Google+ (76). Pinterest (76), Instagram (74) and Tumblr (67) all dropped 3 percent. LinkedIn (65) tied with Twitter for last place.
Social media is an ever-changing landscape (just look at MySpace), and brands are utilizing new tools like messenger, virtual reality, livestreams and emojis to connect with their customers on an emotional level. As more brands use social media as a means to provide customer service, it will be interesting to see how—and if—this affects satisfaction rates in 2017.
