Twitter users like to share news, Facebook users want to see news but they also like community, MySpace users are into games and entertainment, and Digg users like a bunch of different things.
A just released study, by online advertising network Chitika, analyzes the interests of Twitter, Facebook, MySpacer and Digg users.
Yes, consumers are more likely to buy and recommend a product after they became a Facebook fan or Twitter follower, or so claims a new study by Chadwick Martin Bailey. Given that Facebook has over 400 million users alone, the study makes a strong case for firms to engage consumers via social media.
The study found that
60% of Facebook fans and 79% of Twitter followers are more likely to recommend those brands since becoming a fan or follower. And an impressive 51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers are more likely to buy the brands they follow or are a fan of.
Facebook, Twitter and Brand Loyalty
The study claims that facebook pages and twitter feeds are whipping up brand enthusiasm and loyalty, a claim that is probably overblown. It’s better to say that social media helps carry people along the path toward purchases or recommendations. It’s true that some people do purchase or recommend because they became a fan or follower. But it’s also true that some people become fans/followers after they already decided to make the purchase or recommendation — the fact that becoming a fan/follower happened before the purchase or recommendation does not mean it was the cause.
Knowing why your customers do what they do is just as important as knowing what they do. Perhaps your customers are fan/following because
The study by Chadwick Martin Bailey is a wake up call if you needed it, but if it’s going to be useful to you, you’ll need to know more.
[via Mashable]
Social Media is inherently democratic. Each person is given enormous power to connect and build networks, share ideas, or advocate for a cause. So why, given a medium that seems almost perfectly designed for community organizing, are community organizations so slow to get on board?
Of the top 1500 Facebook Pages, based on number of fans, there are only 3 nonprofit organizations — Chase Community Giving (#503), The Animal Rescue Site (#846) and LiveStrong (#852). That’s 2 million fans out of 2.2 billion, or 0.01%. Compare that with 316 businesses or products, 412 celebrities or sports teams, and 629 personal interest pages. Michael Jakson is #1 on the list with 11 million fans, Starbucks is #7 with 6 million, and Freeze Pops is #27 with 3.5 million fans.
The Top 1500 pages on Facebook grouped by sector
Why are non-profits, let alone community organizations, so far behind? Is it because big businesses have big marketing budgets that they can use to buy big popularity? Sometimes yes. But even the biggest ad or guerilla campaign might yield only limited success. Consider other popular Facebook pages: “Yelling at inanimate objects” (#132 2.1 million), ”You’re not sorry you did it. You’re sorry I found out” (#308, 1.7 million fans), and realizing you’re wrong in the middle of an argument but continuing to argue (#431, 1.5 million). Funny? Yes. Big marketing budget? No.
Yes, funny can be extremely effective. Funny is incredibly viral. But funny and money are only two, of many, ways to harness attention. Consider the case of “I need a vacation” (#17, 4.4 million); ”Finding Money In Your Pocket” #38 (3.26 million) and “Spinny chairs” (#361, 1.28 million). Dedicated to random minutiae of life (or work), these pages outrank all but a few of the most popular funny pages and commercial brands.
And herein lies an answer, almost too obvious: people want to connect with something that they can relate to. If you are a community organization living in, or about to join the world of social media, you would do well to consider first what people in your ideal network are actually looking for, what they might find funny, or feel they can connect to in a deeply personal way.
The truth is there are many reasons why people, ideas, companies, or causes gain attention. Most non-profits and community organizations have simply failed, up to this point, to figure out what those reasons are.
For more on this topic, check out the Power of Partnerships Conference in Nelson. The presentation will be an introduction to social media for community organizations. I’ll be expanding on these themes in future blogs.
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If asked, most rock climbers, mountain bikers, or fly fishermen would probably tell you that interest in their sport is growing and they could cite the increasing number of blogs, tweets, photos and videos about their sport as evidence. But while it’s true that there are more conversations and, certainly more information, about outdoor sports being posted online, actual interest in these sports, as a percentage of total interest, is in decline.
Let’s look at rock climbing as an example. The number of websites dedicated to rock climbing (as indexed by google ) grew from roughly 443,000 (for the week of March 10-17 2009) to 469,000 (for the same week in 2010), a 5% increase. At the same time, traffic to popular sites like rockclimbing.com also grew slightly. But if we look at the number of Internet searches for outdoor sports relative to the number of searches for sports in general (or total searches), outdoor sports appear to be in a steady decline. World interest, as signaled by Internet searches at least, is moving in other directions.
The appearance of growing interest, while actual interest is falling, is probably due to the fact that it is getting easier for Internet users to post blogs, comments and videos, meaning a greater percentage of people are actually doing it. On top of that, blogs and comments are accumulating — posts are getting added faster than they are getting deleted — so the total amount of information is growing.