Brands Get a Referral Edge from Facebook: Survey
According to new research from consulting agency Morpace, consumers who friend brands on social network Facebook are as interested in showing their friends what products and services they like as they are in scoring rebates and offers for their loyalty or advocacy.
The survey, which was part of the March version of the agency’s monthly Morpace Omnibus Report, asked a panel of 1,000 online users to list their primary reasons for joining up to become fans of brands with profile pages on Facebook. Fully 41% said they did so “to let my friends know what products I support.” That compares to only 37% of respondents who said they signed on as Facebook fans “to receive coupons and discount offers.”
Respondents–who were allowed to check off as many reasons for fandom as applied–also said they enlisted as brand fans “to stay current on available new products” (35%), “to learn more about the company” (31%) and “to meet with people who have interests similar to mine” (28%).
Meanwhile more than a third of respondents (36%) said they consider Facebook a good tool for researching products, with men slightly more likely (38%) to find product information there than women (34%).
And what might accompany that information found on Facebook won’t always come from the marketer. About 68% of those polled told Morpace that a positive referral from someone in their Facebook social network would influence their decision whether or not to buy a product or to patronize a specific retailer.
Asked what they have discussed with Facebook friends, users polled reported topics including restaurants/grocery stores/food (38%), technology (26%), sporting and outdoor goods or athletic gear (15%) and children’s toys and games (12%).
“The results show us that Facebook is a tool for retailers to directly communicate with their target marketer,” Morpace retail vice president Kristen Dunyes said in a statement. “retailers can offer consumers product information and exclusive coupons and discounts to create viral buzz among Facebook consumers.”
Facebook members who become brand fans get messages from those favorite brands automatically posted to their news feed, where they’re available both to the members and to any Facebook friends they permit to see their feeds. Thus fanning can serve a viral purpose within Facebook.
Interestingly, the social network last week began notifying marketing agencies of a plan to change the “Become a Fan” feature commonly found on brand profile pages to a simple “Like” vote, on the premise that their members already use the “Like” button twice as often as they sign on to fan a page. “These lighter-weight actions mean people will make more connections across the site, including with your branded Facebook pages,” a memo from the social network said. “the goal is to get the most user connections so that you can have ongoing conversations in the news feeds of as many users as possible.”
Morpace’s March Omnibus report also confirmed the broad user appeal of Facebook. While 83% of respondents 18-34 said they have an account on the number one social network, more than three in five of those 35-54 (61%) made the same claim—as did 48% of those surveyed over 55 years old.
And two out of three Facebook account holders told Morpace researchers that they spend anywhere from 5 minutes to 30 minutes on the site each time they visit. Another 20% said they spend 30 minutes and up every time they visit Facebook.
As for the frequency of those visits, more than 55% of those with pages said they check Facebook at least once a day, and one third of respondents said they go to the Web site multiple times in the course of a day.
