40% of People "Friend" Brands on Facebook
Digital marketing company Razorfish has just launched its third annual FEED survey of 1,000 "connected consumers." The survey is focused on online consumer behavior. This year Facebook and Twitter feature prominently. 40% of respondents "friended" brands on Facebook, while 25% reported following brands on Twitter. What's more, Razorfish found that consumers access brands on Twitter and Facebook mainly for deals and promotions.
Of those who follow a brand on Twitter, nearly 44% reported that access to exclusive deals is the main reason. On Facebook or MySpace, 37% said that access to exclusive deals or offers was their main reason for friending brands.
Over 1/4 of respondents reported having followed a brand on Twitter, which is encouraging news for companies wanting to use Twitter to promote themselves.
43.5% reported following a brand to get "exclusive deals or offerings," which again is a statistic that companies should take note of.
An even higher percentage of respondents have "friended" a brand on Facebook - a whopping 40%. Considering that Facebook is a social network that started out as a way for college kids to network, this is a statistic that will make companies and organizations take note. If you want brand recognition on the Web, according to these statistics there's a very good chance that Facebook is a place you want to be.
A smaller percentage follow a brand on Facebook for exclusive deals or offers (36.9%) - but still a majority.
Is this "connected consumer" crowd mainstream? Well, about 62% of the respondents still use Internet Explorer as their browser, with 30% on Firefox. So yes, they are.
It's interesting then to look at what are the homepages of these people.
While Google is unsurprisingly number 1 with 32.6%, Yahoo is close behind at 29.7%. MSN is still well used at 11.9%. We were most surprised that AOL is now only 7.9%. These statistics show that Yahoo remains a force among mainstream consumers, whereas AOL is slipping further behind.
We reported last week that smartphones have almost overtaken 'feature phones' as the cellphones of choice for consumers. Razorfish's survey shows that 56% of connected consumers now use a smartphone - i.e. one that has email and web capabilities.
As with the ChangeWave Research survey recently, Razorfish puts Blackberry (29.5%) ahead of Apple's iPhone (20.1%).
Another illuminating statistic is the number of people who now get their news from Twitter and Facebook. While nearly 80% of respondents still access "traditional news web sites," 33% get news from Facebook and 19.5% from Twitter. Only 27.3% get news from "alternative news web sites" - by which we presume they mean blogs.
Overall, these figures from Razorfish show that Facebook and Twitter are now major places for brands to be; as well as online sites where consumers get at least some of their news.
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Taking into consideration that the surveyed people are rather tech savvy I must say I find it surprising they are friending brands. But than again I am following brands on twitter as well... so shouldn't be that surprised. Didn't realize this until now. :)
Richard, great find on the Razorfish Feed report. In my opinion Razorfish has outdone themselves, once again.
I thought that the Feed report was on of the top 5 reports on Real Time and Social Media. If anyone is a research junkie, have posted the other research reports (with executive summaries and links to the actual PDF files) here: http://cliqology.com/2009/09/5-of-the-best-digital-media-research-reports/
Here is some great proof of Twitter’s power as a lead generation engine. However the there is a very large, very important difference in the lead generation compared to Google.
Twitter and Facebook are great for marketing to current customers for cross-selling and promotions since the audience a priori self-selected followers of a brand, where Google is better for finding new customers.
Given the social nature of Twitter and Facebook, this is logical. They serve the role of customer relationship management rather than new user acquisition....
http://expostfacto.tumblr.com/post/239336617/use-facebook-to-market-to-current-customers-and-google
I can't imagine "friending" a brand. I know companies have fan pages but that isn't "friending".
I wasn't aware that AOL was still around! I've had MSN as my homepage since I got an MSN dial-up account in 2001. I no longer have it, of course, but my MSN home page is just too familiar to change. The MSN home page is like a morning talk show, a little bit of meat, a lot of feature stories & sports, finance, nothing too weighty, some off-beat stuff. It helps me wake up.
What is the lifespan of Twitter when branding is the focus of the conversation? Does it still work as well when everyone uses it to the same capacity a year or two from now?
I still can not believe when referencing Smart Phones, BlackBerry is still ahead of iPhones.
I follow brands (artists, services etc) on Facebook primarily to receieve notifications through the newsfeed, if more companies created fanpages it would provide a feed reader experience for the mainstream!
The new "fad" is giving branded virtual gifts (or goods) via social sites like Facebook. Not only does this increase brand awareness, but it serves as effective word-of-mouth advertising. If a friend sees another is passing out branded gifts, he/she may be more inclined to try that product or service in the future.
Interesting! Especially the 'peer pressure'/viral newsfeed aspect which most marketeers love to talk about-"if one person joins it,his friends will join it" doesnt seem to be working.(Around 6% for "other people I know are fans of the brand" its always about the add on value which the platform brings in terms of content & offers.
Great article! Brands are truly reaping the benefits of Facebook and Twitter to bring awareness to their products/services. I'm seeing more and more small businesses jumping on board to ride this wave too. It's smart marketing.
Very good article mate, been loving a lot of your stuff recently.
Something that I came across recently that you may be intersted in is this website (www.theisbook.com) that generates your Facebook Status for you when you’re not feeling very creative:
http://www.theisbook.com/status-generator/
Check it out and thank me later
Keep up the good work, I look forward to reading more of your stuff.
It is odd that they use "friend" for become a fan. Is that because users don't know the difference? Or am I missing something?
Thanks for sharing this one. I follow brands on Facebook and Twitter to be more updated. In this view we can see how powerful Twitter and Facebook are to reach their market. Social Media is indeed A MUST in every company.
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This is a really interesting piece of research from a consumer perspective, it really doesn't surprise me how influential Facebook and Twitter has become in the B2C environment. However, I'm wondering whether the B2B landscape differs much for B2C social media behaviours.
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Impressive data you are sharing with us. It's amazing how fast we are truly evolving as a global nation. Just think back to two years ago, only a fraction of these people had ever heard of Twitter. Now they the majority of users are co-dependent.
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So Facebook beats Twitter. Although this report does not give the effectiveness of a promotion on Twitter vs facebook. If the click through rate of Twitter is 10x that of facebook then despite facebook having higher brand followers Twitter would be more effective for promotions.
The other problem this report exposes is the reason for the follow, deals / promotions/ coupons. It's possible that brands could be hurting themselves by creating "coupon dependancy". Sonic suffered from this. A good number of Sonic's customers would only visit Sonic when they had a coupon. It became a double edged sword. Sure you get more customers but you cut into you profits by discounting your food.
This is really a great idea I am surprised it's not in wider use already.