comScore’s is reporting that nearly $16 billion has been spent online during the first 36 days of the Nov-Dec holiday season, an increase of about 3% from the same time last year. In addition to announcing the online buying stats, comScore has also disclosed the results of its social media survey.
comScore conducted a survey on Dec 4-7, 2009 to find out the influence of social media in online buying. 28% respondents indicated that social media has influenced their purchases, well we already had an idea that social media does yields a lot of influence, it is really surprising to know that the figures are so high.
Among the type of social media interactions that influenced buyer decisions, consumer generated product review was the most common way in which buyer decisions got swayed. 13% of the respondents told that they bought a product after reading a consumer review. The consumer generated reviews, were followed by expert reviews which influenced 11% of the respondents.
Some Facebook specific questions reveal that 7% of the respondents followed a fan page on Facebook to take advantage of special offers and deals, while 6% said they have been influenced by a friend’s Facebook status update referring to a particular product.
As far as twitter is concerned 5% of the respondents indicated they had followed a company on Twitter to take advantage of special offers and deals, while 3 percent said that a friend’s “tweet” about a product influenced their purchase behavior.
From the survey it seems that Facebook has a bigger influence on buying decisions, however it is unclear that whether it is due to the the larger user base of Facebook or whether the social networking site is simply more convincing and offers a much richer interaction and communication environment. Although we would side with the lateral possibility, empirical data would have certainly helped our belief.
According to comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni:
Social media really appears to be emerging as an important marketing channel this holiday season. On the one hand, its emergence is being driven by increased consumer adoption of these technologies and the exponential growth in digital word-of-mouth that is occurring over this medium. On the other hand, having a social media marketing strategy makes sense for retailers in this environment because it’s cost-effective and shows an effort to get closer to one’s customers. I think we are getting our first real glimpse at the impact social media will play on commerce as we enter the next decade.
For companies still not having a Facebook fan page or a twitter profile, this survey should serve as a cause of concern. In today’s marketing age, having a social media presence is not a good to have feature, rather a matter of life and death.
1 Trackback or Pingback for this entry:
[...] Facebook, Twitter influences upto 28% of online purchase decisions (0) [...]