Cosmetics firm Lush recently announced that it is closing several of its social media accounts.
The firm, which sells handmade soaps, bath bombs and other products, announced in a post on Twitter that it was “tired of fighting with algorithms’ and did not want to “pay to appear” in newsfeeds.
In a statement it said: “Increasingly, social media is making it harder and harder for us to talk to each other directly. We are tired of fighting with algorithms, and we do not want to pay to appear in your newsfeed. So we’ve decided it’s time to bid farewell to some of our social channels and open up the conversation between you and us instead.”
We're switching up social.
— LUSH UK (@LushLtd) April 8, 2019
Increasingly, social media is making it harder and harder for us to talk to each other directly. We are tired of fighting with algorithms, and we do not want to pay to appear in your newsfeed. pic.twitter.com/nJUzG0lham
So we’ve decided it’s time to bid farewell to some of our social channels and open up the conversation between you and us instead.
— LUSH UK (@LushLtd) April 8, 2019
Lush has always been made up of many voices, and it’s time for all of them to be heard. We don’t want to limit ourselves to holding conversations in one place, we want social to be placed back in the hands of our communities - from our founders to our friends.
— LUSH UK (@LushLtd) April 8, 2019
We’re a community and we always have been. We believe we can make more noise using all of our voices across the globe because when we do we drive change, challenge norms and create a cosmetic revolution. We want social to be more about passions and less about likes.
— LUSH UK (@LushLtd) April 8, 2019
The company is of course not the first well-known brand to quit social media. Last year JD Wetherspoon called time on its social media accounts, stating that it did not believe the channels were a “vital component of a successful business”.
Is it time to call last orders on social media?But the pub chain had a relatively small social media presence. The numbers with Lush are quite different. It has 569,000 Instagram followers, more than 202,000 followers on Twitter and more than 423,000 people have liked its Facebook pages.
The stakes are higher and in a world often driven by clicks this would seem like a bold move. Is it one that other brands will follow?
Well, it is highly unlikely that there will be a mass exodus and plenty of businesses will still place huge importance on social media.
But what we may well see is more brands question and reassess exactly why they do social media and the value it offers. Is your brand doing it simply because everyone else is, or is there a more strategic approach?
Many will see a need to become more savvy.
The point that just 6 per cent or Lush’s fans and followers saw its content in their newsfeed is likely to be of particular interest.
Graham Jones, who delivers our social media training courses, said: “One of the key issues with social media firms is that their brand is more important than your brand.
“Furthermore, you have almost no control over how your content appears or when it appears to the recipients. I suspect that many other brands have already realised this.
“You can find several thousands of businesses that have quietly given up social media because there are so many dormant accounts that haven't been updated in years.”
Of course, there are clear risks with ditching social media. You will stop using channels which remain hugely popular with customers.
And there are clear reputational risks as customers can still post negative posts about a brand even if it has turned its back on social media – it just becomes harder for the brand to manage that and prevent it turning into a damaging crisis.
But, if you look carefully at what Lush has said, you will see that it is not abandoning social media altogether.
Staff, ‘friends’ and individual stores will continue to have social media accounts and have been tasked with ‘continuing the conversation’.
— LUSH UK (@LushLtd) April 15, 2019
What it is actually doing is changing its approach. It has even suggested a number of hashtags for people to use.
Time will show exactly what this new approach looks like and whether it works.
But what we can be sure of is that the move has generated huge publicity for the brand, with journalists rushing to cover the story and analysts falling over each other to explain what it all means.
BBC News, The Independent, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, the Evening Standard and Time are just a few of the titles that have covered the story.
Lush leaves social media in UK https://t.co/GzwXza8BPc
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) April 9, 2019
Lush U.K. quits social media because it's "tired of fighting with algorithms" https://t.co/GisABaN5ZQ
— TIME (@TIME) April 11, 2019
Short-term publicity perhaps, but pretty extensive coverage for what may ultimately prove to be little more than a change of tactics.
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