[IPS News] Why did Lush quit social media?

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In a move that surprised many, British cosmetics firm Lush has chosen to quit social media.

With a combined following across Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, Lush has a combined audience of over 1.2 million followers.

Lush are being a little cryptic about its reasons but cite having to pay for visibility and getting tired of trying to produce content so just that algorithms will rank it highly.

"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."

It feels like sacrilege for a brand to come off social media, but I'm not surprised.

Social media is about broadcasting more than it is about meaningful conversation.

And now, even with a huge following,  broadcasting doesn't get the same reach it did a few years ago with platforms pushing paid options more and more.

Lush also targets a very young demographic that simply aren't using social media anymore.

The firm said it was "cutting out the middleman between ourselves and the Lush community".

It remains unclear which direction Lush is going to take to facilitate conversations, but using an independent community platform like Invision Community should be considered.

It cuts out any algorithm biased, money hungry platform. It opens up the conversation between the brand and its customers in a meaningful way, and the brand is completely in control of their data and what their customers see.

At Invision Community, we're seeing more and more brands looking for a solution outside of social media.

Perhaps this will accelerate the trend.

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