18% of US consumers – including 23% under 35 – have bought a brand because their friends like or follow the brand on a social network, per findings from an Ipsos survey released in June 2012. This figure was much higher in other markets, though, led by China (54%), India (44%), Turkey (39%), and Indonesia (39%). Overall, 22% of the consumers polled in 24 countries around the globe said that they had bought a brand due to a friend following it on a social network, with the under 35 group twice as likely as the 50-64-year-old set to have done so (27% vs. 13%).
via 1 in 5 Americans Have Bought a Brand That A Friend Has Followed.
Ivana Taylor is the publisher of DIYMarketers and the President of Third Force, a strategic marketing firm. She's the marketing expert and book editor for Small Business Trends and a frequent contributor to AMEX Open Forum.
I always wonder about these kinds of results. Unless we’re talking about a test control experiment where some people knew their friend had followed a brand and others did not know, I just can’t really trust self-report information of this type. People really do not know why they do things and they certainly cannot pinpoint it to one specific reason like this.
Annie, this is the center of your wheel-house and I really appreciate you giving us some insight. I totally agree, statistics that are self-generated always need to be looked at skeptically. We certainly weren’t submitting this as the defacto standard for brand awareness building through social media, it was more as one additional piece to consider.
Case-in-point: Your Doughnut Vault review featured the ‘gingerbread stack,’ which was recommended by a friend on Facebook. Though your decision to visit the Doughnut Vault may not have been entirely motivated by social shares, it appears that particular selection was influenced at least in part through social. The thing this report drives home for me is that social [media] influence is growing, and with the small business market in particular, hopefully this will help soften resistance
Note to readers: please check out Annie Pettit’s blog: lovestats.wordpress.com. Annie provides awesome, very personalized insights into social media MR and statistics. You can also follow her on Twitter: @LoveStats. Highly recommended!
Let me get this straight, I see a friend has followed a brand so I buy it, and that is the only reason? I can not name even 1 brand that I am absolutely sure that any friend has followed,
Rick, thanks for the comment. I didn’t take this to mean that the only reason a friend bought a brand was because I liked or followed the brand. My ‘take-away’ if you will was that social media is playing a role in brand-building (or at least brand-reinforcing). Many people treat a social share/like/follow with the same regard as a personal recommendation; today in the over-stimulated world of advertising where we see 3,500 ads or promotions per day in one form or another, soft-endorsements by friends through social channels seem to have an impact on brand awareness. “big brand” tactics are often out of reach for small businesses, and social can be a cost-effective medium. But I agree with you, I would imagine the statistics on a brand being chosen exclusively because a friend ‘liked’ it, is probably much lower. Thanks again for the comment!