Pulledin PR

Facebook fans and Twitter fol­low­ers of a brand are more likely to buy the brand’s prod­uct or rec­om­mend it to a friend, accord­ing to a study by Chadwick Martin Bailey and iMod­er­ate Research Technologies.

1,500 con­sumers in the study found:

• 60 per­cent of Facebook fans are more likely to rec­om­mend brands they are a fan of on Facebook
• 79 per­cent of Twitter fol­low­ers are more likely to rec­om­mend those brands since becom­ing a fol­lower of the brand on Twitter.

More than half (51%) of Facebook fans and 67 per­cent of Twitter fol­low­ers are more likely to buy the brands they fol­low or are a fan of.

Social Media Marketing strate­gies are catch­ing on today, in many incar­na­tions includ­ing award win­ning con­cepts like the Queensland Tourism Boards “Best Job in the World” cam­paign, and Coca-Cola’s Blogger travel con­test, but Chadwick Marting Bailey’s Vice President John Mendelsohn says “… social media is not the sil­ver bul­let that some pun­dits claim it to be, it is an extremely impor­tant and rel­a­tively low cost touch point that has a direct impact on sales and pos­i­tive word of mouth …”

Us folks at Pulledin agree, social media mar­ket­ing is a pow­er­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tions strat­egy that should be employed in solid adver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing strate­gies, but social media mar­ket­ing needs to be com­bined with other strate­gies to be most successful.

Pulledin’s own social media mar­ket­ing ser­vices are so inex­pen­sive that even small busi­nesses can afford them — Clients can com­mu­ni­cate with an unlim­ited amount of con­sumers with our most basic social media pro­file admin­is­tra­tion pack­age start­ing under $20/​day with tax.

John Mendelson added, “Companies not actively engag­ing are miss­ing a huge oppor­tu­nity and are say­ing some­thing to con­sumers — inten­tion­ally or unin­ten­tion­ally– about how will­ing they are to engage on con­sumers’ terms.”

Perhaps the biggest rea­son Pulledin needed to blog the Chadwick Martin Bailey and iMod­er­ate study was because the study found that peo­ple view brands not engag­ing in social media as out of touch.

When asked: “What does it say about a brand if they are not involved with sites like Facebook or Twitter?” respon­dents replied:

• “It’s EXPECTED that a com­pany have some dig­i­tal face — whether it’s on Facebook or Twitter I don’t know — but they need a strong elec­tronic pres­ence or you doubt their rel­e­vance in today’s mar­ket­place.” Female 50–54
• “Either they are not inter­ested in the demo­graphic that fre­quents Facebook and Twitter or they are unaware of the oppor­tu­nity to get more expo­sure in a more inter­ac­tive method.” Male 35–39
• “It shows they are not really with it or in tune with the new ways to com­mu­ni­cate with cus­tomers.” Female 18–24.
• “If they’re not on Facebook or Twitter, then they aren’t in touch with the “elec­tronic” peo­ple.” Female 55–59

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